An Analysis of Dissertation Abstracts In Terms Of Translation Errors and Academic Discourse

This study aimed at evaluating English abstracts of MA and PhD dissertations published in Turkish language and identifying translation errors and problems concerning academic style and discourse. In this study, a random selection of MA and PhD dissertation abstracts both from the dissertations of Turkish speaking researchers and English-speaking researchers were used. The corpus consists of 90 abstracts of MA and PhD dissertations. The abstracts of these dissertations were analyzed in terms of problems stemming from translation issues and academic discourse and style. The findings indicated that Turkish-speaking researchers rely on their translation skills while writing their abstracts in English. Contrary to initial expectations, the results of the analysis of rhetorical moves did not indicate great differences in terms of the move structures, from which we concluded that there might be some universally accepted and attended rhetorical structure in dissertation abstracts.