Summary of Doctoral Thesis

ANIKÓ MAKKOS

COMPARABLE COMPETENCIES IN MOTHER TONGUE AND TRANSLATED

TEXTS

Links between competence in composition writing and competence in translating, based

on a comparison of Hungarian texts produced by university students

Doctoral School of Linguistics

Dr. Vilmos Bárdosi CSc, professor, Head of Doctoral School

Translation Studies Doctoral Programme

Dr. Kinga Klaudy DSc, professor, Head of Doctoral Programme

Members of the Committee:

Chair of the Committee: Dr. Kinga Klaudy DSc, professor

External Examiners: Dr. Pál Heltai CSc, professor emeritus

Dr. Tibor Szűcs PhD, Habil. associate professor

Secretary of the Committee: Dr. Márta Lesznyák PhD, college associate professor

Further Members of the Committee: Dr. Jenő Bárdos DSc, professor

Dr. Krisztina Károly PhD, Habil. associate professor

Dr. Zsolt Lengyel CSc, professor emeritus

Supervisor:

Dr. Júlia Dróth, PhD, associate professor

Budapest, 2014

1

1. Research objectives and the aim of the thesis

The objective of the research is to compare mother tongue and translation competence in

which I examine mother tongue compositions with texts translated into the mother tongue

which have been produced by university students specialising in translation and interpretation.

The main aim of the research is to map the two competencies involved, explore their

relationships, examine the two performances through empirical research and to show how the

results can be implemented in higher education, especially in translation training.

So far there has been no research which has tried to evaluate mother tongue

compositions and texts translated into the mother tongue through the same set of criteria and

which has drawn conclusions concerning the relationships between these two different text

production skills. The present research is the first to record text production features based on a

given comparable corpus and to make suggestions for improving text production skills of the

population examined.

2. Structure of the thesis

The thesis consists of five main chapters. Between the introduction and the conclusion the

reader will find the presentation of mother tongue composition and translation processes as

well as the description of the two empirical research methods used in the study.

The introduction states the reason for the choice of subject and outlines the aims of the

research, its prospective outcomes and benefits, then presents the research questions, the

hypotheses and the structure of the thesis.

Chapter Two is divided into five subsections. First, mother tongue education in the

state education system is described, not only because this forms the basis of all further studies

but also because it plays an extremely important role in professions such as translation. Then,

in my discussion of text composition, I compare its written and oral variations, consider how

text composition relates to other language skills, discuss its conditions, circumstances and

processes. The third subsection addresses the Common National Core Curriculum (NAT) and

I consider the role of text production skills, and introduce the two writing examinations and

their evaluation during state education. One main focus in my discussion is the secondary

school-leaving exam as this has a key role in mother tongue education. It is worth

highlighting that the two versions of the NAT that I examine, are the ones that were in

operation when the present university students studied in schools because I want to see the

governing principles of their mother tongue education, and especially text production. The

2

fourth subsection introduces the reader to the practice of teaching text production, outlines

different teaching methods, training and development tasks and possible school procedures.

Subsection five closes Chapter Two by detailing how text production performance was

measured and evaluated in my study. In this part of the thesis I primarily rely on Hungarian

literature because my main concern is to examine the national context and to help the

development of the trainings in question.

Chapter Three concerns producing translated texts and contains four subsections. The

first subsection attempts to define translation and discusses the processes of translating and I

highlight the elements of, development of and evaluation of translation competence. I then

enlarge on one particular aspect, translation training in subsection two. In subsection three I

consider the following: the relationship between foreign language education and translation

training; the links between translation and other language skills; the characteristics of

translated texts and some guiding principles that students should know about such as

equivalence and translation norms; the role of mother tongue in translation. I close this

subsection with a literature review of opportunities for evaluation. In subsection four, I

present an overview of how the quality of translations can be evaluated in different contexts

and through different methods. I address details such as choosing texts, types of errors or

interference. Because in the thesis the empirical research is realised through analytical

evaluation, I close Chapter Three by surveying the examples found in the literature. Since the

international literature of translation studies is far more abundant than the Hungarian

literature, in this part I primarily review the English language literature. However, at the same

time I provide examples of national studies, observations and practices, something especially

relevant as my research was carried out in one Hungarian higher educational institution.

Chapter Four links up mother tongue and translated texts through the empirical

research. It starts by introducing my pilot study and details its impact on the main research. I

then present the large-scale empirical study. After analysing the materials and methods, the

thesis focuses on a detailed description of the results through nine sections and ends with the

verification or disproof of the research hypotheses.

The conclusion summarises again the main ideas of the study, the key themes from the

literature and fresh insights gained from the results of the empirical research. The conclusion

also outlines future directions for research. The thesis ends with the list of literature and list of

figures.

3. Theoretical background of the research

3

The theoretical background of the research is interpreted within the scope of communicative,

language and translation competencies, and is focused on the literature of mother tongue and

translated text production. I discuss communicative and translation competencies as

comparable entities since both of them are productive skills and contain text production sub-

competence. If I examine mother tongue texts and texts translated into the mother tongue, the

competences in mother tongue and in target language text production obviously coincide. The

thesis hypothesizes that translated text production is a special type of text production which is

induced by another text, or more precisely which makes it accessible, that is why it is

characterised by both reproductive and productive features and its product functions as an

independent text (cf. Neubert 1985, Jakobsen 1994, Williams 2005, Heltai 2014, Károly 2014).

