Undergraduate Translation Students Research Articles

The Relationship between Translation Trainees' Thinking Styles and Their Translation Quality

Translating is not just a single activity that is done by measure of knowing SL and TL; it is a complex work in which many factors are involved. Among all factors that affect translators' renderings, Thinking Styles are those that make more challenge for the translators. Therefore, the researcher of this quantitative correlational study tried to find out whether there was any relationship between thinking styles and translation quality of thirty B.A. Translation students at Islamic Azad University Eslamshahr Branch based on Sternberg's (1999) theory of Thinking Styles and Waddington's (2001) model D of translation quality assessment. To this end, the Thinking Styles Inventory (TSI) as a self-report twenty four-item Likert scale questionnaire and four paragraphs as the Translation Product Test (TPT) were administered consecutively to evaluate the research question. To analyze the obtained data, Pearson product-moment correlational analysis and multiple regression analysis were accomplished. Based on the results, a null hypothesis was set stating that there is not any relationship between thinking styles and Translation quality of the undergraduate Translation students. As the results of the correlation analyses conducted, this null hypothesis was rejected, because the three thinking styles targeted had a positive correlation with the participants’ scores on translation quality. In addition, the results of multiple regression analysis indicated that the three thinking styles could cumulatively predict a significant amount of the variance in the participants’ scores on translation quality. The findings of the present study have important implications for translation theories, assessment, and training.

Effect of Telecollaboration on Translation of Culture-Bound Texts

One of the most problematic perspectives of translation phenomenon is the cultural gap between the source language and the target language (Yang, 2010). This gap can be ideally filled through telecollaboration which provides internationally dispersed language learners in parallel language classes with cost-effective access to, and engagement with, peers who are expert speakers of the language under study (Belz, 2005). To investigate the effect of telecollaboration on the quality of translation of culture-bound texts, the current study was conducted on 64 Iranian undergraduate students of English translation at a university in Iran. Instruments used in the study consisted of three texts containing news excerpts from Voice of America (VOA). The study consisted of three phases: 1) assessing quality of translation of culture-bound texts, 2) random assignment of participants to two groups: one merely receiving cultural instruction while the other being linked to native English speakers through LinkedIn alongside receiving cultural instruction, and 3) assessing quality of translation of culture-bound texts immediately and two months following treatment. The results of mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance revealed the significant positive effect of telecollaboration on developing quality of translation of culture-bound texts and sustaining the attained knowledge. The pedagogical implications of the findings suggested incorporation of cultural components of source language society into translation courses and providing opportunities for translation students to be exposed to authentic and intensive source language culture through telecollaboration.

Study on the Application of Web Information Retrieval in the Teaching of Language Translation

The development of information technology at the end of the 20th century fundamentally transformed people’s daily lives and greatly influenced education as well, actually not all the undergraduate students of translation have the skills to access, utilize, and benefit from the continually updating online information. This poses a challenge to traditional orthodox translation teaching which is still dominant. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce Web Information Retrieval (WIR) skills to the translation learners. This research focuses on the translation curriculum reform and the effects of incorporating WIR in translation teaching. From data tests, questionnaires, and curriculum experiment prove that WIR incorporating significantly improves translation quality, translators and translation instructors both request that WIR skills should be incorporated in the teaching of language Translation.

Hindrances Encountering Undergraduate Jordanian Translation Students in Translating Islamic Terms

This study pinpoints the problems that undergraduate Jordanian Translation students encounter when they translate Islamic terms from Arabic into English. Furthermore, it reveals their ability to find the terms in the Target Language (TL) or coming up with adequate equivalents and detects the strategy they adopt either domestication or foreignization. The study attempts to answer these questions: 1. Are there any effects on the results of undergraduate Translation students in finding sufficient equivalents of Islamic terms in English before and after defining the nature of Islamic terminology? 2. Are there any differences in the performance of undergraduate Translation students due to the nature of Islamic terminology? What are the effects of teaching undergraduate translation students the difference between domestication strategy and foreignization strategy on their results of translating Islamic terms? To achieve the purpose of the study, an achievement test was designed and 80 students divided into two groups: an experimental group studied in accordance with the training program prepared by the researchers, and a control group studied, in accordance with the usual way, took the test. The (t-test) results showed statistically significant differences at the level (α≤0.05) between the two groups. It was found that the phenomenon of negative performance of Translation students existed in the control group when they translated Islamic terms with new implications extended by the Qur’an and Sunnah, while the students’ awareness of foreignization strategy contributed to the enhancement of their performance as the correct answers of the experimental group increased from 126 to 525 answers.

