Type, level and function of in-text comments in written feedback on specialised translations: an exploratory study

Feedback can be conceived as a scaffolding strategy aimed at knowledge construction and self-regulation. Despite its pedagogical value in fostering learning processes, empirical studies on feedback in translation pedagogy are scarce. In this paper, we focus on the written corrective feedback provided by lecturers in specialised student-written translations. A corpus of 379 specific in-text comments was analysed in terms of the type of feedback, the level of the translation on which it impacted and its pragmatic function. The results show the prevalence of task-focused feedback, in-text comments on specialised terminology and a mainly corrective function of feedback, concerned with rectifying errors in the student’s translation. The feedback emerging from the results can be described as a unidirectional teacher-to-student model of communication, which does not correspond to the conception of dialogic and student-centred feedback advocated in the most current literature on this topic at university level.