In the thesis I rely on the Common National Core Curriculums issued in 20031 and

20072 , especially on sections specifying the aims and developmental tasks of written text

production. I analyse the text production tasks and their evaluations at the secondary school

entrance exam and the school-leaving exam in Hungarian language and literature. Based on

the literature, I present how mother tongue text production is developed in the state education

(cf. Lengyel 1999, Bárdos 2000, Bárdossy és társai 2002, Kerber 2002, Antalné 2003,

Tolcsvai Nagy 2004, Molnár 2001, 2009a, Nagy 2009b, Koltay 2010, Major 2011, Szilassy

2012). Further, I summarise the studies in the efficiency of education (cf. Orosz 1972,

Kádárné 1990, Graf 1993, Horváth 1998, Molnár 2002, 2009a, Nagy 2009a, 2009b, Major

2011). Finally, I point out that the educational documents, the school-leaving exam tasks and

the skills development do not agree and that is why the state education is unable to prepare the

students fully for the challenges they face in higher education concerning text production. It

also has a great influence on the text production skills of students specialising in translation

and interpretation.

In parallel with the knowledge concerning mother tongue competence and text

production, I present the improvement of translation competence too (cf. Séguinot 1991,

Toury 1995, PACTE group 2000, Tirkkonen-Condit 2005, Göpferich − Jääskeläinen 2009),

and highlight that development of mother tongue competences should be more emphasised in

translation training. Nowadays, target language approach is a characteristic of translation

studies, and translators are increasingly faced with tasks which demand the ability to finalise

raw texts which come from different sources (cf. Ulrych 1995, Dróth 2011b, Horváth 2011,

Kovalik Deák 2013, Robin 2013a).

1 http://www.nefmi.gov.hu/letolt/kozokt/nat_070926.pdf (Retrieved: 15. 18. 2012.)

2 http://www.nefmi.gov.hu/kozoktatas/2007/nemzeti-alaptanterv (Retrieved: 17. 08. 2012.)

4

The evaluation procedure I use in the empirical research is based on the evaluation

guide used for the school-leaving exam in Hungarian language and literature3, and on the

Hungarian literature which introduces the possibilities of text production evaluation (cf.

Kádárné 1990, Kernya 1992a, Bárdos 2002, Molnár 2002, Nagy 2013). Based on Klaudy

(2005), I look through the different contexts of translation evaluation, and the possibilities and

procedures of measurement, focusing primarily on analytical approaches and translator

training situations (cf. Dollerup 1994, Ivanova 1998, Asztalos-Zsembery 2008, Conde 2012,

Károly 2012). As a result, I prove that the studies mentioned above cannot be compared to

each other because the evaluation situations and the aims of the evaluators have an effect on

the methods to a great extent. I also consider translation errors and see them as inevitable

attributes of the learning process (cf. Séguinot 1989). Based on the most commonly accepted

error typologies (cf. Wilss, 1982, Pym 1992, Nord 2005, 2011, Heltai 2004/2005, Budai

2010) I uncover errors not mistakes which come from the lack of competence and could be

categorised as both overt and covert, and I do not grade them because my aim is not to

evaluate the texts but to determine the types and rates of errors.

Due to the significant differences between the evaluations, both translation

professionals and researchers look for more unified evaluation methods (cf. Dróth 2001a,

2013, Conde 2012), and one possible solution could be the evaluation procedure of mother

tongue texts introduced in the thesis.

4. Material of the research

Texts forming the material of the empirical research belong to two corpora: the texts primarily

written in Hungarian make up the first corpus, and the texts translated from English into

Hungarian make up the second corpus. Altogether there were 220 texts produced by 110

students. Thus total number of words in the first corpus is 32,494, while in the second corpus

32,990. Thus total words come to 65,484, and the rate of the two corpora is 1.015, so their

lengths are almost the same.

The circumstances of text production were as follows. My colleague, Iván Sellei, a

tutor at Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Translator and Interpreter Training

Department, helped me to recruit three seminar groups of students (26, 43 and 41 people) who

were given the translation tasks as seminar assignments during the first year of their MA

studies or at the end of them. Translations had to be done at home and within one week. 3 http://193.225.13.61/erettsegi2012/k_magyir_12maj_ut.pdf (Retrieved: 07. 06. 2012.)

5

English was the second language of all students, so they translated from the second language

to the mother tongue. This guaranteed that the failure to understand the English source texts

became the source of errors. The expertise and experience of my colleague also guaranteed

that the difficulty of the source texts met the foreign language knowledge of the students.

None of the source texts were modified or simplified and all of them were produced by native

speakers. As for the topics the prime concern was actuality and interest which might have

motivated the students.

None of the texts were specialised texts, since during the first year of MA studies

students work with standard language in seminars teaching translation techniques. In my

research I definitely wanted to exclude specialised vocabulary because participants’ lack of

specialised vocabulary knowledge may lead to distorted results. If we evaluate the knowledge

of specialised vocabulary, then we will inevitably describe a very special knowledge and not

general language usage which was my aim. Accordingly, all the translated texts I chose from

all the seminar assignments belong to standard language usage of educated people. Because

mother tongue compositions had to meet the same requirements, the two comparable corpora

are stylistically similar. At the same time I must admit that I did not exclude original mother

tongue compositions which in terms of originality, tone and writer’s intension were of rather a

literary style, but then I evaluated the style and vocabulary used with this literary usage in

mind.

For the purposes of the research, each translation is accompanied by a Hungarian

language composition. The circumstances of this text production were the same as those for

the translation. However, the topics were not similar and the Hungarian compositions were

always structured essays expressing the writers’ attitudes, opinions or arguments. Through

this personal approach, I tried to assure spontaneity of the compositions and the students’

positive disposition to share their thoughts.

The direct context for translations was created by the longer pieces of writings from

which the 250−350-word excerpts were taken, and the students also had to name a Hungarian

context such as a journal where the translation could appear. The broader context of both

Hungarian compositions and translations was the educational situation which aimed at

developing the students’ translation and text production skills. That means all the students

were informed about the empirical research which used their texts, and they agreed to use

them for study purposes. I guarantee the anonymity of all participants be referring to their

production by codes.

