The Cultivation Of Intercultural Awareness In Translation Teaching

In recent years, the concept of intercultural awareness in translation teaching has gained more and more attention with many scholars having reached agreement on its importance. With the rapid development of science and technology, people in the world get more and more opportunities to communicate with each other, so intercultural communication is becoming an inseparable part of people's life today. As an intercultural communication, translation plays an important role in intercultural communication. Language is closely related to culture and is also an important channel for the spreading of cultural information. Unavoidably, when translating one language into another, we will come across a lot of words and sentences with rich cultural connotation. Therefore, translation involves language as well as culture.The development of science and technology in different times sets a different demand on foreign language teaching. The cultivation of students'intercultural awareness in translation teaching is more significant than in foreign language teaching. It is necessary and urgent to cultivate students'intercultural awareness in translation teaching nowadays. However, considering the present situation of translation teaching in China, both teachers and students do not pay enough attention to the cultivation of intercultural awareness in translation activities. Many students throw more efforts on the learning of translation skills, but neglect cultural elements in it. At the same time, teachers emphasize theoretical explanation and skills training, with far less attention on the delivering of cultural information. They seldom analyze cultural phenomena or put them to the translation practice. As a result, the students'cultural knowledge and intercultural awareness are very weak. They still have many difficulties when doing translation practice concerning cultural problems, and their intercultural communicative competence are still very low.This thesis deals with how to cultivate students'intercultural awareness in translation teaching. To investigate the current situation of the students'cultural knowledge and intercultural awareness, the author undertakes a comprehensive and thorough scrutiny into the students'cultural knowledge and their intercultural awareness. Altogether 85 fourth-year college English majors and 15 translation teachers who have at least three years of teaching experience were randomly selected as subjects of the investigation. They were from three different universities in Shandong province (Shandong University, Shandong Normal University, Shandong Jianzhu University). Based on the translating test and two questionnaires, which were administrated to collect data to test and investigate the students'cultural knowledge and intercultural awareness and the current situation of translation teaching, the author provides some suggestions and approaches on how to cultivate students'intercultural awareness in translation teaching.The analysis of the translating test and questionnaires indicated that: 1) the students made many mistakes in the translating test mainly because of lacking of cultural knowledge and intercultural awareness. 2) The students haven't paid much attention to intercultural awareness in translation teaching although they have realized its importance and necessity. 3) The teachers haven't paid enough attention to cultivating students'intercultural awareness in translation teaching. 4) The teachers'main methods on how to cultivate students'intercultural awareness in translation teaching are not satisfactory.Based on the investigation and analysis, the author proposes some approaches for cultivating students'intercultural awareness in translation teaching, such as, doing cultural comparison in translation class, using materials concerning cultural problems, adopting student-centered teaching methods, using films, television, lectures, reading literary works, newspapers, magazines and journals, and intercultural communication after class.In a word, the study proves that it is important and significant to cultivate students'intercultural awareness in translation teaching and also arouses teachers'attention to it. As we know, translation is not a simple matter of transferring from one language into another; in fact, it is dealing with two cultures. That is to say, teachers have to pay more attention to the teaching of cultural knowledge and the cultivation of students'intercultural awareness in translation class, since rich cultural knowledge and intercultural awareness are the basic foundation for the students to do translation well so as to develop their translation competence and intercultural communicative competence in essence.