The Importance of Literal Translation in the Process of Learning English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

Researches on foreign languages learning have concentrated almost exclusively on the linguistic features of the fi nal product rather than the cognitive processes underlying language acquisition. The main aim of this study is to identify and analyze qualitatively a very common communication strategy – literal translation – produced by foreign language learners (native speakers of Portuguese) by means of verbal protocol. In other words, through the participation of learners themselves it is possible to have a deeper knowledge of the cognitive processes involved in the production of a literal translation. The speech production measured by verbal protocol – delayed retrospective self-observation – was elicited by a different research technique: concept identifi cation task – through which the subject had to communicate to his interlocutor some abstract and concrete lexical concepts. The research involved 15 adult Brazilian subjects, basic level learners of English as a foreign language and also 15 interlocutors, all of them English teachers at a private University located in the Great Porto Alegre (RS).