Translation Learning Research Articles

Systematic Review of English/Arabic Machine Translation Postediting: Implications for AI Application in Translation Research and Pedagogy

The twenty-first century has witnessed an extensive evolution in translation practice thanks to the accelerated progress in machine translation tools and software. With the increased scalability and availability of machine translation software empowered by artificial intelligence, translation students and practitioners have continued to show an unwavering reliance on automatic translation systems. Academically, there is little recognition of the need to develop machine translation skillsets amongst translation learners in English/Arabic translation programs. This study provides a systematic review of machine translation postediting with reference to English/Arabic machine translation. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, the paper reviewed 60 studies conducted since the beginning of the twenty-first century and classified them by different metrics to identify relevant trends and research gaps. The results showed that research on the topic has been primarily prescriptive, concentrating on evaluating and developing machine translation software while neglecting aspects related to translators’ skillsets and competencies. The paper highlights the significance of postediting as an important digital literacy to be developed among Arabic translation students and the need to bridge the existing research and pedagogic gap in MT education.

The Relationship between Interpreting Anxiety and Learning Motivation Assisted by Long Short-Term Memory Neural Network Algorithms

The Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural network algorithm has achieved significant results in natural language processing and speech recognition. This study explores the application of the LSTM algorithm in the study of the relationship between interpreting anxiety and learning motivation. The article mainly uses questionnaire survey method to obtain research data. The participates include students engaged in translation research and professional translators. After statistical analysis of the research data, it was found that there was a significant correlation between translation anxiety and learning motivation (r=-0.62, p<0.001). According to calculation results, the average score is 3.42 and the standard deviation is 0.76. The average score of evaluating the learning enthusiasm of participants through corresponding questionnaires is 4.27, with an SD of 0.92. Further regression analysis of the data was conducted, and the results showed that respondents with low translation anxiety had stronger learning motivation（β=- 0.43, p<0.001). It can be seen that reducing learners' fear of translation can enhance their learning motivation, thereby stimulating their interest in learning. This indicates that reducing translation anxiety may be helpful to improve the learning motivation level of interpreting learners. The study is of great significance for improving the learning enthusiasm of translation learners and reducing translation anxiety and provides a new perspective and research method for future related research.

Prediction of Translation Quality by Risk-Taking and Critical Thinking Among Translation Learners

The main objective of the present study was to investigate the relationship between Iranian translation learners’ critical thinking (CT), risk-taking (RT), and their English-to-Persian translation quality. To achieve this aim, a group of 120 male and female university students majoring in English translation (ET) were selected based on convenience sampling. Then, two questionnaires, namely CT and RT, were administered to them. Along with the questionnaires, two texts were given to all participants to translate. The quality of translations was assessed based on Farahzad’s (1992) model by two raters. After data collection and analysis, it was revealed that there was a positive and significant relationship between participants’ CT and RT and their translation quality. Moreover, further data analysis showed that RT was a better predictor of translation quality than CT. The findings of this study would be applicable to translation learners, teachers, and translation training courses.

The Application of the Combined Corpus in C-E Translation Teaching

In recent years, corpora have become increasingly sophisticated and are popular among linguists and widely followed by academics because of their powerful functions. This paper investigates the combined use of single and bilingual corpora in teaching translation quality assessment. Using single and bilingual corpora as research objects, the empirical method explores the path of efficient use of combined corpora in translation teaching, and the results show that the combined use of corpora can provide strong support for translation learners in vocabulary selection, comparison of synonyms and conducting translation quality assessment, and this study aims to improve the quality of teaching and learning in translation courses.

Performance and perception: machine translation post-editing in Chinese-English news translation by novice translators

Machine translation has become a popular option for news circulation, due to its speed, cost-effectiveness and improving quality. However, it still remains uncertain whether machine translation is effective in helping novice translators in news translation. To investigate the effectiveness of machine translation, this study conducted a Chinese-English news translation test to compare the performance and perception of translation learners in machine translation post-editing and manual translation. The findings suggest that it is challenging for machine translation to understand cultural and semantic nuances in the source language, and produce coherent structural translation in the target language. No significant quality difference was observed in post-editing and manual translation, though post-editing quality was found to be slightly better. Machine translation can help to reduce translation learners’ processing time and mental workload. Compared to manual translation, machine translation post-editing is considered as a preferred approach by translation learners in news translation. It is hoped that this study could cast light on the integration of machine translation into translator training programs.

