Morphosyntactic Errors in Urdu-to-English Translation among Higher Secondary ESL Learners in South Punjab: A Comparison across Divisions, Gender, and Institutional Sectors

Abstract

The present study compares the Urdu to English translation errors in terms of both morphological and syntactic errors of higher secondary students from three divisions, gender and three institutional sectors of South Punjab (Pakistan). A quantitative descriptive-comparative design was used and 120 scripts were selected from a larger sample of 750 learners from government and private institutions of Bahawalpur, Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan. The learners were given one Urdu paragraph to translate into English in controlled classroom atmosphere. The errors were divided into morphological and syntactic errors and then analysed as frequencies and percentages in IBM SPSS. Of 1,136 errors, 896 (78.87%) were syntactic and 240 (21.13%) were morphological. The most common type of syntactic error was sentence structure, followed by article and preposition errors, and pluralisation and tense errors followed. The syntactic errors were more numerous than morphological errors in all divisions, gender groups and in all sectors, but the ratio varied. The results indicate grammatical problems in the chosen translations and give suggestions for teaching attention. They can only be used in the sample, and cannot make causal inferences regarding error production and learner characteristics.