The Influence of Background Information in Translation: Quantity vs. Quality or Both?

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore ways to provide effective as well as practical teaching tools that can be utilized in translation courses for undergraduate students. The present study specifically focuses on the effect of having access to background information of the translation. Two groups are compared for this aim. One group was asked to conduct background research on the translation topic prior to engaging in the translation while the other group only had access to dictionaries to carry out the identical task. Students were asked to complete translations from Korean into English. Outputs of the two groups were compared to assess the impact of background information. The quantity and quality of background information were also analyzed to examine their influence on the quality of translation.

Keywords/Mots-clés:

• background information,
• undergraduate,
• translation education,
• quantity,
• quality

Résumé

Cet article a pour but d’explorer la façon de fournir aux étudiants, inscrits aux programmes universitaires de traduction, des outils d’apprentissage qui sont à la fois efficaces et pratiques. En comparant les résultats de deux groupes, cette étude visait à établir si l’accès des traducteurs aux données de fond d’un texte pourrait influencer la qualité de la traduction. Avant d’entamer la traduction en anglais d’un texte coréen, un groupe devait premièrement obtenir les données de fond tandis que l’autre ne pouvait se fier que sur des dictionnaires pour traduire les mêmes documents. Le résultat du travail des deux groupes a été comparé afin d’analyser l’effet de données supplémentaires. La qualité et la quantité d’information obtenue ont aussi été analysées afin de mesurer leur influence sur la qualité de la traduction.

초록

본 연구는 학부생들을 대상으로 실시하는 번역 교육의 효율성을 제고할 수 있는 방법을 살펴보았다. 특히, 번역 수행에 있어서 주제와 관련된 배경 지식의 중요성을 두 집단에 대한 비교 분석을 통해 알아보았다. 한 집단에게는 번역을 수행하기 전에 주제와 관련된 자료를 수집하고 분석하는 등 사전 준비를 하도록 하였으며 다른 집단은 사전만을 사용하여 번역을 하도록 하였다. 학생들의 번역을 평가한 후 통계적 분석을 통해 관련 자료 준비의 중요성을 입증하였으며 특히 관련자료의 양적, 질적인 차이가 번역의 질에 어떤 영향을 미치는지에 대한 분석 결과도 도출하였다.