A Survey of Translation Learners’ Uses and Perceptions of Neural Machine Translation

This paper reports a questionnaire-based survey that was designed to investigate how a group of Chinese translation learners used and perceived Neural Machine Translation (NMT), with a view to providing pedagogical implications for translation instruction which is being confronted with the AI-powered translation technology. 326 second- and third-year college students, who were translation learners as well as English majors from the same university in China participated in the survey. They reported high frequency of NMT use in their translation learning as well as English major learning. Instead of directly borrowing the NMT output, most of them post-edited it and/or used it as inspiration to accomplish their translation tasks. Although they evaluated NMT in a positive way and held an optimistic view toward the future of translation career, they expressed varying degrees of worry and anxiety toward their future employment and toward the use of NMT in the process of the translation learning. They clearly articulated the needs for NMT instruction in translation courses. Based on these findings, this paper proposes several ways to help reduce the learners’ worry and anxiety in translation instruction.

Integrating a Game-Based App to Enhance Translation Learners’ Engagement, Motivation, and Performance

Integrating a Game-Based App to Enhance Translation Learners’ Engagement, Motivation, and Performance

A Comparative Appreciation of Three English Translations of Ding Feng Bo

With the continuous development of globalization, more and more Chinese classical works have been translated into English to the world. Ding Feng Bo was written by Su Shi when he was demoted to Huangzhou. The whole poem shows the process that the poet went through arduous self-regulation, psychological construction until he finally got the feeling and realized spiritual freedom. By comparing and appreciating the English versions of XuYuanchong, Yang Xianyi and his wife and Zhuo Zhenying, this paper analyzes the expression of the word in terms of language, image and artistic conception, so that translation learners can gain something from it and translators can better translate it.

Study on the Translation Thoughts and Translation Styles of Gladys Yang

Since the 1980s, the English translations of Chinese classical literary works have been emerging, most of which are classic literary works and famous novels in modern times. In the 21st century, the exchanges between China and foreign countries in various fields are more in-depth, especially in the cultural exchanges, and their forms are more diverse. During this period, there emerged outstanding translators represented by Gladys Yang and others. This paper discusses the research status of the famous translator Gladys Yang from two aspects of her works, translation thoughts and translation style, in order to provide some enlightenment for translation learners and benefit for subsequent translation studies of Gladys Yang.

On Kumarajiva’ s Thought of Buddhist Scripture Translation and His Influence

Kumarajiva is one of the "four translators" in the history of Buddhist scripture translation. He has translated many classics in his entire life. His translation has a far-reaching impact on Buddhist Scripture Translation in China and even the whole world, as well as in the fields of philosophy and literature. Therefore, the study of his theory and thoughts are of great benefit to us in learning translation theory and engaging in translation work. This paper will analyze Kumarajiva's Buddhist Scripture Translation Thought from many aspects and summarize his influence on Buddhism and future translators, with the aim to make more translation learners deepen their understanding and understanding of Kumarajiva' s translation theory.

Unpacking boredom factors of Chinese foreign language major students in translation classes: A sequential mixed methods study.

Though largely ignored by educators and researchers, boredom, an aversive emotion, is the hurdle for many translation learners to be professional. It is all the more important to unpack the boredom factors of Chinese foreign language major students in translation classes, which will serve in promoting students’ engagement in L2 classes and translator cultivation. By using a sequential mixed approach, this study conducted a thematic analysis and built a structural equation model. Quantitative data were gleaned from 483 foreign major college students in China and qualitative data were selected from students (N = 15) of 7 universities through snowball sampling. Initially, the first-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) verified the adapted questionnaire and the second-order CFA finds each factor’s contribution. Then, the thematic analysis gives support to the empirical findings. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that task-based boredom is the most routinely experienced boredom. Moreover, two major sources of boredom in translation classes are found, including task-based boredom and teacher-related boredom. It is suggested that teachers should improve their classes and use more interesting and engaging materials and tasks with the proper level of difficulty. The finding can help educators to identify the major boredom in the translation class and help potential professional translators to grow. Future studies will also be facilitated by the present study to find approaches to tackle these boredom sources.

