Text Analysis

This paper, largely motivated by Hoey (2001), revisits the issue of Written Discourse Analysis and, in particular, the Problem-Solution Pattern. Much discussion embarrasses the way in which texts are pro-duced and understood. The different functional approaches include Halliday and Hasan’s approach, van Dijk’s process-oriented approach, the procedural approach of de Beaugrande and Dressler, and the Problem Solution approach of Michael Hoey. These approaches attempt to answer the question: what is a text? How is it constructed and how can it be interpreted? According to Hoey, the processes of reading and writing in any discourse are based on culturally popular patterns of organisation between the writer and the reader. The text may be seen as an interaction between the writer and the reader in which the reader seeks to anticipate the questions that the writer is going to answer. In conclusion, analysing some texts indicates that the problem solution method is a comprehensive and easy method for producing narrative and non-narrative texts.

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) University students usually write in their native tongue and translate it into English using Artificial Intelligence programs. The study evaluated the quality of translations generated by AI in one hand and investigated the impact of Artificial Intelligence Generated Translation (AIGT) on EFL students in another. A human translator and an AI tool were used to translate two sample texts from English into Persian. The texts were given to 30 EFL teachers to examine the quality of AI translations. In addition, 152 students randomly divided into control or experimental groups were exposed to translated texts. Results from an independent t-test showed that there was a negligible difference between the two groups. The qualitative analysis of the interview data that involved 30 participants revealed that language teachers perceived omission, addition, syntax and punctuation errors in AIGT as adequately acceptable, despite their prevalence. However, a majority of the teachers were dissatisfied with AIGT’s accuracy in rendering idiomatic expressions. Based on the results, EFL educators should acknowledge the prevalence and usefulness of AI among students, and aim to incorporate it effectively in their teaching instead of prohibiting its use.