Abstract
This
article describes the use of an English-Spanish Parallel Corpus of Science and Technology
Texts which pursues the objective of enhancing the translation competence of
the fourth-year students of the degree course English Language with Second
Foreign Language (French), at Universidad Central “Marta Abreu” de Las Villas.
The research adopted a mixed-method approach design for collecting, analyzing,
and interpreting the data related to the translation of science and technology
texts, and to diagnose the needs of the students in that respect. The design of
the Corpus followed the guidelines of corpus linguistics as a methodology. A
corpus of 50 science and technology texts in English, and their translations
into Spanish, on the domains of medicine, physics, chemistry and artificial
intelligence, was compiled and processed using Corpus processing tools such as OmegaT
aligner and Xbench software. It provides a wide range of lexical,
syntactical and textual examples in English with their equivalents in Spanish,
in order to help students integrate the necessary knowledge and skills to
translate those texts, through a process-oriented approach to translation. The
corpus derived a word bank of science and technology terms and a proposal of
corpus-based exercises to be used in teaching translation.
Keywords:
parallel corpus, science and technology texts, translation competence
RESUMEN
Este
artículo describe el uso de un Corpus Paralelo de Textos Científico-Técnicos
para mejorar la competencia traductora de los estudiantes de cuarto año de la
carrera de Lengua Inglesa con Segunda Lengua Extranjera (Francés), en la
Universidad Central "Marta Abreu" de Las Villas. La investigación
adoptó un enfoque mixto para la recopilación, análisis e interpretación de
datos relacionados con la traducción de textos científico-técnicos, y para diagnosticar
las necesidades de los estudiantes al respecto. El diseño del corpus siguió las
directrices de la lingüística de corpus como metodología. Se compiló un corpus
de 50 textos de ciencia y tecnología en inglés, y sus traducciones al español,
en los dominios de medicina, física, química e inteligencia artificial, y se
procesó utilizando herramientas de trabajo con corpus como el alineador OmegaT
y el software Xbench. Proporciona una amplia gama de ejemplos léxicos,
sintácticos y textuales en inglés con sus equivalentes en español, para ayudar
a los estudiantes a integrar los conocimientos y habilidades necesarios
mediante un enfoque hacia el proceso de la traducción. Del corpus se deriva un
banco de términos científico-técnicos y una propuesta de ejercicios basados en
el corpus para ser utilizados en la enseñanza de la traducción.
Palabras clave: competencia traductora; corpus paralelo; textos científico-técnicos
INTRODUCTION
urrently,
learners of English as a Foreign Language in higher education institutions face
a plethora of challenges. Many of them are related to the development of
specific competences that are of paramount importance for their professional
performance as translators and interpreters. In the context of the degree
course English Language with Second Foreign Language at Universidad Central
“Marta Abreu” de Las Villas, the development of translation competence has
become a priority for both, professors and learners, particularly in the field
of specialized translation, in which the topics pose a double degree of
linguistic difficulty laying in the knowledge of the specific terminology, that
needs to be overcome.
The
proposal of an English-Spanish Sentence-Aligned Parallel Corpus of Science and
Technology Texts will help the students of the degree course English Language
with Second Foreign Language (French) to acquire and develop their translation
competence as undergraduates, and hopefully, in their working environment as
translators. According to experts, using parallel corpora as an aiding tool in
the translation process, provides a broad range of vocabulary and translation
solutions, which is beneficial to systematize lexical knowledge and translation
strategies. Considering the importance of enhancing translation competence in
the students of the aforementioned degree course, the proposal could be viewed
as an innovative and far-reaching alternative.
No
one knows for certain how many scientific journals there are, but several
estimates point to around 30,000 with close to two
million articles published each year. (Philip G Altbach and Hans de Wit, 2018)
With more and more works and papers on science and technology published in
English, and their level of lexical complexity, the need to enhance the
competence of the translators is imperious, since they are the bridge between
the scientists and the readers. Hence, the relevance of this research work.
Statement
of the problem
The difficulties evidenced in this research
context are related with the lack of aiding tools to raise fourth-year English
Language students’ translation competence in the classroom, particularly when
dealing with topics such as science and technology, which present a higher
level of difficulty in translation due to their specialized terminology,
academic language and formal style, and even due to the complexity of topics,
which are not of students’ common knowledge. It is also noticeable an absence
of systematic study and practice based upon the analysis of already-made
translations, which is an approach to translation teaching that could help
students to learn and apply a broad range of solutions to difficulties in the
process of translation, either at the lexical or syntactic level, besides visualizing
the main stylistic and linguistic features of the texts studied.