6

5. Method of the research

The empirical research started with the selection and compilation of the texts belonging to the

two corpora and continued with their detailed error analysis. The groups of texts, three-three

sets of compositions and translations, six altogether, were kept together while they were

examined. This system made it possible to correct more easily the texts translated from the

same source text and categorise the possible typical errors across the board. One group of

texts was scrutinised until all the language problems were revealed. It usually involved two,

but sometimes three thorough readings for each text, but if it was necessary I returned to some

of them and reread them again.

To be able to record the results of the analysis quickly and correctly I used a Computer

Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) called NVivo4. I decided to use it as

quantitative results can also be produced with NVivo. The software stored all the annotated

errors of all the texts and made it possible to modify the annotations later as many times as

was needed. With this program I could read the texts and identify and annotate the errors at

the same time, while the software placed the errors into error categories which were

previously determined. Finally I arranged all the results generated by the program into Excel

spreadsheets and used them to identify the error patterns of the Hungarian compositions and

the texts translated into Hungarian and to compare the two corpora. To decide on questions

concerning spelling problems I used the Laczkó−Mártonfi reference book called Helyesírás5.

6. Results of the research

6.1 THESIS 1

According to the first hypothesis of the dissertation education in the mother tongue text

production does not lead to the level of ability required in higher education. I attempted to

prove this hypothesis by analysing mother tongue texts produced by students studying

translation and interpretation on MA courses. Concerning mother tongue skills I believe that

this section of the population might have the best writing abilities within the age group since

these students will be translators and interpreters and for them it is extremely important to use

the mother tongue particularly clearly and exactly.

4 http://www.qsrinternational.com/products_nvivo.aspx?utm_source=NVivo+10+for+Mac (Retrieved: 15. 05.

2014.) 5 Laczkó K. – Mártonfi A. 2006. Helyesírás. Budapest: Osiris Kiadó.

7

I tried to examine all possible ways of analysing texts produced in the mother tongue

before I decided on the final error types. This explains why the analysis of the content and the

macrostructure were excluded. When I assessed the mother tongue compositions in the pilot

study, I found that structural problems are not typical and mass errors occurred in texts of the

given length. I also realised that students are basically aware of the importance of and need

for paragraphing the body, starting with an introduction and finishing with a conclusion.

There were more problems concerning the proportion of the above mentioned elements, and

the lack of titles seemed to be a typical error.

Shortcomings in the mother tongue text production identified in the large-scale study

proved that 12 years of mother tongue education just partly results in the expected outcomes,

and this is fully visible in the text production of university students. Their vocabulary in not

varied and rich enough as the most typical error is repetition of words without a function. This

error is closely followed by words and combinations of words used incorrectly. The most

apparent problem here is a superficial or vague knowledge of their meaning or usage which

leads directly to confused wording. I recorded some classical errors of phrases like ‘ujjat húz’

or mixing up words which are close in their forms, like ‘fáradtság-fáradság’, but most of the

vocabulary errors belonged to other error categories. It is only the style of the vocabulary

which I found appropriate, so mother tongue education seems to be successful in conveying

the standard language norm.

Establishing connexity proved to be a more serious problem than assumed earlier, for

instance reference words and conjunctions are left out between clauses and subsequent

sentences. As a result text components are connected more loosely than would be expected

and is necessary in written communication and the logic of the text is more difficult to follow.

This is typical of the situation when the writer of the text cannot see their text from the

viewpoint of the reader so they are not able to see the gaps and inaccuracies which impede

understanding. The students have not reached such a level of awareness which would make it

possible for them to take up the position of the reader. Errors in agreement, especially the

person and the number of pronominal linking words are very prominent, and here I

undoubtedly have to raise the issue of the influence of spoken language on written language.

These types of mistakes are often found in longer, overcomplicated, structurally difficult

sentences demanding to follow, but which could be corrected in writing.

Most syntactical problems, which did not prove to cause a lot of errors, lead us again

to spoken language, for example incomplete structures, overlong simple sentences, complex

and compound sentences consisting of too many clauses. Some of the uncertainties of

8

punctuation I would also ascribe to the same influence, such as short parenthesis not separated

by adequate punctuation marks, or accumulated adjectives not separated by commas

according to the meaning of the noun structure.

Finally concerning spelling, it can be stated that it is not a fully developed skill of the

students involved in the research although it is assumed to be by the time of school-leaving

exam. Lack of awareness is obvious as the number of misspelt words not corrected by the

spell-checker is high in texts created with word processing software. It should be highlighted

that spell-checkers are not always reliable and their scope is limited. This is true for the

problem of spelling compounds as one or more words, which is becoming a prevailing error

nowadays, and also can be seen in the texts of students. Based on my research nothing can

justify the disregard of punctuation in the course of education and at the exams because

following vocabulary spelling is the second source of errors in Hungarian compositions.

Spell-checkers cannot correct the positioning of punctuation marks and this is why education

has to keep up with the changing social environment and demands and modify its content.

In brief, every second line of an average 26-line Hungarian composition contained one

error. However, this statement relates to the type of creative writing that students produce at

secondary level where students arguably, do not have to pay so much attention to the rather

rigid rules of academic writing. However, in higher education writing is a tool for

demonstrating professional knowledge and its imperfect technique seriously influences the

judgment of the content. Therefore I can declare that the first hypothesis has been proved. The

text production problems which were discovered in the Hungarian compositions make

successful learning in the higher education more difficult or even impede the studies which

require frequent written text production.

