Untitled

saxelmwifo enis swavlebis sakiTxebi:
problemebi da gamowvevebi
Issues of State Language Teaching;
Problems and Challenges
“eccentric” as the appropriate translation for the word;
� 35% of students supported right English equivalents for the words ”პათეტიკური”[patetikuri] and
“ინტოქსიკაცია”[intoksikatsia] but remaining 65% considered the word “pathetic”, instead of
“passionate”, being the proper English equivalent for the word. The word “ინტოქსიკაცია”was
wrongly translated as “intoxication” which in Georgian, in difference with English, doesn’t mean “inebriation”
but “poisoning”.
� 38% of students translated the words “გალანტური”[galanturi] and “პედაგოგი”[pedagogi] in a
proper way. All others (62%) provided the word ”gallant” instead of appropriate Georgian equivalent
“courteous” for English ”gallant” and the word “pedagogue” for the word ”პედაგოგი”[pedagogi],
that in Georgian language, in difference with English language, isn’t used with derogative meaning
(pedant, strict teacher) and is respectful way of denoting a person whose occupation is teaching.
� More than half (55%) of the students choose the right equivalent for Georgian”რუტინა“ [rutina] but
45% gave the wrong answer considering ”routine” instead of “stagnation” as the proper translation for
the word in the given context;
� Summarizing the test results we can state that in 160 sentences (as stated above 20 students were requested
to translate 8 sentences containing 8 Georgian-English FFs) there were 41 cases (26%) of appropriate
translation.(fig.4)
Figure 4.
wrong
answer
74%
right
answer
26%
On the basis of the data, we can give an answer to the initial research questions presented above: Do
students have real difficulties with false friends? Are there any possible solutions to these problems? The
problem of false friends is evident from the learner data considered. Linguistically speaking, language learners
face not only the problem of semantic transfer but problems of usage. Concerning semantic transfer,
Georgian students use English terms as translation equivalents for some Georgian items as in “extravagant”,
“actual”, “intoxication”, “accurate”, “pathetic”, etc. The influence of the L1 is, therefore, perceived
and it could be highly reduced if teachers present false friends by emphasizing meaning differences
between the L1 and the L2 to raise students awareness of the semantic properties of these lexical items.
Pragmatically speaking, the misuse of these words can easily cause serious communication problems.
Especially with the words that have different semantic evaluation and emotive charge. For example as stated
above Georgian “პედაგოგი“ [pedagogi] does not correspond to English “pedagogue” as the latter has negative
evaluation; English ”pathetic” in contrast to Georgian ”პათეტიკური“[patetikuri] “passionate” has derogative
meaning; Georgian „ფამილიარული”,[familiaruli] “ამბიციური”[ambitsiuri] are derogative in
contrast to their cognates ”familiar”, ”ambitious”. As semantic divergence between partial FFs is especially
vivid in collocation it is advisable to present these pairs in appropriate context in collocations. All stated
problems should be mitigated by the teachers’ action in the classroom. The use of audiovisual materials
(pictures, videos, cartoons) in the classroom might be useful and could promote students’ reflection
on the potential misunderstandings caused by those problematic words in naturally occurring situations.
To summarize, this study shows that there is room for teachers’ action concerning false Friends. EFL
learners have serious problems when using these lexical items and teachers should deal with this issue
so that learners lexical competence expands and potential misunderstandings can be avoided.
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