The
problem evidenced leads the authors of this paper to formulate the following research
question: How could the translation competence of the fourth-year English
Language students be enhanced, in order to prepare them for accurately
translating science and technology texts?
Consequently,
the overall aim of this research work is:
To
describe the use of an English-Spanish Sentence-Aligned Parallel Corpus of
Science and Technology Texts for enhancing fourth-year English Language
students’ translation competence through a process-oriented approach to
translation.
This
proposal entails to incorporate the use of a parallel corpus as part of the
acquisition of the translation competence, being a useful tool to provide
solutions for translating difficult lexical items, for comparing the source and
target texts and see the solutions given by other translators to lexical or
phrasal items that are difficult for Spanish speakers, or that are specialized
scientific and technical terminology. This proposal pursues to be an aid that
serves to integrate the necessary skills and knowledge to translate scientific
and technical texts, referring to the systematization of specialized
terminology, and to incorporate to the learning process a wide variety of
examples that provide students with various alternatives to solve particular
translation difficulties, all of which will lead them to enhance their
translation competence.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In the decades of the 80s and 90s of the 20th
century, many linguists and translation theorists attempted to define
translation competence and its underlying sub-competences. These experts laid
the basis for more recent definitions that clearly explain what translation
competence is, and what specific sub-competences are integrated into the main
concept.
For
instance, Schäffner (2000) and Šeböková (2010) cited in Abouzar Oraki &
Gholam-Reza Tajvidi (2020), identified the translation competence as a set of
different sub-competences required for translating. Both of them identified six
main translation sub-competences. The first author proposed the following ones:
1) Linguistic competence of the languages concerned, 2) Cultural competence, 3)
Textual competence, 4) Domain/subject specific competence, 5) (Re)search
competence and 6) Transfer competence.
In
turn, the translation sub-competences proposed by the second author are more
complete. They include: 1) Core Translation Competence (which integrated all
the other sub-competences), 2) Linguistic sub-competence, 3) World-subject
competence, 4) Research competence, 5) Tools competence and 6) Cultural
competence.
Moreover,
the PACTE group (Proceso de Adquisición de la Competencia Traductora y
Evaluación, by their acronym in Spanish) of the Departament de
Traducción i d’Interpretació de la Universitat Autonóma de Barcelona, a
pioneer in the study of translation competence with empiric and experimental
studies also define the concept of translation competence. This group of
scholars define the translation competence as:
The
underlying knowledge system needed to translate”. It has four distinctive
characteristics: it is expert knowledge and not possessed by all bilinguals, it
is basically procedural knowledge, it is made up of various interrelated
sub-competences, and the strategic component is very important, as it is in all
procedural knowledge. (PACTE, 2003, 43-66)
They
consider that the overall aim of translation teaching is the development of the
translation competence, which is enhanced through training and systematic study
since it is considered basically a procedural knowledge. The various
interrelated sub-competences they proposed are:
1. The bilingual sub-competence: Predominantly
procedural knowledge needed to communicate in two languages. It includes the
specific feature of interference control when alternating between the two
languages. It is made up of pragmatic, socio-linguistic, textual, grammatical
and lexical knowledge in the two languages.
2. Extra-linguistic sub-competence: Predominantly
declarative knowledge, both explicit and implicit, about the world in general
and specific areas. It includes (1) bicultural knowledge (about the source and
target culture); (2) encyclopedic knowledge (about the world in general); and
(3) subject knowledge (in special areas).
3. Knowledge about translation sub-competence: Predominantly
declarative knowledge, both implicit and explicit, about what translation is
and aspects of the profession. It includes (1) knowledge about how translation
functions: type of translation units, processes required, methods and
procedures used (strategies and techniques), and types of problems; (2)
knowledge related to professional translation practice: knowledge of the work
market (different types of briefs, clients and audiences, etc.).
4. Instrumental sub-competence: Predominantly
procedural knowledge related to the use of documentation sources and
information and communication technologies applied to translation: dictionaries
of all kinds, encyclopedias, grammars, style books, parallel texts, electronic
corpora, searchers, etc.
5. Strategic sub-competence:
Procedural knowledge to guarantee the efficiency of the translation process and
solve the problems encountered. This is an essential sub-competence that affect
all the others and cause inter-relations amongst them because it controls the
translation process. Its functions are (1) cognitive components such as memory,
perception, attention and emotion; (2) attitudinal aspects such as intellectual
curiosity, perseverance, rigor, critical spirit, knowledge of and confidence in
one’s own abilities, the ability to measure one’s own abilities, motivations,
etc.; (3) abilities such as creativity, logical reasoning, analysis and
synthesis, etc.
