Empirical Research Of Think-aloud Protocol In Translation Process

The present study makes an effort to explore the relationship between the application of translationstrategy and translation results, the selection of translation units and translation task, and contributes to adeeper understanding of the application of translation strategy and translation unit. Translation is aspecial cognitive activity, for its inner process can be displayed by the protocols of subjects. So thisthesis uses the TAP to explore the inner process of translation.This thesis discusses the definition of TAP, the development of TAP and affective factorssystematically. There are ten subjects who are from the North University of China, five undergraduatesand the others postgraduates. The data are collected from the subjects’self-report of their translating byuse of TAP. Then, associated with questionnaires and interviews, the data are analyzed both qualitativelyand quantitatively, paying attention to the application of translation strategy and translation units in thetranslating process.In the end, the following conclusion is drawn: (1) In the translating process, high proficiencysubjects and low proficiency subjects have some similarities in the application of the monitoring and theevaluation of meta-cognitive strategy. There are some differences in the application of the plan andmanagement of meta-cognitive strategy. (2) In the translating process, high proficiency subjects aremore likely use clauses and sentences as the units of translation; while low proficiency subjects are morelikely to use words and phrases. (3) In the translating process, high proficiency subjects and lowproficiency subjects employ different models of cognitive process when they deal with differenttranslation problems.In conclusion, the management of meta-cognitive strategy have an important influence ontranslation results among four aspects of meta-cognitive strategy. The plan of meta-cognitive strategy isin a relatively less important status. Therefore, in the training of meta-cognitive strategy, we wouldbetter to concentrate on training the plan of meta-cognitive strategy and the management ofmeta-cognitive strategy. Subjects tend to use larger units more frequently as the subject’s level oflanguage rises. Meanwhile, translator’s use of translation units is closely related to the difficulty of thetranslation task: the more difficult the task is, the smaller the translation unit is.The thesis plays a certain role in helping discover the nature of translation process and provides theoretical and practical implications for English teachers and students. The findings make contributionsto the development of translators. At the same time, more empirical investigations and quantitative dataare still demanding in this field with a larger research sample.