Lost in Latin translation Teaching students to produce coherent target texts

The Dutch central final examination requires students to show their comprehension of a Latin source text by translating it into Dutch. However, students struggle, as is demonstrated by the incoherent target texts they produce when they are translating Latin. The research question this dissertation addresses is how to improve the coherence of these target texts.
Four problems are identified related to translating Latin in Dutch upper secondary education,
1. The translation assignment,
2. The absence of defined learning activities for producing a coherent target text,
3. The absence of shared knowledge for teaching Latin translation,
4. The insufficiency of the rating method to assess target-text coherence.
To address these problems, this dissertation presents a process-oriented translation strategy, aimed at the production of a target text that is understandable for a person unfamiliar with the source text. This strategy can be most effectively taught by an adaptation of the instruction method developed by Graham and Harris (1996, 2002). Target-text coherence is reliably assessed by comparison in pairs. The effects of the process-oriented translation strategy are tested by an experiment consisting of two competing experimental conditions:
1. A process condition, focusing on the process-oriented translation strategy,
2. A product condition, focusing on error analysis.
The results show that after an intervention of four lessons, participants in both conditions significantly improve target–text coherence as well as ST-TT equivalence.
This dissertation establishes that the process-oriented translation strategy offers a new and effective approach to teaching translation.