Error Analysis in Translation: A Preliminary Report

Abstract

The Catholic University of Chile created the Translation Program in 1971. It is a 5-year program which provides general training in translation and offers two language combinations: English-French into Spanish and English-German into Spanish. During the 10th and last term, students are required to do a translation practice outside the University (320 hours = 8 hours per day during 2 months) and to prepare a small guided research paper. Students are also required to pass a final exam which consists of translating two texts (according to the language combination chosen) of approximately 300-350 words each and of defending their translation orally. In 1987, a group of teachers including three translators and two linguists received funds from the Research Division of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile to carry on a one-year project on error analysis of English into Spanish translations. The project was originated after systematically observing that in the translation courses the nature of the errors made by the students varied widely. We believe that a clear distinction of the nature and characteristics of these errors could be of help to modify and restate, if necessary, the curricula of our Translation Program so as to minimize the occurrence of errors and to gain insight into the process of translation teaching. This paper is a preliminary report of the studies, analyses and discussions carried out by the group in a six-month period. The corpus of our study includes translations from English into Spanish, that is, from a foreign language into the translator's native tongue, made by students from the first and last courses. Our research focuses on the definition of the concept of translation error. We will attempt a classification of errors after analyzing a sample of approximately 160 translations made by 20 students from the first and last courses of the program. The texts are varied: scientific, literary, political and technical. The group contemplated the possibility of using the error analysis technique and of applying its theoretical principles that, although originally used to study the linguistic deviations generated by learners of an L2, seems to have applications in the field of translation errors.