Sustainability and Influence of Machine Translation: Perceptions and Attitudes of Translation Instructors and Learners in Hong Kong

In this era of globalisation, translation technologies have become more popular in daily communication, the education sector, and the translation industry. It is observed that there is a prevalent use of machine translation (MT) among translation learners. The proper use versus abuse of MT can be a critical issue regarding its role in and impact on translation teaching. This exploratory study aims at investigating learners’ and instructors’ knowledge of MT, experience in MT use, perceived MT quality, ethics of MT use, and the perceived relationship between MT and translation training, in order to figure out the usefulness of MT in translation competence acquisition and the necessity of MT training. To this end, we conducted surveys and semi-structured interviews and found that the influence of MT in translation competence acquisition is determined by the properties of MT and learners’ quality. MT is particularly helpful in gaining lexical knowledge and knowledge to ensure translation efficiency, but not in bicultural knowledge. However, such usefulness builds on learners’ language proficiency, analytic ability, and learning motivation. In light of the findings, issues including the sustainability of MT from ethical and linguistic perspectives, and the potential and proper use of MT to inform translator training, are discussed.

A Corpus-Based Study of the Differences between Translations of Famous Translators and Translation Learners

A Corpus-Based Study of the Differences between Translations of Famous Translators and Translation Learners

번역 학습자의 서한 번역전략 분석 - 기사문 관계절을 중심으로 -

This study aims to examine how structural differences between Spanish and Korean in relative clauses affect the achievement of the translation goal of communicative translation. For this purpose, relative clauses of Spanish news texts used in actual translation class for graduate students (ST) and their translations in Korean (TT) were collected. For the analysis, the clauses were divided according to cases such as subjective, objective, oblique, possessive and appositive cases, and categorized into two types: restrictive and non-restrictive clauses, given that the two languages differ in the use of relative clauses. The analysis reveals that translation learners adopt distinct strategies for different types and cases of relative clauses by using connective endings, altering parts of speech in target language or switching the position of antecedent, etc. in accordance with the principle of conciseness of news texts. On the other hand, findings show that translations taking into account the differences between Spanish and Korean turn out to be more TL reader friendly, thus more communicative. The study concludes that when translating Spanish relative clauses into Korean, learners should consider the heterogeneity between the two languages, understand the function of the text to be translated and review the translation strategy from the perspective of the TL reader.

Teaching the Metalanguage of Translation for Translation Learners as a Way of Promoting Self-Regulation

This research aims to link the teaching of the metalanguage proper to translation in an introductory translation discipline to the promotion of self-regulatory learning behavior. The general objective is to discuss not only the role of metalanguage in promoting self-regulation in translation learners, but also how the systematized translation metalanguage teaching can contribute to the transition of other-regulation to self-regulation throughout the student's learning process. This paper explores the specific metalanguage linked to the notion of Translation Competence (TC) and its Acquisition (TCA) and to the concept of self-regulation. I start from the understanding that the teaching of metalanguage allows increasing the metacognitive processes, more specifically, the student's self-regulatory learning behavior. The theoretical basis is informed by the translation concept presented by Hurtado Albir (1999, 2005, 2015); as a methodological foundation, this work uses the concepts of other-regulation and self-regulation (Wertsch, 1979, 1985) and the notions of spontaneous and scientific concept (Vigotski, 2018). The teaching materials are based on cognitive-constructivist premises (Hurtado Albir, 2015), drawing methodologically upon the translation task-based learning, and the tasks being organized into Teaching Units (TU). This methodological approach was chosen because the tasks provide students with the necessary instruments for the acquisition of Translation Competence and are permeated by the specific metalanguage of translation. The present work highlights some of the results obtained after investigations carried out in one of the courses taught at the ‘Curso de Letras’- Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) dedicated to the teaching of translation. Those results suggest a relationship between the teaching of metalanguage and the development of the learners' metacognitive processes, particularly the promotion of self-regulation. The metalanguage teaching helped learners to reflect autonomously on the translation process they performed.

The Psychometric Properties of Translating Self-Efficacy Belief: Perspectives From Chinese Learners of Translation.

Understanding learners’ translating self-efficacy belief helps predict their ability to cope and translation performance during their career. Despite this connection, the assessment of self-efficacy during learning has been largely overlooked in translation research. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an instrument to examine belief in self-efficacy in a sample of Chinese translation learners. Scale items were collected and refined based on an expert-panel consensus opinion. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis across two independent samples (Sample I = 193 and Sample II = 247) revealed and validated a three-dimensional structure: efficacy in internal competence, efficacy in psycho-physical competence, and efficacy in external competence. These findings provide supporting evidence for scale applications in educating translators.