6.2 THESIS 2

The second hypothesis, closely connected to the first one, states that further development of

text production competence in the mother tongue would be necessary and this is particularly

true for translation training. I think that the verification of the first hypothesis in itself proves

the second one. I find the level of text production competence of translator and interpreter

trainees problematic although these students must know and use their mother tongue as the

prime target language of translation and interpretation proficiently during their studies and

later in their profession. The level of their text production competence definitely must be

better than that of average university students’. We know that to get into higher education an

advanced level school-leaving exam in Hungarian language and literature is a requirement

9

only for students whose major will be Hungarian language and literature, so most students

take the intermediate level exam and possess an intermediate knowledge of the mother

tongue. Judging from the text production competence of the students examined I deem it

necessary to expand mother tongue development into higher education. At best it would cover

oral skills as well because these two competencies of written and oral text production are

interdependent. The present research attempted to give a picture of the developmental level of

the written text production only, so it cannot provide relevant information about the oral

production. Concerning future translators and interpreters it is even clearer that they would

need special mother tongue development targeted at the problem areas which the research

discovered so that they become confident professionals if it comes to mother tongue text

production. As the research shows translator and interpreter training courses simply cannot

avoid this task.

6.3 THESIS 3

According to the third hypothesis the competences examined in the doctoral thesis are linked

the most closely through text production. This hypothesis has been proved by surveying the

literature and doing the empirical research. Text production competence is a common and

often the central element of both competencies. Besides, the literature acknowledges that an

accepted theoretical approach to translation is that it is a special type of text production, and

the literature also supports the idea that language mediation most closely resembles writing if

we consider all language skills. Furthermore by doing the empirical research I argue that the

characteristics of text production in both types of texts can be described through the same set

of criteria. An evaluation process like this can simultaneously reveal the students’ text

production problems and explore covert interconnections concerning text production patterns

of the individual students. This approach might cause quick and considerable improvement in

translations. Because of these links, mother tongue text production can rightly be considered a

starting point. In this case, translated text production from a foreign language into the mother

tongue can either build on or be built from mother tongue text production. Consequently, if

we correct the imperfections of mother tongue text production, we can reasonably expect an

improvement in the quality of translated texts.

6.4 THESIS 4

Hypothesis 4 claims that at the moment the system used for evaluating mother tongue text

production is not used widely for evaluating the production of translated texts, although it

10

could be used successfully. By reviewing the literature I can declare that the first part of the

hypothesis has been proved. In the Hungarian and English language literature I could not find

any references for studies which linked the evaluation of the two text productions as directly

as I do in my pilot and large-scale study. The literature of mother tongue text production and

the literature of translated text production do not use in practice, each other’s findings so I

cannot report on any similar studies. Although target language approach to translations is

spreading in the translation literature, practical adaptations seem to be missing.

Concerning the second half of the hypothesis stating that the procedures used in the

evaluation of mother tongue texts can also be used successfully for translated texts into the

mother tongue, when used together with other methods, I provided evidence for this through

my own practical experience. Undoubtedly it would be more reassuring to be able to report on

the congruent experience of more researchers, but hopefully the results of this doctoral thesis

will filter down to higher education and colleagues working in the field will agree with me. In

an educational situation, when we examine the numerous renderings of the same source text,

the quality of text production can be easily judged without comparing the translations with the

source text, especially if we read them as if they were original mother tongue compositions. In

this way we can identify the problems which are connected to mother tongue usage and which

can mainly be overcome by specific mother tongue development.

6.5 THESIS 5

In hypothesis 5 I suggested that the text production skills of students in higher education, in

our case students studying translation and interpretation on MA courses, need to be improved

in some areas, the most important of which are vocabulary, grammatical devices establishing

connexity and some areas of spelling. The findings of the research have fully confirmed this

hypothesis. Both in the mother tongue compositions and the translations, vocabulary errors

formed the most numerous group within which repetitions without a function and

inappropriate words and phrases were prominent. Each composition contained on average 5

vocabulary errors, and each translation had 9.6. I am convinced that vocabulary is a field

which can and must always be developed further and the students’ existing knowledge also

needs to be strengthened. Applying avoidance strategies is natural and unnoticed when we

write in the mother tongue, so problematical language elements are simply left out from or not

as frequent in the final text. As the results show, in a translation situation vague knowledge of

words and phrases is magnified, so it is essential for translators and interpreters to retain or if

it is necessary to enrich their vocabulary. The high number of repetitions without a function

11

can be due to students’ narrow range of vocabulary and this means they find it difficult to find

the right synonym. Therefore synonyms are well worth dealing with. Arguably, secondary

school education does not foster the wide vocabulary needed in higher education.

The second statement of the hypothesis concerning grammatical devices establishing

connexity, has also been verified as Hungarian compositions contained an average of 3.3

errors, while translation contained an average of 5.4 errors of this type. Lack of connexity is

the second most frequent error type in translations and the third most frequent error type in

Hungarian compositions. Judging from the texts examined it is clear for me that if we

provided courses in mother tongue development in higher education, we could make the

student more aware of the differences between the grammatical connexive devices used in the

oral and written registers. The loose or inaccurate use of these devices observed in the texts

shows similarities with the wording of spoken language. The unjustified omission of

conjunctions, reference words and definite articles and the careless agreements are more

distinctively characteristic of translated texts, so the future professionals have to learn to

consciously strive to write texts which are grammatically well connected.

Finally the third element of the hypothesis stated the problematic nature of some areas

of spelling. I knew that this statement certainly had to be made more exact and I hoped to get

ideas about the real problem areas of spelling from my research. The findings reflect the fact

that spelling mistakes form the second biggest group of errors in Hungarian compositions and

the third biggest group of errors in translations: an average of 4.8 and 4.7 mistakes in the two

types of texts. Previously I presumed that the spelling mistakes I would find in students’ texts

would not belong to the classical types, seriously hunted and punished during state education

and at the exams, but those ones which the spell-checker does not correct or even indicates as

a misspelling. At the same time I expected to record far fewer mistakes than I finally did

record and was really surprised at the real significance of the problem. If we look at the

numbers, punctuation problems stand out, and spelling mistakes in compound words and

phrases (one or more words) are also numerous, so they must be the prime targets of

developmental work. It seems clear that it is not enough just to rely on spell-checkers. As I

expected there were not too many problems concerning proper nouns, foreign words or the

usage of ly-j, and typing was also quite correct except for the texts of a couple of students. I

must add that these types of spelling mistakes might be different in other texts, especially in

translations if the topic triggers a special vocabulary the spelling of which needs special

knowledge. For instance I realised in the texts I examined that geographical names of foreign

places were misspelt in Hungarian translations from time to time and the incorrect spelling

12

was clearly due to interference. I have to say that after a thorough investigation into the most

common spelling problems, there is definitely space for developing spelling in translation

training too.

