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Web-based translation for promoting language awareness

Evidence from Spanish
  • Lee B. Abraham
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Electronic Discourse in Language Learning and Language Teaching
This chapter is in the book Electronic Discourse in Language Learning and Language Teaching

Abstract

This chapter reports on a study that explored how students in a Spanish conversation course worked collaboratively to evaluate sentences translated from English to Spanish by a Web translation site. An analysis of language-related episodes (Swain & Lapkin, 1998) indicated that learners’ offline collaborative dialogue provided opportunities to become aware of and to correctly solve many of the grammatical and lexical problems in the translations. Recommendations for adapting this study’s task in order to show affordances and limitations of translation tools for reading and writing are provided. This chapter also analyzes translations from English to Spanish using selected parts of speech in different morphosyntactic environments to compare the overall quality of three Web translation sites. Future research could examine two or more grammatical features such as tense, mood, or aspect, the effectiveness of translations of idiomatic expressions and false cognates, or the quality of online translations of narratives, expository texts, and other genres.

Abstract

This chapter reports on a study that explored how students in a Spanish conversation course worked collaboratively to evaluate sentences translated from English to Spanish by a Web translation site. An analysis of language-related episodes (Swain & Lapkin, 1998) indicated that learners’ offline collaborative dialogue provided opportunities to become aware of and to correctly solve many of the grammatical and lexical problems in the translations. Recommendations for adapting this study’s task in order to show affordances and limitations of translation tools for reading and writing are provided. This chapter also analyzes translations from English to Spanish using selected parts of speech in different morphosyntactic environments to compare the overall quality of three Web translation sites. Future research could examine two or more grammatical features such as tense, mood, or aspect, the effectiveness of translations of idiomatic expressions and false cognates, or the quality of online translations of narratives, expository texts, and other genres.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. About the contributors vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. New literacies
  6. English in cyberspace 11
  7. Navigating and interpreting hypertext in French 43
  8. Web-based translation for promoting language awareness 65
  9. Part II. Chat
  10. Learner noticing, negative feedback, and uptake in synchronous computer-mediated environments 87
  11. Teaching language variation in French through authentic chat discourse 111
  12. Exploring native and nonnative interactive discourse in text-based chat beyond classroom settings 127
  13. Part III. Podcasts
  14. Podcasts and second language learning 153
  15. Discourse analysis of podcasts in French 169
  16. Part IV. Blogs
  17. Interactional and discursive features of English-language weblogs for language learning and teaching 193
  18. Second-person pronoun use in French-language blogs 213
  19. Blogs in Spanish beyond the classroom 241
  20. Part V. Discussion forums
  21. Linguistic and social dimensions of French-language discussion forums 263
  22. The discussion forum as a locus for developing L2 pragmatic awareness 291
  23. The discussion forum as a component of a technology-enhanced Integrated Performance Assessment 319
  24. Index 345
https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.25.06abrl

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. About the contributors vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. New literacies
  6. English in cyberspace 11
  7. Navigating and interpreting hypertext in French 43
  8. Web-based translation for promoting language awareness 65
  9. Part II. Chat
  10. Learner noticing, negative feedback, and uptake in synchronous computer-mediated environments 87
  11. Teaching language variation in French through authentic chat discourse 111
  12. Exploring native and nonnative interactive discourse in text-based chat beyond classroom settings 127
  13. Part III. Podcasts
  14. Podcasts and second language learning 153
  15. Discourse analysis of podcasts in French 169
  16. Part IV. Blogs
  17. Interactional and discursive features of English-language weblogs for language learning and teaching 193
  18. Second-person pronoun use in French-language blogs 213
  19. Blogs in Spanish beyond the classroom 241
  20. Part V. Discussion forums
  21. Linguistic and social dimensions of French-language discussion forums 263
  22. The discussion forum as a locus for developing L2 pragmatic awareness 291
  23. The discussion forum as a component of a technology-enhanced Integrated Performance Assessment 319
  24. Index 345
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