LEXICAL COLLOCATION ERRORS IN LITERARY TRANSLATION

Dil Dergisi Sayı/Number: 170/1 Ocak/January Gönderildiği tarih: 15.11.2018 Kabul edildiği tarih: 10.01.2019 DOI: 10.33690/dilder.528981 Keywords Lexical Collocation Translation, L1 Influence, Restriction On Collocability, Translations Of Literary Texts Anahtar Sözcükler Action, Verb, Russian, Turkish, Semantic LEXICAL COLLOCATION ERRORS IN LITERARY TRANSLATION YAZINSAL METİNLERİN ÇEVİRİSİNDE SÖZCÜKSEL EŞDİZİM HATALARI • Özgür Şen Bartan Dr. Öğr. Üyesi, Kırıkkale Üniversitesi, Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi, Batı Dilleri ve Edebiyatları Bölümü, Mütercim Tercümanlık A.B.D., Abstract Öz This study aims to explore lexical collocation errors in Turkish-English translations of literary texts. To identify, describe and explain the errors (Ellis, 1985), a written corpus of Turkish literary texts and their English translation texts (ETT) was compiled from students of the Department of English Translation and Interpretation. Benson et al.’s (1997) classifications for lexical collocations have been used in order to analyse lexical collocation errors for this study. Also, the most common lexical collocation errors (verb+noun) were examined in terms of restriction on collocability and the L1 influence. The amounts of errors per lexical collocation type in the ETT indicate that the most common type is that of verb + noun, followed by adjective + noun. Moreover, in terms of EFL/ESL learners and translator education, this study suggests that more restrictions of collocation cause poorer collocation production, and L1 influence plays an important role in translators’ erroneous collocations. The findings of this study have a number of important implications for future practice of foreign/second language learning and translation education. It’s extremely important for foreign language learners to have English-Turkish and Turkish-English bilingual dictionaries of lexical collocations, as searching for the right collocation they spend a lot of time and energy. Also, authentic materials are essential to introduce collocations. Bu çalışmanın amacı Türkçe-İngilizce yazınsal metinlerin çevirisinde sözcüksel eşdizim hatalarını araştırmaktır. Türkçe yazınsal metinlerin İngilizce çevirilerinde yapılan hataları belirlemek, tanımlamak ve açıklamak (Ellis, 1985) için İngilizce Mütercim Tercümanlık Anabilim dalındaki öğrencilerin çevirilerinden oluşan yazılı derlem oluşturulmuştur. Bunun yanı sıra, en sık yapılan sözcüksel eşdizim hataları (eylem+ad) kısıtlı eşdizimlilik ve anadilin etkisi açısından çözümlenmiştir. Çalışmada Benson ve diğerlerinin (1997) sözcüksel eşdizim grupları sözcüksel eşdizimleri çözümlemek amacıyla kullanılmıştır. Her bir sözcüksel eşdizim grubunda yapılan hatalar incelendiğinde, en sık yapılan hatanın eylem+ad grubunda olduğu, ikinci olarak da sıfat+ad grubunda gerçekleştiği belirlenmiştir. Ayrıca çalışmanın çevirmen eğitimi ve İngilizcenin yabancı/ikinci dil olarak eğitimi açısından iki önemli sonucu bulunmaktadır. İlk olarak eşdizim sınırlılığı eşdizim üretimini olumsuz yönde etkilemektedir; ikinci olarak anadilinden yapılan aktarımın Türkçeden İngilizceye sözcüksel eşdizimlerin çevirisi açısından olumsuz yönde etkisi gözlenmiştir. Buna ek olarak yabancı dil öğrencilerinin doğru eşdizimi ararken çok zaman kaybetmeleri nedeniyle İngilizce-Türkçe ve Türkçe-İngilizce ikidilli eşdizim sözlüklerin üretilmesi oldukça önemlidir. Ayrıca özgün araç kullanımının eşdizim öğretiminde çok değerli olduğu öneriler arasında yer almaktadır. 73 Özgür Şen Bartan | Dil Dergisi-Ocak 2019 | 73-88 Introduction Collocation is considered as one of the key components in EFL teaching and learning and studies (Bahns and Eldaw, 1999; Bıldırcın, 2014; Howart, 1998; Huang, 2001; Liu, 2000; Martelli, 2007; Nesselhauf, 2005; Nişancı, 2014) indicate that learners have problems producing collocations and make collocation errors. Ferris (1999) suggests that some errors, such as problems with verbs, subject-verb agreement, run-ons, fragments, noun endings, articles, pronouns, and possibly spelling, can be considered ‘treatable’, because they ‘occur in a patterned, rule-governed way’. In contrast, errors such as word choice and word order are ‘untreatable’, in that ‘there is no handbook or set of rules students can consult to avoid or fix those types of errors’ (1999: 6). Modarresi (2009) who investigates collocation errors of EFL learners in written English has revealed that most of the students’ errors in writing come from their lack of collocation knowledge, not their grammatical ability. Besides, Bıldırcın (2014) explored that the most frequent types of errors among morpho-syntactic errors were errors of collocation, phrase/ clause structure, and omission of determiner respectively. Likewise, Bahns and Eldaw (1999) argued that EFL/ESL learners face relatively greater difficulty with lexical collocations rather than grammatical ones. As Maretti (2007), points out native speakers of a language are usually aware of these limitations on the combinability of items and avoid producing what would be considered strange-sounding combinations. The reason why researchers focus on collocation errors emerges from the premise that collocations are sub-category of formulaic language (Wray, 2002) which is seen as one of the main concerns in language processing and language acquisition (Schmitt, 2010). Also, Lewis (2000) suggests that learners need to know not only what is right but also what is wrong. Moreover, Hill (2000) reported that up to 70% of language is made up of fixed expressions, with the number of collocations far outnumbering the number of single-word items. Similarly, Erman and Warren (2000) found that 58.6% of spoken discourse and 52.3% of written discourse consisted of multiword combinations. However, in EFL instruction there has been increasing evidence that most EFL/ESL textbooks are insufficient in terms of lexical collocation. For instance, Molavi et al. (2014:77) researched the types and frequency of the usage of lexical collocations which were presented in the ELT textbooks series. They concluded that “low number of frequent collocations and low referral to real use of language by native speakers show that ELT textbooks which were examined cannot play an effective role in making collocations part of learner actual competence.” It’s apparent that most EFL/ESL textbooks are insufficient in terms of lexical collocation learning/instruction or gaining collocational competence (Wray, 1999). Given that EFL learners have problems producing collocations and EFL textbooks are insufficient in terms of lexical collocation, this study focuses on different types of lexical collocation 74 Özgür Şen Bartan | Dil Dergisi-Ocak 2019 | 73-88 errors in literary translations of Turkish learners of English pursuing translation and interpreting programme. For translation learners, choosing the right collocation will make their translations sound much more natural and they need to learn them implicitly and/or explici (...truncated)