A Contrastive Analysis of Out-of-Context Translation of Farsi Adjectives into English in EFL classrooms

Abstract

This study aims to reveal the probable problems which may occur due to inadvertent translation of Farsi adjectives into English by teachers in EFL classrooms. Students, especially in lower levels, resort to their L1 to fill the gaps of their L2 knowledge. Non-native foreign language teachers some times give language learners the wrong impression that there are one-to-one correspondence equivalents in both languages without considering the non-compatibility of certain combinations such as noun+ adjectives. This problem manifests itself when teachers try to translate from their native language into English. For instance, the Persian adjective, /sädeh/, can be translated into “easy, plain, naïve and unskilled”. The results of this case study revealed that out-of-context translations and providing only one equivalent for students without informing them on the importance of context in selecting the equivalents can be misleading.