Self-efficacy and Prediction of Note-taking Inclination among Undergraduate Translation Students

Self-efficacy is the self-perceived ability of an individual in performing the tasks assigned to him/her. Self-efficacy and its implications have been widely studied in the field of language teaching and learning. Yet, few studies have explored the relationship between self-efficacy and various aspects of interpreting ability. This article aims at investigating the role of self-efficacy in predicting the note-taking inclination of undergraduate translation students. In this regard, a total number of 53 junior and senior undergraduate translation students at the University of Zabol completed the Schwarzer’s General Self-efficacy Questionnaire, and took the note-taking ability test in which test-takers were supposed to listen to VOA Special News tracks (five 30-45 second audio tracks at lower-intermediate level of difficulty) and take notes. Prior to administration, test takers received a brief instruction of seven main note-taking skills, based on the guidelines proposed by Mazzei (noting the idea, abbreviation, links, negation, emphasis, verticality, and shift). Finally, the students’ notes were scored by two raters at a 0-35 point basis, according to the Mazzei’s note-taking skills; and a high inter-rater reliability was achieved. The obtained Pearson results revealed a significant positive relationship between the self-efficacy of the test-takers and their note-taking inclination. Our findings imply that learners’ self-efficacy should be more considered in interpreter training programs at B.A. level.

Effects of Structural Context Integration on Ambiguity Elimination for Students of Translation

Linguistic ambiguity causes translation students to be confronted with several problems in the translation process from Arabic into English. This causes their translation to be inconsistent with the professional standards of translation. Thus, this study is concerned with the effects of structural context integration on ambiguity elimination for the students of translation. It aims to identify the negative effect of the ambiguity aspects in Arabic by answering the questions of the study. These questions are: What is the effect of the modes of structural context integration on improving the translation of undergraduate Translation students? Does each way of structural context integration have the same effect on ambiguity aspects? The instrument used in this study to answer these questions was a diagnostic test. This test gauged the performance of two groups (15 each) of undergraduate Translation students at the German-Jordanian University. They were asked to translate (24) sentences that included an ambiguity at one of the four levels of the Arabic Language. The (t-test) was utilized to test the statistical significance of the differences between the two groups. Results showed statistically significant differences in mean scores between the experimental group and control group to the reference of the experimental group. It was found that the phenomenon of ambiguity in Arabic has negatively affected the performance of translation students, while the structural context integration has significantly contributed to the enhancement of students’ performance, probably due to the study plans of Translation Department which do not include any study materials that contribute to increase the students’ awareness of significant Arabic language details related to phonology, morphology, syntax and lexical items.

The impact of writing training on transediting in translation, analyzed from a product and process perspective

This paper reports on a quasi-experimental study of the effect of writing training on transediting in the translation product and process of undergraduate translation students. A classical pretest-posttest experimental design was used, in which the experimental group was trained in writing instructive texts in their mother tongue (Dutch) and the control group received a placebo training. Over the course of the experiment, both groups translated four Spanish instruction manuals into Dutch. The source texts contained a number of rich points that could not be translated literally into the target language and consequently required transediting. The product data indicated that writing training led to a higher amount and quality of transediting, specifically of macro-textual features. The process data showed that the participants of the experimental group based their decision to transedit on more diverse and precise criteria than the control group. Writing training also yielded a more detailed understanding of the acceptability norms of instruction manuals and led to a more critical stance towards the source text. Writing training did not influence the moment of transediting, which was mostly carried out as a first translation solution.

The Contextual over the Referential in Military Translation

Dictionaries of all types, monolingual or bilingual, specialized or general, form the basic tools for both undergraduate translation students (UTSs) and professional translators (PTs). However, it is generally accepted that the difference between UTSs and PTs is that UTSs normally over-rely on dictionaries, which produces unsatisfactory results. For it is not only the lexical meaning provided by dictionaries that is important in translation, but also the contextual meaning. Hence, it is the USTs' ability to translate and use specialized terms/words appropriately within the context of situation and, by extension, within the larger world of the text, which is crucial. The aim of the article is to address issues related to Arabic military translation. In particular, it focuses on the long-standing relationship between specialized terms and translation and how terms may influence the UTSs' quality and accuracy, given that Arabic suffers from difficulties in handling and standardizing specialized technical terms. Data were drawn from translations by undergraduate students at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. The analysis shows that students faced problems at understanding technical information as well as technical terms and collocations. It was also noted that two of the better bilingual dictionaries turned out to be of little help. The examples discussed provide pointers to the challenges that would face UTSs when handling technical translation in their early careers.

