Gender Differences in Translation Quality: A Study of Writing Style

Translation and writing possess similar approaches and features. This study addressed the relationship between translation and writing in relation to gender differences in translation quality of expressive and informative texts and writing style (expressive vs. informative). The sample of the study included 150 (75 female & 75 male) undergraduate senior students, majoring in English translation randomly selected from 10 universities. They took a translation task of two English paragraphs (expressive & informative) to be translated into Persian. They were, then, requested to write a paragraph in Persian. The quality of translation texts and writing style were assessed by three translation and three linguistics experts, respectively. The data were analyzed separately for each group by employing the t-test and the two-way ANOVA. The results indicated a statistically significant difference between the translation quality of the expressive text and the writing style with regard to the male subjects. The two-way ANOVA results, also, showed a significant relationship between the writing style and the translation quality of the expressive text. No significant relationship, however, was demonstrated between other variables of interest.