Error Analysis of Chinese-to-English Translation of Students in Vocational High School

• Main Authors: Yu-hui Kuo, 郭玉蕙
• Other Authors: Ye-ling Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/93209946684891505923

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 92 === ABSTRACT This study aims to analyze Taiwan''s vocational high school students'' performance in Chinese-to-English sentence translation so as to find effective ways to enhance these students'' English writing ability through translation. Specifically, it attempts to locate students'' English learning difficulties by writing error analysis. It also intends to investigate correct linguistic items that most students handled well. To achieve the study purpose, the researcher collected 2068 Chinese-to-English translation sentences written by 963 vocational high school students in southern Taiwan. These students participated in the Daily Chinese-to-English Translation Program (DCETP), which was held on the SEAL website (http://192.192.186.6/seal) from May 20 to June 13 in 2002. The answer sentences written by the subjects in the DCETP are analyzed quantitatively with Analytic Tool in Microsoft Excel. Writing errors in subjects'' translation sentences are located and classified first. The errors are then analyzed and discussed to see what difficulties the students encountered in Chinese-to-English translation. In addition, the linguistic categories that most of the students handled successfully are also analyzed and discussed to help profile the students'' learning processes and strategies. After data analysis, the main findings of this study are summarized as follows: 1. The result shows that the levels of these students'' Chinese-to-English translation proficiency are mixed. About 25% of the 2068 sentences they translated are correct, 27% with one error, 25% with two errors, 11% with three errors, and 12% with four or more errors. 2. The students'' performance varies a lot in individual sentence translation. The more difficult words, language usages, or structures a sentence has, the lower its correctness rate is, and vice versa. 3. There are three main types of translation errors committed by the students, namely lexical errors, grammatical errors, and semantic errors. These three types of errors are subcategorized into 18 specific types of errors in this study. 4. Some of the students'' translation errors are compound. For example. errors of parts of speech often coexist with errors of syntax. Nevertheless, the coexistence of different types of errors reflects the immature interlanguage systems of the subjects. 5. Possible causes of the students'' translation errors include interlingual interference, intralingual interference, and inadequate learning. Differences between the Chinese and the English languages usually result in interlingual errors. The complexity of English in certain aspects often results in intralingual errors. Inadequate learning almost results in all specific types of errors in this study. 6. The top seven translation difficulties for these students are: 1) verb, 2) expression, 3) spelling, 4) syntax, 5) semantic reference, 6) article, and 7) preposition. 7. The four translation non-difficulties for thsee students are: 1) morphology, 2) word-compounding, 3) conjunction, and 4) punctuation. In conclusion, the vocational high school students who attended the DCETP had cultivated some basic knowledge of the English language, including English word-compounding, morphology, conjunction and punctuation. On the other hand, these students still had to promote proficiency in other aspects of lexis, grammar, and semantics in Chinese-to-English translation.