Translation of Ambiguous Words by Translation Trainees

Ambiguity has attracted the attention of researchers from many disciplines. With the aim of providing a perspective from translation, this psycholinguistic study investigated ambiguity in the translation performance of late bilinguals from English (L2) into Turkish (L1). We employed an oral translat...

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Main Authors: Filiz Mergen, Nihal Yetkin-Karakoç
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Selcuk University Press 2020-06-01
Series:Selçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi
Subjects:
Online Access:http://sefad.selcuk.edu.tr/sefad/article/view/1141/876
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author Filiz Mergen
Nihal Yetkin-Karakoç
author_facet Filiz Mergen
Nihal Yetkin-Karakoç
author_sort Filiz Mergen
collection DOAJ
description Ambiguity has attracted the attention of researchers from many disciplines. With the aim of providing a perspective from translation, this psycholinguistic study investigated ambiguity in the translation performance of late bilinguals from English (L2) into Turkish (L1). We employed an oral translation task in which the participants (N= 51) translated 30 ambiguous words, (polysemes and homonyms) in contextualized sentences. First, we investigated whether word frequency affects the participants’ translation accuracy. We found no significant difference between high and low frequency words, which is attributable to the proficiency of the participants, and the facilitating role of sentential context. Secondly, we aimed to explore whether the nature of the ambiguous words made any difference to the participants’ translation performance. The results showed that polysemous words were translated with greater accuracy than homonymous words, in line with the data in the literature regarding the differences in the representation and processing of polysemy and homonymy.
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series Selçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi
spelling doaj-art-fe0ddff591fa4c8d90ccc55a224f5a062025-02-03T01:03:53ZengSelcuk University PressSelçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi2458-908X2458-908X2020-06-014311112210.21497/sefad.755800Translation of Ambiguous Words by Translation TraineesFiliz Mergen Nihal Yetkin-Karakoç Ambiguity has attracted the attention of researchers from many disciplines. With the aim of providing a perspective from translation, this psycholinguistic study investigated ambiguity in the translation performance of late bilinguals from English (L2) into Turkish (L1). We employed an oral translation task in which the participants (N= 51) translated 30 ambiguous words, (polysemes and homonyms) in contextualized sentences. First, we investigated whether word frequency affects the participants’ translation accuracy. We found no significant difference between high and low frequency words, which is attributable to the proficiency of the participants, and the facilitating role of sentential context. Secondly, we aimed to explore whether the nature of the ambiguous words made any difference to the participants’ translation performance. The results showed that polysemous words were translated with greater accuracy than homonymous words, in line with the data in the literature regarding the differences in the representation and processing of polysemy and homonymy.http://sefad.selcuk.edu.tr/sefad/article/view/1141/876ambiguitytranslationpolysemyhomonymypsycholinguistics
spellingShingle Filiz Mergen
Nihal Yetkin-Karakoç
Translation of Ambiguous Words by Translation Trainees
Selçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi
ambiguity
translation
polysemy
homonymy
psycholinguistics
title Translation of Ambiguous Words by Translation Trainees
title_full Translation of Ambiguous Words by Translation Trainees
title_fullStr Translation of Ambiguous Words by Translation Trainees
title_full_unstemmed Translation of Ambiguous Words by Translation Trainees
title_short Translation of Ambiguous Words by Translation Trainees
title_sort translation of ambiguous words by translation trainees
topic ambiguity
translation
polysemy
homonymy
psycholinguistics
url http://sefad.selcuk.edu.tr/sefad/article/view/1141/876
work_keys_str_mv AT filizmergen translationofambiguouswordsbytranslationtrainees
AT nihalyetkinkarakoc translationofambiguouswordsbytranslationtrainees