Translation
competence is, in short, expert knowledge (declarative, procedural, and
attitudinal) that requires analytical and intuitive thinking, made up of
various interrelated sub-competences which requires the specialization of the
individuals. The acquisition of translation competence occurs mainly through a
process-oriented approach, which focuses on the analysis of the steps taken by
the translator when translating a text, the possible solutions, the acquisition
of principles and techniques, etc.; it focuses on the process rather than on
the result of the translation exercise. (Gile, 2018)
What
is corpus linguistics and what is a corpus? According to professor Sara Cushing
(2017), Corpus linguistics
is a research methodology used for the study of linguistic phenomena through
large collections of machine-readable texts, oral or written, called corpora.
In other words, it is a research methodology based on empirical evidence about
how language is actually used.
Now,
corpora can be classified into various categories, considering the source of
the content, metadata, number of languages, objective, etc. According to the
EAGLES (Expert Advisory Group on Language Engineering Standards) text typology,
the most general and first distinction made between corpora occurs between
Monolingual and Multilingual (including Bilingual) corpora. Multilingual
(bilingual) corpora can be sub classified into Comparable corpora (corpora
compiled using similar design criteria but which are not translations) and
Parallel, or Translation Corpora (Zanettin, 2012).
Having
adddressed individually the main theoretical concepts related to translation
competence and corpus linguistics, the following question is raised: How
can corpus linguistics specifically contribute to the enhancement of
translation competence and each underlying translation sub-competence?
Using
a parallel corpus in the translation classroom for the enhancement of
translation sub-competences
Within
the whole typology of corpora with specific uses in linguistic studies, the
interest of this research focuses on a specific type of corpus called parallel
corpus. A parallel corpus comprises texts in one language aligned with
their translations in another. Both languages need to be aligned, i.e.
identifying corresponding segments, usually sentences or paragraphs, which need
to be matched through a corpus tool. (Zanettin, 2012)
Parallel
corpora are considered one of the most helpful tools in the enhancement of the
translation competence. In this vein, Monserrat Bermúdez Bausela (2016)
strongly affirms that corpora, particularly specialized corpora, are an
inestimable source not only for terminology and phraseology extraction, but
also for studying the textual conventions that characterize and define specific
genres in the translation languages. In her paper “The importance of corpora
in translation studies: a practical case”, she highlights the contribution
of corpora to the study of a specialized language from the translator’s point
of view, which specifically enables the enhancement of the bilingual
translation sub-competence.
From the observation of specialized corpora, it is
possible to identify specific patterns, phraseology, terminological variants,
and the frequency of conceptually relevant words, cohesive features and so
forth. The access to this information will allow the translator to produce
quality text. (Bausela, 2016)
One
of the main advantages of translation teaching with corpora over traditional
translation teaching is generally considered to be the fact that the presence
of corpora reduces the role of the teacher’s intuition in the translation
classroom and, at the same, time assigns more importance to the students and
their documentation skills (Rodríguez Inés, 2008) cited in (Krüger, 2020). By
providing alternative sources of authority as well as a set of authentic data,
corpora can also shift the role of the teacher from that of the principal
information provider to that of an information facilitator (Rodríguez Inés,
2008) cited in (Krüger, 2020).
According
to Professor Patricia Rodríguez-Inés (2008), an electronic parallel corpus:
1. Can
be built in less time than a conventional printed corpus. (which specifically
contributes to the enhancement of the instrumental sub-competence)
2. Can
be reutilized (which specifically contributes to the enhancement of the
instrumental and knowledge about translation sub-competences).
3. Allows
to carry out quick and systematic search of information in a wider and more
varied range of texts. (instrumental, strategic and extra linguistic
sub-competences)
4. Offers
a great number of lexical examples in the source and target languages in
context (which specifically contributes to the enhancement of the bilingual
sub-competence).
5. Allows
translators to go directly to those sections in the text where there are key
words with the assistance of a corpus analysis tool (which specifically
contributes to the enhancement of the instrumental sub-competence).
6. Facilitates
the detection of information as collocational patterns
(bilingual-sub-competence).
7. Facilitates
the detection of frequency, which allows to determine the relevance of the
patterns found (knowledge about translation sub-competence).
8. Facilitates
and accelerates the retrieval and analysis of concrete information (textual
sub-competence).