PENERJEMAHAN HARFIAH: DOMINASI DALAM TEKNIK PENERJEMAHAN SURAT INFORMAL

Translation techniques are expected to be solutions to cope with translation problems faced by translators. Due to this reason, translation learners are taught these techniques to be their provision in handling translation problems they will face as professional translators. This research is aimed at giving comprehension of the using translation techniques tendency in informal letter translation. Case study method is used in this research to analyze how English Letters students who have learnt translation through qualitative approach and document data collecting technique. This research uses Molina & Albir's (2002)Translation Techniques to identify the translation technniques used by the students.The result shows that the dominance of literal translation technique by a very significant data finding from the eleven techniques used with normal distribution ranging from 17 until 27 data per students.In the next research, it is hoped that there will be wider scope of study to analyze the trends of translation techniques in those students’ affiliation.Keywords: Literal Translation, Teknik Penerjemahan, Informal Letter

The Impact of Translation Software on Improving the Performance of Translation Majors

The recent years have witnessed a high demand for professional translation services due to the global nature of world economy, accessibility to data in different languages, and the development of unprecedented communication channels. Translators can no longer meet these growing needs of customers and businesses. As such, different translation technologies have been developed to help translation learners and professionals improve their performance in producing a high quality translation. These technologies are now widely integrated into translation programs in different universities, institutes and training centers around the world for their usefulness and reliability in improving the performance of translation learners and professionals in the delivery of trustworthy and professional translation services. Nevertheless, surveys show that the Saudi labor market still has serious problems with qualified translators who are familiar with translation technologies that have negative impacts on the quality and delivery of translation services. This study, therefore, seeks to explore the opportunities and challenges of incorporating translation software and latest technologies into translation pedagogy in the Saudi universities. An open-ended interview with 37 translation instructors from 9 Saudi universities was conducted. Results indicate that the integration of translation software and technologies is still less than expected. This can be attributed to the fact that the majority of instructors prefer manual translation over computer-assisted translation (CAT), translation technologies are not provided by the institutions, and learning outcomes are not linked to labor market needs.

A Cognitive-Oriented Exploration of the Development of Translation Competence: A Case Study of Iranian Translation Learners

This is a report on a qualitative research in relation to the development of translation competence (TC) in academia. The study aimed to map out the cognitive processes involved in problem-solving and provide a picture of the development of strategic TC and translation-notion in translation learners. A group of 20 Iranian students volunteered to take part in a think-aloud study. The participants were divided into four groups of G1 (pre-translational), G3 (early translational), G5 and G7 (translational), based on the number of semesters of language and translation training they had received. The ecological validity was established by availing the participants of any sources of documentation they preferred to use. The verbalisations of the participants were recorded and then transcribed into think-aloud protocols (TAPs). The analysis of TAPs revealed that students activated various configurations of decision-making processes and resourcing methods, and exhibit different conceptions of the notion-of-translation at different stages of TC development. The study also showed that the portrait of TC development featured strong reliance on automatised cognitive processes at pre-translational stage and increased evaluative processes, coupled with higher chances of success, at translational stage. The findings proved that the development of TC did not follow an incremental trajectory. They further indicated that the translation programmes as offered in universities tend to boost evaluative reflections on and conscious awareness of the translation process at the cost of decreasing the unconscious automatised processes. This suggests that from a process-oriented perspective, translation programmes do not seem to prepare the learners for translation-market requirements. Keywords: translation; competence development; cognitive analysis; decision-making processes; Iranian learners

PROJECT BASED LEARNING IN TRANSLATION CLASS

PROJECT BASED LEARNING IN TRANSLATION CLASSApandiProdi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, FKIP Unswagati CirebonEmail: aapandi5@gmail.comDevi Siti Sihatul AfiahProdi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, FKIP Unswagati Cirebon  AbstractThis study aims to identify student learning experiences in the Indonesian-English translation class. This study uses a case study approach with data collection methods in the form of observations, interviews and questionnaires. Observations are made to obtain data sources from direct sources. Interviews were conducted to find out whether the places visited had historical stories, legends or folktales that could be translated into English, and also to find out the obstacles or challenges faced during learning using PBL. A questionnaire was used to identify learning experiences in the Indonesian-English translation class using PBL. Respondents were students of the 6th semester of the English language education program who took part in the English-Indonesian translation course. Data is presented in the form of descriptive explanations and also supported by graph data to facilitate the presentation. This study shows that the use of PBL provides benefits in forming independent learners, improving critical thinking and can improve attitudes in collaboration with peers. However, there are still obstacles and challenges in translation courses using PBL, namely at the beginning of the lecture in the form of less preparation time, adaptation with group mates and also the location of observations that are located some distance from the campus or where students are, and there are difficulties in translating cultural words found.Key words: PBL, Translation, Learning Experience