"The practical significance of teaching students to translate in non-linguistic universities.”

Demchenko Elena,

Senior Lecturer, Foreign Languages Department

School of Economics, Peoples Friendship University of Russia

Elena.dem@list.ru

"The practical significance of teaching students to translate in non-linguistic universities.”

Key words: the quality of the translation, equivalents for professional lexical units, the strategies of teaching translation, the analysis of errors in translation.

According to the development of international business, there is a need of translation of technical texts, and as subdivision, economic and analytical information in large volumes at different stages of doing business. The ability to translate is crucial for the development of the partnership between companies, because it allows assessing the professionalism of the company's management and reliability for future cooperation.

The training of qualified specialists, professional translators in non-linguistic Universities for such cooperation is an important and urgent task. The language learning process should be aimed at mastering practical skills and finding the efficient strategies for translation professional texts.

This article describes the features of the translation of an economic text and focuses on knowledge of not only foreign and native languages but professional economic orientation and awareness in the sphere the text is taken. The author notes the main strategies of teaching translation in the class and gives the recommendations how to analyze mistakes with the students.

Introduction 

Translating texts on economics includes translation of such documents as statistical data, accounting reports, balance sheets, warranties agreements, invoices, letters of guarantee, as well as credit applications, technical economic statements, etc. Teachers’ aim is to discuss with their students such issues as the criteria of economic translation quality, the features of the professional text, the analysis of errors in translation. A number of practical recommendations for economic translation should be proposed and presented in the class.

The quality of translation

Firstly, our students should pay their attention to the quality of translation. As a rule, the teaching of translation involves the most basic technical means, but one of the most important requirements of translation is accuracy. Our students should have the perception of avoiding changes of the text because of any improper elements or word-for-word mechanical translation. They should understand that translation is the accurate reproduction of not only the content of the original text, but also its shape ( Malyuga E.N., 2010). It concerns especially the technical texts  and texts on economy.

In order to create an adequate translation of professional lexical units, students should have a clear idea of the content of the translated text. Moreover, the understanding of the meanings of special and professional lexical units and syntactic constructions contained in the text is necessary. We also should emphasize that not only these constructions are a sufficient condition for such understanding. Teaching students the translation of economic literature or advertising, we should note that in most cases translation is perceived as an autonomous text, which conveys economic and cultural realities and not as translation.

Equivalents for professional lexical units

Some professional words and expressions that have no equivalents for transmission to the Russian language require careful analysis and reference to other sources.( Malyuga E.N., 2013) In addition, translating abbreviations can also be a challenge. You should say that some widely used abbreviations students can find in the Internet.

Undoubtedly, students of economical faculties have proper background including competent knowledge of financial and economic terminology rules and correlations in the native language face a highly technical and precise language and can succeed better in providing a quality translation. Dictionaries and a variety of linguistic guides can help students to analyze and understand the meaning of lexical and grammatical units in the original text, which they may come across when translating economic texts.

When we find in the text on economy the word allowance and offer the students to give a translation of it, we suppose they find nearly two ways of translation. The general meaning of allowance is to allow doing something and the specific meaning of allowance is a sum of money paid regularly to a person to meet needs or expenses. Background preparation of students of economical faculties supposes to have had an eye for details in such kinds of texts and helps to choose the right variant of translation.

Our students supposed to be familiar with the terms that are the main difficulty to fully understanding not only technical vocabulary itself but also a lexical category between the general and technical terminology and the specific context they are used in. This will help them to be guided in the variety of the meanings of the term and choose the right equivalent for the given context.

It should be noted that students often use electronic Internet dictionaries, which to be considered as a valuable source when it comes to words and expressions or when our learners do not have time to enter reference books that are more academic. Therefore, the role of the teacher is to explain to students exactly how to use the Internet, so that it was not for the harm but for the benefit of translation.

Strategies of teaching translation.

Students have to be taught that translation is not a simple transferring of items from one language to another at the level of lexis and syntax, but transmitting the meaning of the text.This is the first step in reconstructing meaning they need to see. ( Malakhova V.L., 2017). Learners should understand that a translator in business is as a mediator between business and cultural worlds, as someone who helps those unfamiliar with a particular business and culture to understand and appreciate all the business cultural nuances of the original text. It is not just a test of students’ ability to decode, but also very much a process of encoding. It is about reconstructing the meaning of a message originally aimed at one audience for consumption by a different audience. For this reason, translation is seen by some as the ultimate communicative act.

The analysis of errors in translation.

Students’ translations should be discussed and evaluated by the teacher in the class. The process of discussing students’ translations in the classroom required multiple readings of a piece of a text. As a rule, the teacher had to take notes of students’ translations in order to fully comment and compare them with each other. It is obvious that such a process requires high concentration of attention and time-consuming.

Ask students to correct an inaccurate translation. Such corrections would depend on their proficiency and can be at a simple factual level or may include idiom, collocation, metaphor, etc. This can be an excellent source of discussion on finer linguistic nuances. The task can be varied by using an incorrect translation alongside a ‘correct’ one, but not telling students which is which. With greater experience of translation, students can be encouraged to seek the above information themselves and to act on what they discover.

Conclusion

To sum up, our students should learn that the translation of economic and financial texts requires extreme attention and concentration. Learning to translate is a demanding process, requiring accuracy and attention to details. We should teach our students always take into account main aspects:

1.choosing the correct equivalent of the word and using it in the given context;

2. using equivalents that are from the same stylistic register of the original text

3. using the adequate terminology.

Understanding of these aspects will help students to avoid many translation errors and confusions of general and specific meanings of the terms in economic texts.

References

1. Малюга Е.Н. Развитие теории межкультурной деловой коммуникации в современном языкознании Вестник Бурятского гос. ун-та. 2013.
2. Mалюга Е.Н. Профессионально ориентированное обучение иностранным языкам на современном этапе// Вопросы прикладной лингвистики. 2010. №3 с. 83-97
3. Malakhova V.L. “ On challenges of translation of scientific economic texts from English into Russian”// Вопросы прикладной лингвистики, 2017. №2 с. 23-38

 4. P. Sewell ‘Hidden merits of the translation class’ http://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/goodpractice.aspx?resourceid=1433

5. Hervey, S., and Higgins, I. (1992). Thinking Translation, Routledge

6. DOPLA Module 15 ‘Translation as a Learning Process’ www.dopla.bham.ac.uk/materials/mod15.pdf

7. www.pfri.uniri.hr/.../07TeachingTR-Tasksandactivities.pdf