Grammatical Errors in Translation from Persian into French made by Iranian Students of French: A Contrastive Analysis

Abstract

Translation courses at tertiary levels are regarded as having pedagogical purposes to help students of French practice linguistic skills and improve their language proficiency accordingly. In the process of translation, it is quite normal and inevitable to make errors, as it is evident in the learning process of any other skills. While translating from L1 to L2, language learners make more errors since they are encountered with a variety of limitations and hindrances, mainly due to poor linguistic competency, as compared to translating from L2 to L1. This descriptive study aims at analyzing the common grammatical errors in translation from Persian (L1) to French (L2) made by Iranian students of French as a Foreign Language at the levels of BA and MA being enrolled in Islamic Azad University, Mashhad Branch. The findings indicate that subjects of the study make idiosyncratic errors while trying to use particular structural elements of French in their translation. Altogether, L1 transfer has been found to be the main and more frequent source of errors rather than overgeneralization of L2 linguistic elements.