9. Offers
certitude at the time of making strategic decisions such as lexical choices
(which specifically contributes to the enhancement of the strategic
sub-competence).
10. Provides
a wide range of examples on how other translators dealt with specific
translation problems, and this knowledge can be incorporated by students in
order to solve similar translation problems (strategic and knowledge about
translation sub-competences).
11. Provides
greater opportunities for casual learning (which specifically contributes to
the enhancement of the extra-linguistic sub-competence). (Rodríguez-Inés, 2008)
All
in all, experts coincide about the positive outcome of using corpora,
specifically parallel corpora, to aid the translation process and the
enhancement of the different translation sub-competences (Frérot, 2016). So
far, having established the theoretical foundations related to the use of
parallel corpora as an aiding tool in the translation process and the
enhancement of the translation competence, it is pertinent to move forward by
enunciating the methodology and practical steps involved in the construction of
the parallel corpus proposed in the present research work.
METHODOLOGY
Methodology
for building an English-Spanish Sentence-Aligned Parallel Corpus of Science and
Technology Texts
The
design of the present research adopted a mixed-method approach. This approach
analyzes the collected data quantitatively and qualitatively interpret the
research results.
Sixteen
fourth-year students of the English Language with Second Foreign Language
(French) degree course at Universidad Central “Marta Abreu” de Las Villas were
surveyed in order to diagnose the current situation concerning the students’
perceptions on the translation process when translating
science and technology texts, as well as their considerations regarding the
needs and deficiencies in the process. These students were
chosen because they are the ones who translate science and technology texts in
their translation lessons.
Moreover,
a collection of 50 science and technology texts were chosen to build the
English-Spanish Sentence-Aligned Parallel Corpus proposed in this paper. The
corpus dataset comprised texts in English and their translations in Spanish,
consistent with the topics dealt in the translation lessons. The texts were
retrieved from reliable sources and some of them were provided by the professor
of the subject.
A
survey was applied to 16 fourth-year English Language with Second Foreign
Language (French) students in the academic year 2019-2020, with the purpose of diagnosing
the current situation concerning the students’ translation competence,
specifically in the Translation of Science and Technology Texts.
The
criteria for the selection of the sample was that the subject Translation of
Science and Technology Texts is taught in this specific year of the
aforementioned degree course. The survey also introduced the possibility of
using a bilingual parallel corpus as an aiding tool for the practice of
translation, and to help students enhance their translation competence in the
subject Translation of Science and Technology texts, which, as stated before,
is very complex.
Results
of the survey: The majority of students (90 percent)
perceived some difficulties hindering the translation process:
- Insufficient offline
bilingual reference sources for translating in the lessons.
- Insufficient time for
translating in class.
- Some students claimed
for more tutoring hours with the professors.
- Most of the translation
is done through independent study.
- Insufficient background
information on the topics of science and technology before facing the
translation of a text dealing with these topics.
In
an open question about the importance of using a parallel corpus like the one
proposed in this research, many students agreed that a corpus could be a useful
tool in the translation process, given the absence
of systematic study and practice based upon the analysis of already-made
translations to strengthen the translation competence of students.
Some
of the students´ opinions are shown below to support the aforesaid statement:
Student
3: “It would be very useful as a tool, not only for counting on a reliable
source for term translation, but also to see them in context and with a variety
of examples, collocations and alternatives of specific professionalisms”.
Student
7: “It would be very helpful. We could see the use of terms in context and
finish our translation quicker and with more quality”.
Student
8: “Not only it would be helpful in terms of contrasting and finding new
solutions to the translation problems we face in the translation of scientific
and technological texts, but it would help us to practice, to enhance not only
the result but the process of translation, to learn and systematize new
translation strategies”.
An
aligned corpus results from a process called alignment, which can be defined as
“finding correspondences, in bilingual parallel corpora, between textual
segments that are translation equivalents” (Kraif, 2018). In the case of the
corpus in question, the alignment was made at a sentence level because it is
more user-friendly and more comfortable for the automatic work.
The
tool used to align the proposed corpus was OmegaT, a free and open
source multiplatform Computer Assisted Translation tool with a very complete
set of utilities to edit translated texts such as fuzzy matching, translation
memory, keyword search, glossaries, and translation leveraging into updated
projects. This tool has a very reliable aligner. As has been referred above, in
order to work with a corpus analysis tool or a translation-aiding tool, it is
necessary that the texts are in a machine-readable format. In this case, texts
in both languages were converted to txt. format and subsequently to UTF8.
format, which made it possible to upload and align the texts through the OmegaT
aligner, as shown in Screenshot 1.