6.6 THESIS 6

According to the sixth hypothesis there are provable links between the mother tongue text

production performance and translation performance, primarily where syntax and vocabulary

are concerned while correct language usage and spelling are also interrelated. I attempted to

prove this hypothesis by showing the text production errors of the comparable texts as a result

of which I gained data about the quality of the two text types in the categories examined and

analysed them statistically too.

The pilot study could not explain the critical level of correct language usage problems

which are quite pronounced in the evaluation of text production at the school-leaving exam.

This is why I did not identify correct language usage as a distinct error type in the large-scale

study and I am still convinced about the rightness of my decision now I know the whole

corpus. Because of the small number of errors concerning correct language usage, I was not

able to measure the links between the two text productions, so this hypothesis statement has

been disproved. At the same time I could verify that these types of problems are not

characteristic of either corpus, so correct language usage plays a marginal role in the quality

of text production. Without doubt this must be due to the fact that for the 15 years student

spent in the state and higher education, these deviances have either not been present in the

language of education or have been taken so seriously that students have learnt to avoid them

in their written texts. On the other hand, according to my interpretation, the group of these

types of errors is quite small, so I might have identified some language usage errors as other

error types. For instance the misapplication of the pronominal conjunction ‘ami’ I counted as

a connexive error because in most cases it led to an inaccurate reference. At the same time I

am sure that the language usage errors which most practicing language teachers would

identify, are not illustrative of the texts produced by the given population of students. The

language usage errors include for example: using -suk/-sük and –nák; mixing -ba/-be and -

ban/-ben; wrong conjugation of the verbs with the ending -ik in the third person singular; the

misplacement of the interrogative particle -e.

If we look at syntax the situation is somehow similar. I had to use the fewest error

types within the group of syntax errors in the large-scale study and finally I identified the

smallest number of errors here in both corpora: an average of 1.4 in translations and 1.3 in

13

Hungarian compositions. Because of the small number of items no significant correlations

were found, but it is clear that these types of problems are equally present in both corpora to a

similar extent. Thus the way of sentence construction can be interpreted as a kind of

individual characteristic feature of text production. Therefore this hypothesis statement has

been proved.

If we look at all the areas which were involved in the research we can say that spelling

results were also almost exactly the same in the two corpora but here significant correlations

were identified. I would suggest that if we improve the general spelling skills of a person, the

quality of all text types produced by them may improve because this is an unchanging skill of

a person as the present study has also verified.

Finally vocabulary is the field where arguably the existing shortcomings of the text

producers are almost doubled in the translations because of the challenges of language

mediation, and this result is backed up by the statistical correlation analysis too. I would

strongly argue that vocabulary development would result in improved text quality in both text

types.

6.7 THESIS 7

In hypothesis 7 I suggest that persons with firm mother tongue text production competencies

will produce better translations into the mother tongue, because they depart more easily from

the surface elements of the source text. I have proved this statement by declaring the existing

links between vocabulary, syntax, spelling and connexity errors in the two corpora and

finding significant correlations between them except the syntax errors.

When translating, the most problematical phase is breaking away from the source text

and re-creating meaning of the target language text. All of the areas examined in the study are

involved in this process. When choosing the right words, constructing the sentences, forming

grammatical and logical relations, and even when deciding on the correct spelling, the

translator has to disregard the source text elements and structures. If target language text

production competence is developed and rests on firm foundations the target language text

will not resemble any aspects of the source text. A good translator is able to minimalize

interference which means their target language text is very close to texts which are originally

written in the given language taking textual aspects into consideration. To be able to produce

target language texts in the mother tongue of this quality texts written originally in the mother

tongue can contain only very few errors. If a person’s production of target language text in the

mother tongue or some areas of that are problematic, we cannot expect them to produce

14

perfect translated texts because translation needs much more effort. For instance if a person

tends to overlook repetitions without a function in mother tongue compositions, they will

have the same problems in their translations, so repetitions will be a characteristic of their

target language to the same or even a larger degree. Good mother tongue text production

skills are a prerequisite of the ability to translate into the mother tongue well. The empirical

research of the doctoral thesis has proved this.

6.8 THESIS 8

According to the eighth hypothesis, a significant percentage of the errors found in the

translations is the consequence of uncertain mother tongue usage rather than the insufficient

knowledge of the source language. I wanted to prove this hypothesis by registering the error

types of translated texts. My analyses showed that in translated texts there were hardly any

errors resulting from the lack of understanding of the source text. As a part of their seminar

assignment the students had to produce a glossary of the new words which accompanied each

translation. These lists showed that there were just a few unknown words which were easy to

handle but the students could translate them with the help of the appropriate translation tool.

Besides, the source texts contained only one or two more complicated sentences with difficult

structures which not all the students could interpret correctly and in some cases it certainly

resulted in unsuccessful translations. However, I must state that generally the source texts

corresponded to the students’ English language knowledge and the vocabulary and structures

did not greatly challenge their language knowledge. Consequently the vast majority of errors

can be ascribed to the way of wording in the target language. I do acknowledge that if we

work with different source texts belonging to other genres we might get slightly different

results because the unknown genre conventions or special registers can make understanding

more difficult.

7. Benefits of the research

I started the research with the aim of revealing the characteristics of mother tongue

compositions produced by students who must have outstanding mother tongue skills. I wanted

to conduct this research because the literature looks at mother tongue competence and its sub-

competencies like text production only during state education thus we do not have sufficient

knowledge of mother tongue competencies of the students studying in higher education. One

benefit of the research is the exploration of text production patterns among university students

which enables the institutions to provide special developmental courses aimed at the

15

shortcomings revealed. At the same time the research can enable higher educational

institutions to identify the needs of their own students using the research as a model.