Translation Students’ Knowledge of Lexical Cohesion Patterns and their Performance in the Translation of English Texts

The main purpose of this research was to determine 1) if there is a meaningful relationship between translation student's knowledge of Lexical Cohesion Patterns (LCPs) and their performance in the translation of English texts, 2) and if there is any relationship between participants’ gender and their performance in translating English texts. 90 (45 males and 45 females) undergraduate translation students from Kermanshah Razi University and Payame Noor University, Illam Branch, took part in the study. They were assigned to three groups using Allen's (1992) Placement Test. Based on .The participants received 6 texts enjoying different LCPs (Lexical Repetition, Synonymy, Antonymy, Super-ordinate Repetition, Hyponymic Repetition, Co-Reference, Labeling, Non-lexical Relations, and Substitution). The findings of the study lend support to the positive effect of the students’ language proficiency level especially the knowledge of LCPs on their performance in the translation of English texts. They also indicated that the participants’ performance regarding different LCPs was different. The results further showed that there is no meaningful relationship between participants’ gender and their performance in the translation of English texts enjoying different LCPs.

An Empirical Study of the Perceived Benefits of Finalyear Translation Projects to Undergraduate Translation Students

Toutes les universités d’état à Hong Kong proposant des cursus de niveau pré-licence en traduction exigent que leurs étudiants montent un projet en traduction, généralement durant leur dernière année d’étude. Ce type de cursus est unique car la formation est dispensée de manière individuelle. La présente étude cherchera à démontrer dans quelle mesure les projets en traduction de la langue chinoise à l’anglais sont bénéfiques pour les étudiants, à travers un questionnaire en trois étapes. Les résultats de l’apprentissage sont utilisés comme unité de mesure principale. Les résultats de cette recherche montrent qu’il y a des améliorations du niveau de compétence statistiquement significatives chez les étudiants (a) concernant l’utilisation de la langue source et de la langue cible (b) dans le traitement des items culturellement connotés (c) dans l’identification d’un potentiel lectorat (d) concernant la traduction à un niveau professionnel (e) concernant l’utilisation des stratégies de traduction appropriées, après avoir terminé leur projet en traduction. De plus, les compétences « psychophysiologiques » des étudiants se sont également améliorées et développées par le biais de ces projets en traduction. Au vu de nos résultats, nous pouvons affirmer que les projets en traduction sont bénéfiques pour les étudiants. Les universités de Hong Kong ont connu en 2012 une réforme éducative rallongeant leur cursus pré-licence (passant de 3 ans à 4 ans) et nos résultats aideront probablement les enseignants en traduction en leur donnant des indications importantes servant à l’enseignement et au développement des programmes, puisque ces institutions devront bientôt revoir leur programme d’enseignement pour satisfaire les besoins des étudiants en cursus pré-licence d’une durée de quatre ans.

Individual Differences and Quality Of Translation: A Personality-Based Perspective

The current study was targeted at investigating the relationship between translation students’ personality types and the quality of their English-to-Persian translations with respect to different text types. To this aim, 35 undergraduate senior students of translation were randomly sampled. To obtain some demographic information about the participants, the researchers used a background questionnaire. The participants were given three different text types for the translation task. An advertisement, a scientific text and a narrative text were chosen to serve Reiss’ text typology (1971) including operative, informative and expressive texts, respectively. The students were also provided with retrospective questionnaires to shed light on their performance in the act of translating. Subsequently, once the participants’ personality types were determined via the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) anchored in Jung’s psychological theory, their dominant mental functions involving intuition, sensation, feeling and thinking were identified. To analyze the data, the One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) procedure and post-hoc analysis were employed. The results of the study indicated that the only dichotomy showing a significant difference was that of intuition versus sensation. Simply put, the intuitors outperformed their sensor counterparts in the translation of the expressive text. Taking into account the findings of the current study, the researchers suggest some pedagogical guidelines too.

