Internaonal Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences Vol-8, Issue-4; Jul-Aug, 2023 Peer-Reviewed Journal Journal Home Page Available: hps://ijels.com/ Journal DOI: 10.22161/ijels IJELS-2023, 8(4), (ISSN: 2456-7620) (Int. J of Eng. Lit. and Soc. Sci.) hps://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.84.6 27 Translation errors: A taxonomic approach and their contribution to translator training Evanthia Saridaki Lecturer in Translation Studies, University of Thessaly, Department of Language and Intercultural Studies, Greece Received: 02 Jun 2023; Received in revised form: 28 Jun 2023; Accepted: 05 Jul 2023; Available online: 13 Jul 2023 ©2023 The Author(s). Published by Infogain Publication. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Abstract— One of the issues addressed in translation teaching concerns translation errors and their contribution to translator training. Since the terms used to describe the range of translation errors lack commonly agreed distinctions or fixed points of reference, it is quite difficult to adopt a holistic approach to translation errors by simply providing a pure definition. This has a great deal to do with the tendency to consider as error any performance which falls short of the “ideal” (Pym, 1992: 2). Within this context, there has been an attempt in the present paper to approach errors in a taxonomic manner on the basis of how they actually appear in translated texts where elements of different text types are perpetually mixed. We will also briefly refer to a diverse variety of reasons that errors may be ascribed to, ranging from lack of comprehension to misuse of register, factors that may be located to a variety of levels such as language, pragmatics and cultural level. Finally, we will describe a positive approach toward translation errors and their contribution to translator training by offering to students the insights and experiences they need in order to become competent translators. Keywords— translator training, errors in the process of translation, taxonomic approach to translation errors, translation competence development. I. INTRODUCTION In foreign language didactics, errors are usually defined as a deviation from a system of norms and rules related to the structure of the foreign language. Respectively, in a generalized approach, a translation error could be considered as a deviation of a norm in a certain language communication situation. In particular, Wills (1982) describes a translation error as an offence against a norm in a linguistic context situation. According to Baker (1992), errors in translation mostly result from the non-equivalence between the source and target languages indicating the quality of a translation. Moreover, they can reveal what is going on in the translator's thinking process (Séguinot, 1990). In addition, Sigrid Kupsch-Losereit (Nord, 1997: 73) defines errors as an offence against: a. the function of the translation, b. the coherence of the text, c. the text type or text form, d. linguistic conventions, e. Culture and situation- specific conventions and conditions, and f. the language system. Pym (1992) relates the term translation competence to translation errors by stating that a translation error may be defined “as a manifestation of a defect in any of the factors entering into the above skills” (1992: 280). However, he stresses that the feature of “simple negation” of translation errors does not shed light to this very confused field of translation training that are attributed to various causes such as lack of comprehension or misuse of time and located to various levels such as the language, pragmatics and cultural level. The above definitions of translation errors certainly demonstrate their complexity of nature and the difficulties we might encounter in approaching them in a holistic manner since there are many different aspects involved in the cognitive area of translation errors. 1. Classification of errors in translation 1.1. The distinction between language, translation and functional errors