In addition, by reviewing the literature and doing the empirical research I wanted to

prove that close links exist between mother tongue text production and translation into the

mother tongue. The literature of translation studies so far has not undertaken the exploration

of these links point for point. However, the results of the present study made it explicit that

several aspects of text production are interrelated concerning one person’s translations and

mother tongue texts. These findings can inform translation training on how to improve the

quality of translations into the mother tongue, by looking at mother tongue text production.

The benefit of the research can also be this simple realisation: there is a tool for evaluating

translation which is both well-known for students and can make evaluation of translations into

the mother tongue more understandable and unified.

16

8. References

Asztalos-Zsembery E. 2008. A szakfordítóképzés tanfordításainak hibaelemzésen alapuló

értékelése gyakorlati megközelítésben. In: Dróth J. (szerk.) Szaknyelv és szakfordítás.

Tanulmányok a SZIE alkalmazott nyelvészeti kutatásaiból. Gödöllő: SZIE GTK.

Atlantisz Kiadó. 65–91.

Antalné Szabó Á. 2003. Az anyanyelvi nevelés új stratégiái. Magyar Nyelvőr 127. évf. 4.

szám. 2003. október-december, 407–427.

Bárdos J. 2000. Az idegen nyelvek tanításának elmélete és gyakorlata. Budapest: Nemzeti

Tankönyvkiadó.

Bárdos J. 2002. Az idegen nyelvi mérés és értékelés elmélete és gyakorlata. Budapest:

Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó.

Bárdossy I.– Dudás M.– Pethőné Nagy Cs.– Priskinné Rizner E. 2002. A kritikai gondolkodás

fejlesztése. Az interaktív és reflektív tanulás lehetőségei. Pécs–Budapest: Pécsi

Tudományegyetem.

Budai L. 2010. Az anyanyelv változó szerepe az idegennyelv-oktatásban. Budapest: Nemzeti

Tankönyvkiadó.

Conde, T. 2012. Quality and Quantity in Translation Evaluation. Across Languages and

Cultures Vol. 13. No. 1. 67−80.

Dollerup, C. 1994. Systematic Feedback in Teaching Translation. In: Dollerup, C. –

Lindegaard, A. (eds.) Teaching Translation and Interpreting 2. Insights, Aims,

Visions. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 121−132.

Dróth J. 2001a. A formatív értékelés a fordítás oktatásában. Doktori disszertáció, Pécs: JPTE

Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Doktori Program. Kézirat.

Dróth J. 2011b. A lektorálás, szerkesztés, korrektúrázás oktatásának szempontjai a

szakfordítóképzésben. In: Dróth J. (szerk.) Szaknyelv és szakfordítás. Gödöllő: Szent

István Egyetem. 90−98.

Dróth J. 2013. Bevált kérdések a fordítás gyakorlatában. (előadás) Elhangzott: Örök értékek –

bevált gyakorlat. Fordítók és Tolmácsok Őszi Konferenciája. Budapesti Corvinus

Egyetem, Budapest. 2013. 09. 27.

Göpferich, S. – Jääskeläinen, R. 2009. Process Research into Translation Competence: Where

Are We and where do We Need to Go. Across Languages and Cultures Vol. 10. No. 2.

169−191.

17

Heltai P. 2004/2005. A fordítás és a nyelvi norma I–II–III. Magyar Nyelvőr 2004, 128. évf. 4.

szám. 407–434; 2005, 129. évf. 1. szám. 30–58; 2005, 129. évf. 2. szám. 165–172.

Heltai P. 2014. Mitől fordítás a fordítás? Válogatott fordítástudományi tanulmányok.

Budapest: Eötvös József Kiadó.

Horváth P. I. 2011. A szakfordítások lektorálása. Elmélet és gyakorlat. Segédkönyvek a

nyelvészet tanulmányozásához 117. Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó.

Horváth Zs. 1998. Anyanyelvi tudástérkép. Mérés, értékelés, vizsga 4. Középiskolai tantárgyi

feladatbankok III. Budapest: Országos Közoktatási Intézet.

Ivanova, A. 1998. Educating the ‘Language Elite’. Teaching Translation for Translator

Training. In: Malmkjaer, K. (ed.) Translation and Language Teaching. Language

Teaching and Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. 91−110.

Jakobsen, A. L. 1994. Starting from the (Other) End: Integrating Translation and Text

Production. In: Dollerup, C. – Lindegaard, A. (eds.) Teaching Translation and

Interpreting 2. Insights, Aims, Visions. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

143−150.

Kádárné Fülöp J. 1990. Hogyan írnak a tizenévesek? Az IEA-fogalmazásvizsgálat

Magyarországon. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.

Károly A. 2012. Translation competence and translation performance: Lexical, syntactic and

textual patterns in student translation of a specialized EU genre. English for Specific

Purposes Vol. 31. No. 1. 36−46.

Károly K. 2014. Szövegalkotás a fordításban: a retorikai szerkezet újrateremtése. In: Bárdosi

V. (szerk.) Szövegalkotó gyakorlatok, nyelvteremtő praktikák. Budapest: Tinta

Könyvkiadó. 83−95.

Kerber Z. 2002. A magyar nyelv és irodalom tantárgy helyzete az ezredfordulón. Új

Pedagógiai Szemle 52. évf. októberi szám. 45−61.

Kernya R. 1992a. Fogalmazástanításunk néhány problémája. Magyartanítás 1992/1. 17–19.

Klaudy K. 2005. A fordítási hibák értékelése az életben, a képzésben és a vizsgán.

Fordítástudomány 7. évf. 1. szám. 76−84.

