Research On The Relationship Between Self-efficacy And Translation Levels For The Students Of Master Of Translation And Interpreting

In the context of globalization, both country and individual are becoming more activein the foreign exchange. As the bridge of foreign exchange, the translators and theinterpreters contribute to the effects of the foreign exchange. Their translation capacitydetermines whether the foreign exchange is successful. Thus, it is important to improve thecapacity of the translators and the interpreters. Under this circumstance, the degree ofMTI(Master of Translation and Interpreting) springs up and keeps on developing. Theconsideration of how to improve the teaching quality of MTI and the capacity of MTIstudents attracts more attention of both MTI teachers and students. It is of great necessityto improve the translation capability of MTI students.“Self-efficacy”is the conviction, judgment and feelings of the individual on his ownbehavior before he conducts something (Bandura,1977:191). Research has found thatself-efficacy can promote the students’ initiative to learn. And high self-efficacy studentsare more willing to take challenges and have the ability to learn better. Thus, the studyaimed to learn the relationship between self-efficacy and translation capacity. The studyused Bandura’s “self-efficacy” theory as its theoretical foundation, and tried to analyze:1)the relationship between self-efficacy and translation levels;2) group difference onself-efficacy between the participants of higher and lower self-efficacy.The study combined library research with an empirical study. First, according to thetheory of “self-efficacy” and the Translation Capacity Scale of PACTE,“Questionnaire onTranslation Self-efficacy on MTI students” was compiled. Data on Translation levels andself-efficacy level on translation were collected from2013MTI postgraduates of BeijingInternational Studies University. By using SPSS, the correlation analysis and T testanalysis were conducted.Through the correlation analysis, the research found that the correlation betweenself-efficacy and translation score was0.682. The correlation between bilingualcompetence and translation score was0.462. The correlation between encyclopedicknowledge competence, the translation professional knowledge, tool use, strategy use, thepsychophysiological factors, and translation score were respectively0.506、0.507、0.531，0.388and0.491. So, the self-efficacy on encyclopedic knowledge, translation professionalknowledge, tool use and psychophysiological factors are highly related to translationscores. And the self-efficacy on strategy use is not related to translation score. Through Ttest analysis, the research found that p vlues of self-efficacy of the encyclopedicknowledge, tool use and psychophysiological factors are0.02,0.00and0.02, thus, the group of higher translation scores is better in self-efficacy on the encyclopedic knowledge,tool use and psychophysiological factors than the group of lower translation scores.The above findings indicate self-efficacy on translation is related to their translationscores for MTI students. The teachers can improve the translation scores of the students byimproving their self-efficacy on the encyclopedic knowledge, tool use andpsychophysiological factors. On the basis of factors of self-efficacy promoted by Bandura,the study then presents eight steps to improve self-efficacy of MTI students.