A Research On Applying English-Chinese Mutual Complementary Translation In Teaching Translation Focusing On Improvement Of Undergraduates’ Proficiency In Translation

Some investigations indicate that it is rare to combine English-Chinesetranslation with Chinese-English translation together at the same time in the presentChina and abroad. In order to improve translation teaching efficiency and try a newway, this dissertation put forward and explored a translation teaching method, namedthe English-Chinese mutual complementary translation teaching method (ECM forshort), tries to describe an experiment on applying ECM, in an attempt to examinewhether using this method is helpful for undergraduates to acquire translationproficiency more effectively.ECM is a translation teaching method that takes advantage of bothback-translation and contrastive analysis, in the way of doing Chinese-Englishexercises for practicing English-Chinese translation, or verse visa, aiming atimproving the undergraduates’ translation proficiency more effectively. In theprocess of the implications of ECM, undergraduates experience the languagedifferences of Chinese and English through the strategy of back-translation toachieve twice contrastive analysis. In other words, translation proficiency is acquiredin one period not two.The author selected respectively29and30students from two parallel juniorclasses of English Majors from Zhangzhou Normal University as the subjects byreference to their existing record and a pretest following, and then randomly selectedClass2as control group, Class1as the experimental group. The experimental timefor instruction lasted14weeks. The experimental class adopted the ECM, while thecontrolled class has been conducted respectively Chinese-English for7weeks andEnglish-Chinese for7weeks. After the experiment, a post-test and questionnaire aswell as an interview were carried out. With the help of SPSS16.0, the results wereanalyzed quantitatively and qualitatively.Based on the results of experiment, questionnaire and interview, the followingsix findings come up except for the last one.(1) The differences of English andChinese can be perceptible more impressively in the process of applying ECM.（2） The translation techniques can be acquired in the process of applying ECM.(3)ECM can improve undergraduates’ translation proficiency, and it is more effectivethan the traditional separated one.(4) ECM is more effective than the separated oneto change the status quo of the undergraduates’ Chinglish.(5) Because of lack ofexisting materials applied ECM, it is a higher requirement for teachers to integratethe materials. Meanwhile, students may be at a loss on the problem of how topreview and review because they do not adapt to this method at first.(6) Someundergraduates who attach great importance to Chinese learning can get higher scorein the test of Chinese-English translation.(7) Whether ECM is suitable for allundergraduates who have different translation proficiency can not be answered.A set of practical suggestions are recommended in light of these findings at theend of this dissertation. However, there are some shortcomings in this dissertationbecause of the limited conditions and lack of some certain ability. For example,whether ECM is suitable for all undergraduates with different translation proficiency,and how to verify it? How to integrate existing materials for applying ECM? What ismore, the experimental time for instruction is not sufficient so that the improvementof translation proficiency have turned out not to be as obvious as was expected. Last,the sample is not big enough. Above factors are recommended to be carried out tofurther explore the efficiency of applying ECM.