Teaching Translation of Socio-Political Vocabulary to Future Translators/Interpreters

Abstract

The article investigates the level of proficiency in general political terminology vocabulary of students studying English as a second foreign language at the beginning of translation training. The main goal of the work is to determine the impact of the section (visits/meetings/receptions) of the special course “Political Translation. First Steps” on the formation of relevant competencies in students. To achieve this goal, a hypothesis was formulated, a research methodology was developed, which included test tasks on the translation of general political terminology, and an experimental section was conducted. During the experiment, students were divided into control and experimental groups, with the first group receiving training in accordance with the approved educational program, while the latter additionally studied the above-mentioned special course. The testing results showed that students in the experimental group achieved slightly higher performance in translating the terminology of the above-mentioned topic from both Ukrainian and English. The average level of acceptability of the answers in them was 87%, while in the control group it was 79%. Preliminary data indicate that the specialized course in general and its section (visits/meetings/receptions) in particular have a positive impact on expanding the terminological lexicon of students and improving their translation skills. Given the small gap in the indicators of the groups, the results obtained require additional verification with other experimental prerequisites. The final results of the study can be used to improve the methodology of teaching the translation of political texts, as well as for further research in the field of professional training of future translators.