Interference Problems in English - Thai Translation: A Study of Thai Translation Students

Abstract

This research study investigated interference errors in English Thai translation and designed the new teaching materials and method with the Consciousness-Raising approach (C-R) in attempt to mitigate these errors. The objective of the study were: 1) to investigate if the teaching intervention with the Consciousness-Raising approach (C-R) help eliminate linguistic interference in students’ translation, and to comparatively measure linguistic error occurrence before and after the teaching sessions of both groups to see if the new method of teaching for the C-R group or the traditional way for the Traditional group is better at reducing linguistic interference in students’ translation; 2) to investigate how far the opinions of Thai English majors differ towards the teaching sessions of which the teaching methods are different; 3) to examine if the opinions of the research subjects of both groups towards the teaching sessions and the testing outcomes are aligned; 4) to comparatively determine how far the teaching sessions in which different teaching methods are employed in both groups influence linguistic interference in students’ translation in different directions (English to Thai and Thai to English translation).
The study design involved three phrases: both groups of participants taking the pre-test, 14-week teaching sessions, both groups of participants taking the post-test, and the questionnaire and the interview being undertaken. The participants of the study were 69 second-year English majors of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Suratthani Rajabhat University, Thailand. There were divided into two groups at random. There were 37 students in the C-R group and 32 students in the Traditional group.
There were four instruments in the study: the pre-test and the post-test to provide the primary data for analysis; the teaching materials designed for 14 weeks, and it was used only in the C-R group as the Traditional group used the traditional textbook; the questionnaire containing twenty-three questions aimed to investigate the students’ opinions toward the course; the interview protocol of which samples of each English level of both groups were chosen at random and asked to give a 5-minute interview to examine in-depth opinions of the participants towards the course.
The findings of the research study revealed that the Consciousness-Raising approach effectively reduced interference in translation, and A1 and A2 students prefer to have grammar lessons added in translation classes as they viewed the lessons helped reinforce their linguistic knowledge in contribution to better translation. The C-R approach worked better in English to Thai translation, as shown in the post-test scores. Nonetheless, after the analysis was finished, it revealed that intralingual errors, not interlingual (interference) errors, were a major cause of problems in translation, and the C-R approach also effectively helped reduce them.

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ORCID for Benjawan, - Tipprachaban: orcid.org/0000-0002-7718-0228

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