Screenshot
1. Automatic alignment and manual edition of
the corpus
The
corpus processor tool used to store the English-Spanish Sentence Aligned
Parallel Corpus is called Xbench, a user-friendly and accessible tool.
It is available in free versions on the Internet. Once the parallel corpus has
been uploaded as a new project in Xbench, this tool allows users to
carry out word and phrase search in both, the source and the target language,
as shown in Screenshot 2. In the Science and Technology Sentence-Aligned
English-Spanish Parallel Corpus, the searched words in the source language and
their equivalents appear aligned and in context, thanks to the alignment
process previously carried out. The English-Spanish
Sentence-Aligned Parallel Corpus was saved in an Xbench file, as a
translation memory, and from now on will be called ParaCorp2020.
Screenshot
2. Word search in ParaCorp2020 (using Xbench
software)
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Proposal of a word bank and exercises to use ParaCorp2020 in the translation lessons
Derived
from an analysis of the corpus carried out with AntConc corpus tool, the
most relevant scientific and technical (ST) terminology was extracted from the
texts of the corpus, in order to compile a word bank. The technical-scientific
terms extracted were organized in a word bank of 1872 words, which covers the
most relevant vocabulary related to the topics dealt with in the translation
lessons. It is expected that this word bank will be a powerful aiding material
for the acquisition and systematization of specialized terminology, necessary
for translating the texts in class and for the future professional development
of the students as translators.
In
addition to the word bank of technical-scientific terminology as a supporting
material and pedagogic outcome of ParaCorp2020, the author of this
research also proposes a second pedagogic use for the corpus in the translation
lessons. This proposal consists of a sample of exercises which have the purpose
of motivating the students and introducing the use of ParaCorp2020 in
the translation class as a didactic tool, in order to help students to enhance
their translation competence.
The
objectives of this proposal of exercises are:
- To
facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and skills through the use of ParaCorp2020
for translation.
- To
enable the acquisition of knowledge and skills necessary to translate
about ST texts.
- To
provide a variety of contextualized examples of equivalents in both
languages, so that students can incorporate the ST vocabulary that appears
in the texts and that sometimes is not found in the dictionary.
- Provide
a range of solutions to different translation problems due to differences
in grammatical and syntactic structures of both languages.
- To
provide didactic activities for practicing translation, which do not only
consist in “reading and translating”, but also intend that students can
make generalizations, discover principles and necessary skills when
translating.
Each
exercise sheet will work with a different text. They will serve as a lesson´s
guidelines and will have an introduction, a body and conclusions
as an ordinary lesson. The introduction comprises a warm-up section
with general familiarization questions so that the students can have a
preliminary idea of the topic they will be dealing with during the lesson, as
well as to check the background knowledge they have about it. After the
warm-up, it is important to state which field and specific topic will be treated
in the lesson, and to establish its objectives.
The
body of the exercise sheet will comprise the presentation of the
English-Spanish Sentence-Aligned Parallel Corpus of Science and Technology
Texts (at least in a first lesson), and the corpus-based translation exercises
to be completed by the students. These exercises are interactive, so that the
teacher and the students can search together for possible alternatives, and
strengthen the translation process. The techniques used in the lesson should
not be based on the prevalence of the teacher´s solutions over the students´,
but on a mutual collaboration and dialogue as to find the best solutions and
most importantly, that the students can systematize new terms, translation
principles and solutions. They need to focus on the process and the acquisition
of techniques, without neglecting the quality of the results. The acquisition
and development of translation competence through the continuous practice, will
contribute to the improvement of the translations. Finally, in the conclusions,
the teacher and students will review all the translation difficulties,
new techniques, and new terminology learned during the lesson in order to
systematize and fix the knowledge acquired.
CONCLUSIONS
The
integration of language disciplines has become vital to foster linguistic
competences needed for the successful professional development of translators
and interpreters. Many experts highlight the benefits of the integration of
corpus linguistics and translation studies, and its practical applications to
the training of novice translators.
The
needs analysis revealed the lack of aiding tools to
raise students' translation competence when dealing with the translation of
science and technology texts, the lack of terminological knowledge and
strategic skills to translate led to the proposal of an
English-Spanish Sentence-Aligned Parallel Corpus of Science and Technology
Texts (ParaCorp2020) as an authentic and innovative idea to aid
the enhancement of the translation competence.
The
corpus derived a word bank of science and technology texts and a proposal of
corpus-based exercises which will also contribute to the purpose of the
proposal.
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