An Analysis of Translation Process and Directionality in Chinese-English Translation: A Think-Aloud Protocol Study

• Main Authors: Lee, Yu-Heng, 李雨衡
• Other Authors: Liao, Po-Sen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/81001097565663675093

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 翻譯研究所 === 103 === This study utilizes think-aloud protocol (TAP) to identify the difficulties facing translators and the strategies they adopt while translating into and out of their mother tongue. Eight participants, including five native speakers of Chinese and three of English, all in the third year of translation training, were asked to complete two translation tasks in both directions while using TAP. Regardless of directions, the result shows that conversion of terms, sentence structures, and collocations are common difficulties. Translation into the mother tongue features comprehension difficulties at word level and reliance on knowledge of the mother tongue during conversion. Translation out of the mother tongue is characterized by conversion difficulties at word level and reliance on external resources in decision-making. There is no clear association between the quality of translation and directionality. This is perhaps the first TAP study in Taiwan that includes native speakers of English. The result indicates that the translation process varies within the group, which may be explained by the different Chinese proficiency levels and the degree of topic familiarity of the participants.