English Grammatical Error Analysis Made by Paragraph Translation from Thai to English

Abstract

This research article aimed to analyze English grammatical errors made by paragraph translation writing from Thai to English. The sample group selected by purposive sampling was 50 undergraduate students majoring in English for Business Communication enrolled in the Principles of Translation course in semester 1, the academic year 2019-2020, at the Faculty of Science and Arts, Burapha University Chanthaburi Campus. Paragraph translation tasks of the participants were examined to find a number of English grammatical errors based on the writing correction symbols of Hogue & Oshima in addition to grammatical error categorization. A quantitative approach was employed for data collection. Questionnaires concerning self-evaluation on grammatical use and factors causing problems from Thai to English paragraph translation were applied for data analysis utilizing descriptive statistics. 

           The results revealed that the most frequent errors in the sample groups’ translation tasks based on Writing Correction Symbols were Verb Tense, Wrong Word, Article, Preposition, and Rewriting. There were five main grammatical error category types revealed in the self-evaluation questionnaires on grammar use from Thai to English paragraph translation, namely 1) use of Nouns and Countability, 2) comprehension of Wish Form, 3) comprehension of Subjunctive, 4) use of Subjunctive, and 5) Wish Form. Moreover, seven factors caused the problems in Thai to English paragraph translation corresponding to English grammatical errors found in learners’ corpus paragraph translation tasks. These included 1) lexical meaning miscomprehension, 2) lack of English grammar skills, 3) lack of word choice skills for source text equivalence, 4) lack of Thai idiom comprehension, 5) sentence interpretation inability, 6) lack of English grammar practice, and 7) lack of source text analysis.