towards an analysis of errors made by university students ... - DSpace

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their control of them might be. They form the ideal types of
students who "still permit us to estimate their linguistic
performance when faced with technical texts; the complexity of
the code as the vehicle for the information transmitted in the
text makes the core of the question.
Our experience as teachers
of English enables LIS to
recognize and admit the existence of othpr deficiencies
which
interfere with comprehension; these may give rise to further
studies and research. It is hardly likely that the nominal groups
constitute the only area of difficulty for EL I students.
However,
the detection of one of the difficulties which may block
comprehension of technical
texts as they are administered in the
English Language I Course at the UFPB is our main concern.
Our objectives aim at verifying: a) the extent to
which the English nominal
groups actually comprise an area of
difficulty in the translation of technical texts; the incidence
of word-bound translation errors and inadequate insertions of
rankshifted groups is to be compared with other types of errors
which have also been made in nominal groups. 3 b) whether the
average of error rates per student, in each nominal
group, in
the non-specific texts is equal or different from the average of
error rates per student, in each nominal group, in the specific
texts; c) whether the length of the nominal groups constitutes
a factor of difficulty in the translations of those nominal
groups.