English Majors’ Perceptions of Chinese-English Translation Learning and Translation Competence

Abstract

Translation is an indispensable language activity and communication method. Translation from Chinese to foreign languages, especially English, is significant to tell Chinese stories well, growing into an urgent issue in China. While cultivating translation talents is crucial, translation competence is a complicated system consisting of various sub competences. To improve English majors’ Chinese-English (C-E) translation competence, it is necessary to first investigate their perceptions of C-E translation learning and competence. Based on the preliminary mastery of English majors’ status quo in C-E translation learning and competence, this research sheds insight into the C-E translation pedagogy. This paper presented: How do English majors perceive C-E translation learning and C-E translation competence? To answer the question, this study adopted a survey research design that was quantitative and applied the instrument of two questionnaires. The multiple-choice questionnaire was to investigate their perceptions of C-E translation learning, and the five-Likert scale questionnaire was to seek their self-perceived C-E translation competence. The study was carried out in 2022 among 125 English majors at Zaozhuang University, China. The results showed that most participants recognized the importance of C-E translation and their primary purpose was to enhance bilingual proficiency, and the texts that they were most interested in translating were practical styles and on diverse topics of China. Furthermore, more than half held the active involvement of teachers and learners and over 85% affirmed the effect of group learning and individual learning. It was found that their mean score of self-perceived C-E translation competence was 2.87.