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Multiple Affordances of Language Corpora for Data-driven Learning
Edited by Agnieszka Leńko-Szymańska and Alex Boulton
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 69] 2015
► pp. 225–244

Enhancing translator trainees’ awareness of source text interference through use of comparable corpora

ORCID logo | Department of Translation and Communication, Universitat Jaume I
| Department of Translation Studies, Karl-Franzens-Universität

Interference is usually presented in descriptive research as a neutral property of translations, but in translation practice and, by extension, in translator training it is often regarded as something negative. If we assume that trainee translators are more prone to interference than professional translators, it follows that they stand in particular need of being made aware of its dangers. The present paper reports on a small-scale study aiming to gauge the impact of the use of comparable corpora on trainees’ performance. The results tentatively confirm that exposure to such corpora enhances students’ awareness of the dangers of source text interference, but caution must be used before a direct causal link is established, because of the limitations of the study.

Keywords: comparable corpora, interference, learner materials, translator training
Published online: 13 May 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.69.11mar
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