O‘zbekiston davlat jahon tillari universiteti

Lesson 5
Lexical difficulties in oral translation process.
Plan:

1. 
   How do we get Word choice to see the value in choosing words wisely?
   
2. 
   Word choice in Consecutive translation
   
3. 
   Practical exercises
   

Key words:
immigrants and migrants, civil society, refugees, acculturation, Migrants Day
It’s easy to mark up students’ papers with circles and write “WC” or “Word Choice” to encourage stronger verbs and adjectives. But how do we get them to see the value in choosing words wisely?

Show the shift in meaning

Looking closely at synonyms by themselves can help students think about subtle yet important differences between words that may seem similar at first glance.
Try putting students in small groups and asking them to rank a list of words from one extreme to the other — such as from adore to detest or quiet to boisterous. Talking about synonyms and antonyms shows students how meaning shifts gradually or dramatically based on the connotation of a chosen word.

Demonstrate the power of word economy

Sometimes students feel pressured to “fill the page” or write a required amount. That mindset often leads to stories and essays filled with overused words and sentences that are far from concise. So give students writing exercises that require brief yet meaningful prose. Try this four-step exercise:

1. 
   Ask students to bring a photo that represents a positive childhood memory. Give them five minutes to describe that memory in writing.
   
2. 
   Tell them to cut it down to exactly 50 words, making sure they still convey the emotion and the important details of their memory.
   
3. 
   Have them share with a neighbor and see if the neighbor has questions or is unclear about what happened in their peer’s mini-memoir.
   
4. 
   Then ask students to trim it down further — to only six words. By the end, they will be thinking much more critically about the power of each chosen word.
   

You can find a variety of resources online for six-word stories and six-word memoirs. After doing this exercise, students can appreciate these very short but often thought-provoking pieces. Most famous is the legend of Ernest Hemingway’s six-word story: “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”