An Empirical Study On The Impacts Of Student Translators' Translational LTA On Translation Quality

Logical thinking ability is a well-developed term in psychology, philosophy and education. Nevertheless, as an important component of translation competence, LTA is seldom mentioned. By introducing LTA into translation studies, this thesis attempts to put forward the notion of Translational LTA. Furthermore, an empirical research is made, through qualitative and quantitative analyses, to probe into the impacts of student translators'Translational LTA on their translation quality by instruments of questionnaire, TAPs, observation notes and post-interviews.The thesis is intended to tackle the following questions. (1) What is the status quo of student translators'Translational LTA? (2) How is student translators'Translational LTA reflected in the translation process? (3)How does student translators'Translational LTA affect their translation quality?The findings are as follows:(1) Firstly, student translators' Translational LTA is divided into four levels, namely TS>80, 70<TS<80%,60%<TS<70 and TS<60%, respectively 3.3%,38.3%,51.6% and 6.7%. Secondly, great discrepancy exists among student translators in Translational LTA. And the top three elements with the greatest differences are systematicity, analyticity and inference. (2) Student translators' Translational LTA is embodied in stages of planning, comprehending, transferring and monitoring. Moreover, elements of Translational LTA in every stage are explored and individual differences are depicted. (3) Translation quality falls into three group, i.e. the higher, lower and medium quality group. Members in the first group have better Translational LTA. They do not exert too much time en energy in comprehending but in transferring and monitoring. The lower quality group members have relatively weaker Translational LTA, and they would devote the most effort in comprehending but the least in monitoring.This thesis is an interdisciplinary and exploratory research, combining methods of theoretical exploration and empirical research. Theoretically, the conception of Translational LTA is proposed and its dimensions defined. Empirically, in terms of the measuring instruments, the routinely used questionnaires are designed. Furthermore, the think-aloud protocols, a way to explore the participants'cognitive thinking, are adopted to probe into their Translational LTA during the translation process.