The Effect of Collocational Competence on Translation Accuracy of Translation Trainees

Although it is widely acknowledged that collocations play an important role in the field of second language acquisition, a number of previous studies have reported students’ lack of collocational competence and the difficulties they encounter in learning and using collocations. The present study examines the effect of the productive and receptive knowledge of lexical and grammatical collocations on the accuracy of the translation done by Iranian EFL learners studying translation course at university. Data for this study were collected from 60 participants studying at Azad university at BA level. The participants’ productive collocational knowledge was measured by three gap-filling tests: verb-noun and adjective-noun collocation tests where the initial letter of the collocant was provided and a verb-preposition collocation test where the meaning of the phrasal verb was supplied. Their receptive collocational knowledge was measured by an appropriateness judgment in which participants have to circle the number corresponding to the underlined part of a sentence that is judged unacceptable. Regarding the translation quality of the learners, a text including five paragraphs was given to them and then the accuracy of the translated work was measured by Khanmohammad and OsanloRubic (2009) model. Results of the study indicated that there is a significant relationship between the receptive knowledge and productive knowledge of lexical collocations and grammatical colligations and the accuracy of the translation

Theory of Substantial Motion in Translation

This study aims to examine the applicability of Mulla Sadra’s theory of Substantial Motion in translation. To begin with, it starts with the concept of motion as the move from a state of potency into act and investigates time and motion in the tripartite categories of text, translator, and the process of translation. With a view to the theory of Substantial Motion, this study offers a definition for the source text which involves the concepts of ‘essence’, ‘substance’, and ‘motion’, by which it explores the semantics of the source text and its ontological levels and investigates the very concepts of polysemy, homonymy, and plurality of meanings and multiplicity of translations. In pursuit of meaning and gradation of the substance of the source text, it also explores the intellectual and cognitive motion in the mind of the translator, and borrowing Sadra’s methodology finds translation as a permanent process of evolution in which every translation is in a state of flux awaiting retranslation