The Effectiveness of Targeted Subject Knowledge in the Teaching of Scientific Translation

A great number of undergraduate and postgraduate translator training programmes include scientific translation among the areas of curricular specialization offered to their students. In these pedagogical settings, trainers are often faced with translation students who have little or no subject knowledge in the field of science. This article sets out to gauge the extent to which reading introductory specialized texts written originally in the target language may help trainee translators to produce accurate translations of scientific texts. To assess the effectiveness of targeted subject knowledge in the teaching of scientific translation, two groups of undergraduate translation students were instructed to translate a passage from a scientific report. While the two groups were allowed to use specialized dictionaries, only one was provided with an introductory target-language article on the same topic prior to translating the text. It was hypothesized that a smaller rate of translation errors by students reading the introductory text would confirm the effectiveness of elementary background knowledge in helping produce accurate translations.

The Effectiveness of Targeted Subject Knowledge in the Teaching of Scientific Translation

AbstractA great number of undergraduate and postgraduate translator training programmes include scientific translation among the areas of curricular specialization offered to their students. In these pedagogical settings, trainers are often faced with translation students who have little or no subject knowledge in the field of science. This article sets out to gauge the extent to which reading introductory specialized texts written originally in the target language may help trainee translators to produce accurate translations of scientific texts. To assess the effectiveness of targeted subject knowledge in the teaching of scientific translation, two groups of undergraduate translation students were instructed to translate a passage from a scientific report. While the two groups were allowed to use specialized dictionaries, only one was provided with an introductory target-language article on the same topic prior to translating the text. It was hypothesized that a smaller rate of translation errors by stud...

A Survey on the Perception and Adoption of Localization Tools by Iranian English Language Translators

In recent years, there have been increasing requests in the field of translation studies to develop software facilitating the analysis of corpora. One of the specialized tools in that regard are Localization Tools. Briefly explaining, Localization Tools are applications developed to facilitate the process of altering software products and web services for marketing to people who speak different languages. While it has a long history and an established ground in translation market in most parts of the globe, the Iranian translators and translation market still seem to be unaware or unfamiliar with Localization Tools. In order to provide a preview on the perception and adoption of Localization Tools by Iranian translators, the present survey was carried out among 224 last-year undergraduate Iranian students of English translation at 10 different universities across the country. The study revealed a very low level of adoption and a very high level of willingness to get familiar with and learn about Localization Tools by Iranian translators.

Working with undergraduate students of Translation with a genre-based approach

Research articles in national and international journals provide abstracts usually written in English. This paper discusses the importance of working with this sub-genre with future researchers and translators during their university years. Two concepts of genre are presented (SWALES, 1990; BATHIA, 1993), as well as an approach on how to introduce academic genre to undergraduate students. After applying this approach to a mini-course about academic writing, we have noted that translation students have been more attentive to the way they deal with texts based on communicative purposes, tasks, target readers and language.

Learning from Writing Reflective Learning Journals in a Theory-based Translation Module

This paper reports on an action research project intended to engage undergraduate translation students in learning translation theories. Students were guided to write reflective learning journal entries as part of their assessment in a translation theory-based module. Two questionnaires were designed to elicit data, mainly in terms of students’ perception of translation theories, both at the beginning and at the end of the term, and students’ experiences of writing reflective learning journals. The data suggests that most students seem to think of translation theories as guidelines, methods or techniques, both at the beginning and at the end of the term, even though they also claim that writing reflective learning journals changes the way they view translation theories to a certain extent and, consequently, helps them to learn these theories. This study demonstrates that with careful design and instruction, the educational value of learning journals can be successfully applied to a theory-based module within a subject area that is not traditionally practice- or vocation-oriented in higher education.

Neither Born nor Made, but Socially Constructed: Promoting Interactive Learning in an Online Environment

The social constructivist approach to translator training represents a clear statement on the importance of directing university teachers towards a student-centered, learning centered mode. By acknowledging the fundamental role of Vygotsky in determining his approach, Kiraly brought translator training in line with the established, broad-based humanistic approach to Foreign Language Learning; by drawing on Stevick and Schön, among others, he made this debt explicit. In this article, we apply the social constructivist approach through blended e-learning environments in courses offered to final year undergraduate students of translation. Our objective is to determine the success of combining technology and social constructivist pedagogy in promoting effective learner-centered learning. In Kiraly’s terms, we have “scaffolded” our instruction by applying instruments such as rating scales of criterion-referenced descriptors; textual and visual aids; and learner generated corpora. Our qualitative data is drawn from a variety of interactive formats: whole group online discussions, team-based online discussions, e-mail exchanges and specific “reflective” activities. We conclude that the quality of the “scaffolding” is essential to success in stimulating learning and that the e-learning environment is an excellent medium for the social constructivist approach.