Investigating the Use of Online Bilingual Resources by Translation Students: The Vertical/Sequential Model Revisited

Abstract

Four experiments were carried out in a university translation course after noticing the recurrence of specific errors identical in most target texts produced by students. The purpose was, to identify the errors and verify whether they could be attributed to using online bilingual resources before comprehension of the source text, and, second, to implement a teaching strategy for addressing this problem and later assess its effectiveness. Participants in the study were twenty-seven female students in two groups registered for the course in two semesters: a group in one semester and the other in the following term. They translated two experimental texts from English L2 into Arabic L1. Each text was translated twice: the first time by one group at the beginning of their course, where students were allowed to access all types of resources, and the second by the other group towards the end of their course, after implementation of the teaching strategy. Comparison between the target texts produced before the implementation of the strategy and those made following the strategy reveals that the latter category contained f fewer translation errors -regrouped in the study as inappropriate renderings, with almost no occurrence of the type termed excessive literality. The findings suggest that the use of bilingual resources by translation students before full-text comprehension is the main cause of most otherwise avoidable errors. Consequently, it should be banned at the first phase of the translation process. The teaching strategy, based on the vertical/sequential translating model, is recommended in translation teaching.