An Empirical Study On Developing EFL Students' Professional Competence In A Translation Project

Based on literature studies, the paper proposes the definition of professional competence (PC) in translation, and then focuses on the components of PC in its narrow sense. The present empirical study intends to explore the feasibility of developing EFL students'PC in a translation project, and the relationship between students'professional competence in translation and the quality of their translated texts. A group of 16 fourth-year students in the college of electric and information engineering are randomly chosen as the subjects of the study. They are required to complete the Professional Competence Questionnaire at the beginning of the project (the first stage) and at the end of the project (the second stage). At the same time, in order to assess the quality of students'translated texts, the client of the translation project is required to complete the Quality Assessment Questionnaire at the first stage and at the second stage of the project. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, version 13.0) is employed to analyze the data. Through comparative analyses and correlation analyses of the raw data, the author observes the following tentative findings:(1) The students in the present study have made a remarkable progress in their overall professional competence in translation.(2) The improvement range of the components of PC in translation is in a hierarchic rank. The top three components of PC in translation that are best developed are: Ethics, Interpersonal Communication Skills and Translation Resources, followed by Physical and Psychological Conditions, Training, Working Attitudes and Behaviors (the students'working attitudes have been improved greatly, such as being modest and cooperative in their work, but their working behaviors are still undesirable in that they are not sensitive to their own rights) and finally Quality Management Skills.(3) The students in the present study have made a remarkable progress in the quality of their translated texts, which helps testify the positive role of the authentic translation experience in cultivating EFL students'PC in translation.(4) After the translation project, a positive correlation has also been demonstrated between the PC in translation and the quality of the translated texts, though some correlations are low and not significant due to the small size of subjects in the study. Ethics, Interpersonal Communication Skills and Translation Resources are the top three components that have significant positive correlations with the quality of the translated texts.Findings drawn from the present study account for its pedagogical implications as stated below.Firstly, it is crucial to bring translation projects into the academic environment. By increasing students'sense of responsibility and raising their interests, real-life situations increase the likelihood that students would be more engaged in their learning and thus invest more efforts and time on learning.Secondly, teachers should focus on developing the components of PC in translation that are significantly correlated with the translation quality, namely, Ethics, Interpersonal Communication Skills and Translation Resources; and try to act as the active project managers and the facilitators to create a more favorable environment for the students'acquisition of other components of PC in translation, which the students fail to acquire by themselves in the translation project.Thirdly, those components of PC in translation that can be best developed in the translation project and also are positively correlated with the translation quality should be attached great importance to translation teaching, namely, Ethics, Interpersonal Communication Skills and Translation Resources.