Cultivation Of Vocational College Students’ Intercultural Awareness In English Translation Teaching

With the economic globalization,information transmission between different cultures becomes more and more frequent,and the intercultural awareness becomes very important.Translation is the way to transfer information between two different languages and cultures.Therefore,more and more attention is being put on translation inevitably.There is no doubt that one of the objectives of English teaching is to cultivate students’ intercultural awareness.Under the circumstances of further improvement of English education reform,English teaching needs to meet the new requirements.Good translation sets a bridge between two different cultures.However,the present situation of English translation teaching is not optimistic.Not much emphasis is paid on cultivating learners’ intercultural awareness in the translation teaching.Learners in vocational colleges usually focus on the mastery of translation skills and ignore the learning of cultural knowledge.Meanwhile teachers overemphasize the translation theory and skills without paying due attention to intercultural knowledge,analyzing cultural phenomena and comparing them in the course of practical translation.Therefore,to develop learners’ intercultural awareness in English translation teaching is of great significance.The thesis aims to analyze the current situation of the cultivation of vocational college students’ intercultural awareness in English translation teaching in order to find out the existing problems,some constructive suggestions and approaches based on the investigation are put forward.In the research,the author selects 190 freshmen of non-English majors with intermediate English level to participate in the investigation,as well as 10 English teachers who have been teaching college English for at least 10 years.Prior to the investigation,the students are divided into two separate classes: the Controlled Class and the Experimental Class,each having 95 students.The study consists of three periods.The first period is a pre-test.There are a questionnaire,a social-cultural test and a translation assignment for the students of the two classes as well as a questionnaire for teachers to acquaint the intercultural awareness of students.The purpose is to know about the situation of students’ cultural knowledge and translating competence.The second period is the implementation of cultural teaching methods in the experimental class and traditional teaching approaches in the controlled class for one semester.In the third period,the author conducts a post-test,a social-cultural test and a translation assignment of the controlled class and the experimental class.A questionnaire is also carried out.Finally,according to the statistics and comparisons with the pre-test and the post-test between the experimental class and the controlled class.By analyzing the collected data,the results clearly show that the implementation of integrated cultural teaching methods in English translation teaching is effective in improving students’ intercultural awareness.By analyzing the assessments,the results are as follows:(a)The learners make mistakes in the practical translation due to lacking intercultural awareness and culture information.(b)The learners have learned the significance but they haven’t put enough emphasis on the translation practice.(c)Teachers have not realized the importance of cultivating students’ intercultural awareness in translation practice.(d)Teachers’ teaching approaches on developing learners’ cross-cultural awareness are dissatisfying.As for cultivating the intercultural awareness of the learners in translation,the author puts forward several methods according to the analysis of the survey,such as providing cultural comparison in the translation class,taking learner-oriented teaching approach and encouraging multiple forms of learning translation skills,etc.All in all,translation is not merely an easy activity of one language into another;it is the transformation between two different cultures.Teachers should be aware that it is significant and necessary to develop learners’ intercultural awareness and to procreate the attention of teachers’ intercultural awareness essentially.