Implicit agent se-constructions

Abstract

This study provides evidence to support the need for student-translators to be systematically exposed to analyzing and translating texts that give them the opportunity to observe how implicit agent se-constructions need to be used when translating from English into Spanish. A corpus of scientific abstracts was analyzed to compare the frequency of implicit agent se-constructions in abstracts written originally in Spanish and abstracts translated from English into Spanish. Both corpora tools and t-tests were used for comparing data. The results indicate that the abstracts written originally in Spanish feature a more frequent use of implicit agent se-constructions than the abstracts translated into Spanish. The researchers propose the use of scientific abstracts, both originally written in Spanish and translated into Spanish, as pedagogical instruments to model how implicit agent se-constructions operate, thereby promoting student-translators’ accurate use of such constructions, which are frequently used not only in scientific abstracts but also in a wide range of language domains in the Spanish language.