| Since 1980 s, translatology abroad has begun the studies on empirical translation process with the psychological research method think-alouds. In the 21 st century, the process-oriented translation research are mainly carried out with the combination of key-logging and think-alouds on the basis of triangulation, and the impact of cognition on translation process has attracted great attention. Translation unit(TU)has always been a focus in translation research, yet the process-oriented TU research in China is rare and mainly carried out by means of think-alouds. In addition, most of TU research, in the translation of long Chinese attributes, is limited to the product-oriented studies and the impact of cognition on TUs is not explored empirically. Non-syntactic segments in most of the process-oriented TU research are neglected and division of non-syntactic segments is rarely done.On the basis of triangulation, this research aimed first to describe TUs in scope and proportion used by 18 first-year graduates in the process of translating long Chinese attributes into English and then investigate how TUs were influenced by working memory(WM) capacity and task complexity(TC) by collecting qualitative and quantitative data by means of key-logging, think-aloud protocols(TAPs),screen-recording, and interviews. This empirical study was carried out with WM capacity as between-subject variable(Low and High WMG) and TC as within-subject variable(Low, Mid and High CTs). Tests of within-subjects effects and between-subjects effects were performed using a 2×3 analysis of variance by SPSS17.0.The main findings are as follows. Firstly, subjects used not only syntactic segments but also non-syntactic segments in translation processes and they generally tended to select Word, Phrase and Phrase+Phrase TUs in translation. Secondly, the effect of TC on percentages of such TUs was significant as Words, Phrases,Phrase+Words, Clause+Phrases and Sentences. With the increase of TC, more processing energy in the limited WM capacity may be demanded and less processingresource may be left to meet the cognitive demands tasks make on the subjects. Thus,TUs turned smaller in size and more in proportion. TUs such as Words, Phrases,Phrase+Words and Clause+Phrases went up more or less in proportion, while Sentences witnessed a sharp fall in proportion. Thirdly, the effect of WM capacity on TU scopes and percentages was insignificant. With the increase of TC, subjects’ online cognitive resources may not meet the cognitive demands tasks make on subjects and the long-term memory may be linked to enlarge the WM capacity. The semantic knowledge and syntactic principles in long-term memory influence the selection of TUs. TU distributions in translating Mid and High CTs were similar.Fourthly, the interaction effect of TC and WM capacity on TU scopes and percentages did not reach statistical significance.The study has implications for translation teaching. TC influences subjects’ cognitive efforts in selecting TUs and it would be better for teachers to progressively increase the cognitive demands of pedagogic tasks; the insignificant effect of WM capacity on TU scopes and percentages might suggest that more field practice in translation and more reading be needed to enrich students’ long-term memory.Pedagogically, this study advances the introduction of Translog and Camtasia into translation teaching, which would help teachers and students analyze translation processes and improve translation teaching. Theoretically, the present study contributes to establishing the relationship between TUs and TC and WM capacity,and promotes theoretical exploration of translation patterns related to TUs.There are also some shortcomings in this study. The number of subjects in each WM group is less than 15 and the impact of TC on TUs is investigated only from textual aspect of the task. Therefore, the present study is only an empirical exploration of the process of translating long Chinese attributes into English. |
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