A Survey On The Translation Skills Used By HTVE Students

Translation has always been an important question concerned by many theorists. Translation skills also attract much attention. As for Chinese HTVE students, translation is a big problem in their English study. Therefore HTVE students'translation skills are a question that deserves exploring.This study uses a questionnaire, which is based on the V diagram of translation skills of Peter Newmark, to investigate 116 HTVE students about their translation beliefs and translation skills. Furthermore, the results are analyzed and discussed.The results are the following: First, on one hand the students have a firm belief that translation should be a skill and a science, on the other hand they also tend to believe that translation should be an art. Secondly, there is a satisfactory response to the usage of translation skills. Thirdly, there is a higher response to the helpfulness of translation skills. Fourthly, Free Translation, Semantic Translation and Idiomatic Translation are the most frequently used ones. While the two least used skills are Adaptation and Literal Translation. Fifthly, Semantic Translation, Free Translation and Communicative Translation are considered the most helpful ones, while Word-for-word Translation and Literal Translation are considered the least helpful ones. Sixthly, there are congruity and incongruity between the usage and helpfulness of the skills.Through analysis, the paper also draws some implications for HTVE college English teaching. For examples, introducing and trying more translation skills during translation teaching; helping the students establish a multi-dimensional and inter-related translation system of their own; helping students gain control and management over their own translation practicing and becoming autonomous English learners and so on.There are five chapters in this paper. Chapter One provides a brief introduction which states the purpose and the layout of the paper.Chapter Two reviews the main theories of translation and the development of HTVE in China.Chapter Three presents the research questions of the paper. It illustrates the method adopted in this study, consisting of the design of the questionnaire, the description of the subjects, the procedure and the data analysis.Chapter Four is about the analysis of the research results. Firstly, the students'beliefs and overall pattern of translation are examined. Secondly the most and least used and helpful skills used by the students are discussed.Finally, a comparison between the usage and helpfulness of the skills is made.Chapter Five is the conclusion of the whole research. It sums up the findings of the research and provides some suggestions for the future English teaching of the HTVE colleges.