Koltay T. 2010. Az új média és az írástudás új formái. Magyar Pedagógia 110. évf. 4. szám.

301−309.

Kovalik Deák Sz. 2013. Fordítóképzés: sokasodó kompetenciamodellek és változó piaci

igények között. In: Dróth J. (szerk.) Szaknyelv és szakfordítás. Gödöllő: Szent István

Egyetem, Nyelvi Központ. 31−45.

18

Lengyel Zs. 1999. Az írás. Kezdet – folyamat – végpont. Az írástanulás pszicholingvisztikai

alapjai. Egyetemi Könyvtár, Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Sorozat. Budapest: Corvina.

Major H. 2011. Rend a lelke az esszének?

http://linguistics.elte.hu/studies/fuk/fuk11/Major%20Hajnalka_KESZ.pdf (Retrieved:

18. 02. 2013.)

Molnár E. K. 2001. Fogalmazás és tanulás. In: Csapó B. – Vidákovich T. (szerk.)

Neveléstudomány az ezredfordulón. Tanulmányok Nagy József tiszteletére. Budapest:

Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó. 225–234.

Molnár E. K. 2002. Az írásbeli szövegalkotás. In: Csapó B. (szerk.) Az iskolai műveltség.

Budapest: Osiris. 193–216.

Molnár E. K. 2009a. Anyanyelv – az írásbeli szövegalkotás példája.

http://www.econ.core.hu/file/download/ktik/ktik12_15_anyanyelv.pdf (Retrieved: 03.

01. 2013.)

Nagy Zs. 2009a. 17 éves tanulók szövegalkotási képessége és szövegekre vonatkozó ítéletei.

Iskolakultúra 2009/11. 19–31.

Nagy Zs. 2009b. 11. osztályos tanulók szövegalkotási képessége és szövegtani ismeretei.

http://www.anyanyelv-pedagogia.hu/cikkek.php?id=186 (Retrieved: 11. 06. 2012.)

Nagy Zs. 2013. A fogalmazásértékelés megbízhatósága két független bíráló értékítéleteinek

elemzése alapján. Magyar Pedagógia 113. évf. 3. szám. 153−179.

Neubert, A. 1985. Text and Translation. (Übersetzungswissenschafliche Beiträge 8). Leipzig:

Enzyklopädie.

Nord, C. 2005. Text Analysis in Translation. Theory, Methodology, and Didactic Application

of a Model for Translation-Oriented Text Analysis. Second Edition. Rodopi:

Amsterdam – New York.

Nord, C. 2011. How to become a good translator trainer? Functional translators need

functional training. (előadás) Elhangzott: Jekatyerinburg, 2011. 04. 1−5.

Orosz S. 1972. A fogalmazástechnika mérésmetodikai problémái és országos színvonala.

Budapest: Tankönyvkiadó.

PACTE group 2000. Acquiring Translation Competence: Hypotheses and Methodological

Problems in a Research Project. In: Beeby, A. – Ensinger, D. – Presas, M. (eds.)

Investigating Translation: Papers from the 4th

International Congress on Translation,

Barcelona. 1998. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 99−106.

19

Pym, A. 1992. Translation Error Analysis and the Interface with Language Teaching. In:

Dollerup C. – Loddegaard A. (eds.) Teaching Translation and Interpretation. Training

Talent and Experience. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 279–291.

Robin E. 2013a. Fordítói és lektori műveletek a fordított szövegekben. In: Tóth Szergej

(szerk.) Társadalmi változások – nyelvi változások. Alkalmazott nyelvészeti kutatások

a Kárpát-medencében. A XXII. MANYE Kongresszus előadásai. Budapest-Szeged:

MANYE – Szegedi Egyetemi Kiadó. 188−198.

Séguinot, C. 1991. A Study of Student Translation Strategies. In: Tirkkonen-Condit, S. (ed.)

Empirical Research in Translation and Intercultural Studies. Tübingen: Günter Narr.

79−88.

Szilassy E. 2012. Az írás és fogalmazásjavítás stratégiái. Anyanyelv-pedagógia 2012. 1. szám.

http://www.anyanyelv-pedagogia.hu/cikkek.php?id=357 (Retrieved: 07. 04. 2012.)

Tirkkonen-Condit, S. 2005. The Monitor Model Revisited: Evidence from Process Research.

Meta Vol. 50. No. 2. 405−414.

Tolcsvai Nagy G. 2004. Nyelv, érték, közösség. Budapest: Gondolat Kiadó.

Toury, G. 1995. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John

Benjamins.

Ulrych, M. 1995. Real-world Criteria in Translation Pedagogy. In: Dollerup, C. – Appel, V.

(eds.) 1996. Teaching Translation and Interpreting. New Horizons.

Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 251−259.

Williams, I. A. 2005. Thematic Items Referring to Research in the Discussion of Spanish

Biomedical Articles and English-Spanish Translations. Babel Vol. 51. No. 2. 124−160.

Wilss, W. 1982. The Science of Translation. Tübingen: Günter Narr.

9. Publications of the author

9.1 PUBLICATIONS AND CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS RELATED TO THE RESEARCH

Publications

Makkos A. 2014. Írásbeli szövegalkotás a közoktatásban és a közoktatás után. In: Ladányi M.

– Vladár Zs. – Hrenek É. (szerk.) MANYE XXIII. Nyelv – Társadalom − Kultúra.

Interkulturális és multikulturális perspektívák I−II. MANYE, Vol. 10/I−II. Budapest:

MANYE – Tinta Könyvkiadó. 371−376.

20

Makkos A. – Robin E. 2014. Explicitation and Implicitation in Back Translation. Current

Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning, Vol. 1. 151−182. Internet link:

http://www.cttl.org/uploads/5/2/4/3/5243866/nov_27_complete_cttl_e_2014.pdf#page

=159

(Retrieved: 02. 12. 2014.)

