The translation of noun phrases

an experimental study

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-4301.2023.1.44261

Keywords:

Translation, Noun phrases, Psycholinguistics, priming

Abstract

We investigated how the translation of noun phrases with possession relationship between nouns is performed by Brazilian students with English as a foreign language, since this structure can be syntactically represented in different ways in Portuguese and in English. Our research involved 20 participants who spoke Brazilian Portuguese as their mother tongue and English as a second language. The experiment had a pre-test, translation task and post-test, applied in the PsyToolkit software (Stoet, 2010, 2017); English vocabulary knowledge test; and biographical and linguistic questionnaire. The results showed that the  participants were able to use the same syntactic structure of the prime translations more often in the production of their translations, as well as in Resende, Cowan and Way (2020) and Maier (2008) in translation tasks. Statistical analyzes in RStudio, using the Generalized Mixed Linear Model and the Mixed Linear Model, showed that there was a reduction in the cost of processing the English language in the post-test. These conclusions may indicate that there was implicit learning of the researched syntactic structure and that translation can be a good pedagogical tool in teaching and learning a foreign language, especially when it comes to grammatical aspects.

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Author Biographies

Daniele Lima Miranda, UFC, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, CE, Brasil

PhD student in Linguistics at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). She has a master's degree in Translation Studies (2021) from the same university. His research is on the acquisition of English as an L2, from the perspective of Psycholinguistics. She has been an English teacher for over 20 years and has worked as a school manager since 2013 in the basic education network in the state of Ceará.  

Pamela Freitas Pereira Toassi, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brasil.

Adjunct Professor of the Postgraduate Programs in Translation Studies (POET) and Linguistics (PPGLin) at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). Member of the Research Ethics Committee of this same university. Member of the ABRALIN Psycholinguistics committee. He has a PhD in English Literature: Linguistic Studies from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (2016). His research interests include lexical access, vocabulary acquisition, teaching-learning of English as a foreign language, teacher training, multilingualism, translingual influences, reading and translation.

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Published

2023-11-22

How to Cite

Lima Miranda, D., & Freitas Pereira Toassi, P. (2023). The translation of noun phrases: an experimental study. Letrônica, 16(1), e44261. https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-4301.2023.1.44261

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 1 (2023): Single Volume

Section

PSICOLINGUÍSTICA E NEUROLINGUÍSTICA EM INTERFACES

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