Taiwan EFL Learners’ Cognition of Translation Features of the Two Demonstratives zhe “this” and na “that”

• Main Authors: Feng Mei Chao 趙鳳玫, 趙鳳玫
• Other Authors: Hsiu-chieh Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/05821894413649816679

博士 === 淡江大學 === 英文學系博士班 === 98 === This study attempts to examine how EFL learners translate a Chinese source text (ST) that contain demonstratives zhe “this” and na “that” into the English target text (TT). Discussions on zhe “this” and na “that” have provided much insight on their sentential functions. However, there is an empirical gap in addressing the issue of how demonstratives are realized in translation. If a translation course aims to facilitate student translators’ learning, students should be made aware of these functions especially in a contrastively cross-linguistic course of study. In view of this, three research questions raised in this study include (a) the translation features students tend to use when they translate zhe and na; (b) the types of translation problems concerning the use of zhe and na, if any, students tend to have; (c) the explanation students offer about their own translation process of demonstrative zhe and na. Data collected for analysis come from two sources. One is the written translation product generated by forty-seven participants; the other is the taped data which are collected via Think-aloud technique and retrospective interviews. The data is subject to qualitative analysis. Demonstrative features displayed in students’ English translation product indicate that proximal this has a higher frequency use than the non-proximal that. A result agrees with corpus-base finding in English demonstratives and coincides with a distributional fact of higher distribution of zhe than na in Chinese. Two feature values that stand out in the realization of functions in English translation are acting as an anaphoric reference and a syntactic modifier. Additionally, the way students translate demonstratives lends weight to a speculation about the literal translation strategy students tend to adopt as well as their low awareness of the multifunctions demonstratives have A lack for such an awareness further results in translation problems such as textual incoherence, structurally inadequate paratactically-based English sentences, and meaning deviation. Finally, findings from the verbalizations on translation process generated via Think-aloud technique identify seven broad categories of strategies that three TAP participants adopt to help themselves come to a decision on how to treat demonstratives in translation. Moreover, the verbalizations from the retrospective interviews indicate as well that students do possess individual combination of abilities and strategies. Therefore, findings from the present study do contribute to an explanatory power and a pedagogical capacity. That is, this study throws light on what capacities and what strategies are activated by students and what others can be used to achieve better results. Students, thus, can improve their output if they understand their translation process better and start reflecting on them.