An Analysis of the Azeri Translation of English Collocation of That-Complement

An Analysis of the Azeri Translation of English Collocation of That-Complement

Farrokh, Parisa

This article deals with collocation in general and then concentrates on grammatical collocations based on Benson et alʹs category of grammatical collocations. The emphasis is on a study conducted to find out the Azeri translation of collocation of That-complement. The importance of collocation in the learning of a foreign language and the problems that English learners face with in using collocations have been underscored by researchers. However, there have been few studies to take all types of collocations, particularly, the grammatical type, into consideration. Therefore the translation and production of these collocations may cause some problems for English learners . According to Benson et al., collocation could be sorted systematically into two major groups--lexical collocations and grammatical collocations. A lexical collocation could be made up of nouns, adjectives, verbs, or adverbs. On the other hand, a grammatical collocation was made up of a dominant word, such as a noun, an adjective, or a verb, and a preposition or grammatical structure like an infinitive or a clause. Based on Benson et alʹs category of grammatical collocations, there are four collocations for That-complement : noun+ that-clause, adjective+ that-clause, transitive verb +that-noun clause and subject it+ verb+ that-clause. Based on the analysis of English translated materials into Azeri, it has been found that (1) English collocation noun+ that-clause mainly translated as complex sentences in Azeri with the percentage of 70%.Moreover 18% translated as simple sentences involving verbal combinations and 12% translated as simple sentences lacking verbal combinations.(2) Regarding English collocation of adjective+ that-clause, it can be said that they are translated as complex sentences in Azeri with the percentage of 86%,and also some sentences translated as simple sentences involving verbal combinations with the percentage of 10% .The percentage of sentences translated a simple sentences without verbal combinations is 4%.(3) The results of this research shows that collocation of transitive verb +that-noun clause basically translated as complex sentences with the percentage of 90% and 10% translated as simple sentences involving verbal combinations.(4) Based on the findings of this research, it has been cleared that in Azeri , the dummy subject "it"is nottranslated at all. Since in English , extraposition construction consists copular verbs , in Azeri translation of these sentences instead of copular verbs , there are some expressions called "modal words", functioning like verb phrases, are used according to the meaning of copular verbs. In addition, extraposition constructions followed by that-clause , translated as complex sentences in Azeri , with the percentage of 75%. It should be said that the percentage of the sentences which have been translated as simple sentences without verbal combinations is 15% while the percentage of sentences translated as simple sentences involving verbal combinations is 10%. Moreover, it can be said , generally, in Azeri language, collocation noun+that-clause translated as noun +verb+ that-clause, collocation adjective+ that-clause translated as adjective +verb+ that-clause ,collocation transitive verb +that-noun clause translated as transitive verb +that-noun clause and subject it+ verb+ that-clause translated as (object)+modal words +that clause.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2012

951