Makkos A. – Robin E. 2012. Fordítói műveletek a kompetencia függvényében. In: Horváthné

Molnár K. – Sciacovelli, A. (szerk.) MANYE XXI. Az alkalmazott nyelvészet

regionális és globális szerepe: alkalmazott nyelvészeti kutatások az EU magyar

elnökség évében. MANYE, Vol.8. Budapest – Szombathely – Sopron: MANYE –

NYME. 305–318.

Makkos A. 2011. Kell-e fordítói kompetenciával rendelkezniük a nyelvvizsgázóknak? In:

Kultúrák és nyelvek között – kompetensen. Zwischen Kulturen und Sprachen –

kompetent. Győr: NYME Kiadó. 131−134.

Makkos A. − Robin E. 2011. Explicitáció és implicitáció a visszafordításban. Alkalmazott

Nyelvtudomány, 11. évf. 1-2. szám. 135−150.

Makkos A. − Robin E. 2011. Explicitáció és implicitáció a fordítói kompetencia

függvényében. In: V. Alknyelvdok Konferencia. Budapest: MTA Nyelvtudományi

Intézet. 94−107. Internet link:

http://www.nytud.hu/alknyelvdok11/proceedings11/makkos_robin.pdf (Retrieved: 06.

06. 2012.)

Makkos A. 2011. Automatikusak-e a kohéziós átváltási műveletek? In: Bada I. K. – Mónos K.

(szerk.) MANYE XX. Az alkalmazott nyelvészet ma: innováció, technológia, tradíció.

MANYE, Vol. 7. Budapest – Debrecen: MANYE – Debreceni Egyetem. 254−259.

Makkos A. 2010. Szöveggrammatikai eszközök fordítása és alkalmazása nyelvvizsgázók

fordításaiban. Fordítástudomány, 12. évf. 2. szám. 96−122.

Conference presentations

Makkos A. 2014. Az írásbeli nyelvhasználat sajátosságai egyetemisták szövegeiben.

Presented at: XVIII. Apáczai-nap Tudományos Konferencia. Teóriák, hipotézisek és

az igazság viszonya. Győr, NYME AK. (21−22. 10. 2014.)

Makkos A. 2014. Translation in Professional Tourism Language Exams in Hungary.

Presented at: Second International Scientific Conference: „Foreign Languages and

21

Tourism.” Eisenstadt, University of Applied Sciences, Burgenland, Austria. (14-15.

05. 2014.)

Makkos A. 2014. Fogalmazás és fordítás kapcsolata a gyakorlatban. Presented at: XVI. FTT-

OFFI-MFTE Konferencia, XI. Fordítástudományi PhD Konferencia. Budapest, ELTE

BTK. (10−11. 04. 2014.)

Makkos A. 2013. Az anyanyelvi szöveg és a fordított szöveg értékelésének lehetőségei az

oktatásban. Presented at: TÁMOP PhD-konferencia. Budapest, ELTE BTK (18. 04.

2013.)

Makkos A. 2013. Írásbeli szövegalkotás a közoktatásban és a közoktatás után. Presented at:

XXIII. Magyar Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Kongresszus. Budapest, ELTE BTK.

(26–28. 03. 2013.)

Makkos A. 2012. Egyetemisták írásbeli szövegalkotási teljesítménye a NAT és a vizsgák

tükrében. Presented at: XVI. Apáczai-napok Tudományos Konferencia. Győr, NYME

AK. (16. 10. 2012.)

Makkos A. − Robin E. 2011. Fordítói műveletek a kompetencia függvényében Presented at:

XXI. MANYE Kongresszus. Szombathely, NYME SEK. (29−31. 08. 2011.)

Makkos A. − Robin E. 2011. Explicitáció és implicitáció a visszafordításban Presented at:

VII. Fordítástudományi PhD Konferencia. Budapest, ELTE BTK. (07. 04. 2011.)

Makkos A. − Robin E. 2011. Explicitáció és implicitáció a fordítói kompetencia

függvényében Presented at: V. Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Doktorandusz Konferencia.

Budapest, MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet. (04. 02. 2011.)

Makkos A. 2010. Kell-e fordítói kompetenciával rendelkezniük a nyelvvizsgázóknak?

Presented at: XIV. Apáczai-napok Tudományos Konferencia. Győr, NYME AK.

(14−15. 10. 2010.)

Makkos A. 2010. Automatikusak-e a kohéziós átváltási műveletek? Presented at: „Az

alkalmazott nyelvészet ma: innováció, technológia, tradíció.” MANYE XX.

Kongresszus. Debrecen, Debreceni Egyetem. (26−28. 08. 2010.)

9.2 OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Makkos A. 2013. A siker titka – egy életút tanulságai. Interjú Klaudy Kingával. In: Fordítás

és tolmácsolás a harmadik évezred elején. Jubileumi évkönyv 1973−2013. Budapest:

ELTE Eötvös Kiadó. 249−256.

22

Makkos A. 2012. Sherry Simon: Cities in Translation. Intersections of Language and

Memory. Across Languages and Cultures 13 (1) 127−132.

Makkos A. 2011. Az újrafordítások szükségességéről a Csudálatos Mary kapcsán.

Fordítástudomány, 12. évf. 2. szám. 96−106.

Makkos A. 2010. Az EU nyelvpolitikája – a magyar elnökség nyelvi előkészítése. (Budapest,

2010.11.26.) Fordítástudomány, 12. évf. 2. szám. 125−130.

Makkos A. 2008. Miért olvassunk a kisiskolásokkal kortárs gyermekirodalmat? In: Lőrincz I.

(szerk.) Nyelvek és kultúrák dialógusa: tanulmányok. Apáczai füzetek 3. Győr: NMYE

AK. 103−116.

Makkos A. 2008. A kortárs amerikai gyermekirodalom felhasználása az oktatásban

fordulópont 9. évf. 40. szám. 57−71.