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

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opportunity to infer the correct meaning of a ngp' from a broader
number of clues provided by the text as a self-contained
unit;
the translations achieved in monthly tests might also give rise
to distorted results due to such factors as nervousness which
tests sometimes cause in students with resulting interference
with their performance; second, the results of this
research
should reflect the actual problems of students in relation to
ngps in an authentic situation: translation as. a usual procedure
in EL I classroom
situation.
After reading the translations rendered by each
student, a selection of all
ngps where errors had been made was
produced; under each ngp the wrong translations attributed to
it were copied with the number of students who had made them
beside each type of wrong -trans 1 ation. For example, in T7P we
had the ngp NATURAL UNITS which was translated
as:
(... NO NOTION OF) NATURAL UNITS (OF RADIANT ENERGY... )
1. (movimento) natural de uniões 4 students
2. na tu rai s (movi mentos) deunidades 3students
3. (muda nça) na tu ral de uni ões 4 students
4. junção natural 1 student
5. (energia radiante de) uma unidade natural 9 students
6. (noção) natural (de energia radiante) 1 student
7. natureza de uniões 1 student
In numbers 1, 2, 3 and 6 we noticed that elements of another
ngp had been inserted; students had formed new ngps in Portuguese
using elements of the ngps which surrounded NATURAL UNITS.
They
had not maintained the sequence of the English structural
elements, namely (m) and h, as one of the characteristics of the
word-bound translation type of error - referred to as wbt -