A Report On The Translation Of TOEFL 2000 Writing Framework:A Working Paper

In recent years,writing assessment,as a part of the comprehensive test of foreign language proficiency,especially the large-scale and standardized test,has been paid increasingly more attention by language testers,foreign language teachers and the government officials in the education sector.Writing assessment plays a critical role in evaluating language learners' ability to use language.However,little has been done on Chinese translation of the writing assessment literature.As translating foreign writing assessment literature may provide valuable insights to language testing researchers and practitioners at home,therefore,it is of great importance to translate documents related to foreign writing tests.This is an English-Chinese translation report.The original English text is TOEFL 2000 Writing Framework: A Working Paper(Cumming,Kantor,Powers,Santos & Taylor,2000)written by five language testing scholars at Educational Testing Service in the U.S.Beginning with conceptualizing writing proficiency,this manuscript establishes a working framework for the development of the TOEFL 2000 writing test and explains some important and fundamental concepts(such as test domain,task characteristics,scoring methods,etc.)during the process.In addition,the manuscript proposes a research agenda that contains several research topics valuable for test development so as to provide guidance for future research on writing tests.Needless to say,it is the cornerstone of the development of the TOEFL writing test and enjoys an authoritative status.As a professional report on writing assessment,this manuscript belongs to academic text,which is characterized by its massive use of passive voice and complex syntactic structure.It quotes a fairly large number of language testing literature,not only involving massive technical terms in the field of language testing,but also encompassing a large collection of proper nouns related to the TOEFL test.In view of the type and characteristics of the source text and in order to allow target readers to better understand the design principles of the TOEFL writing test,Newmark's communicative translation theory is chosen to guide the translation practice.The translation strategies are discussed at lexical,syntactical and textual levels.At lexical level,for the translation of terminologies and proper nouns,the author mainly adopted three kinds of translation methods,including diction based on background knowledge,the combination of literal translation and annotation,and creative translation based on the connotation of terms.In addition,the author also summarized the translation methods for other general vocabulary commonly used in the translation process,which include diction,omission,addition and conversion.At syntactical level,for the translation of passive voice and complex syntactic structure that frequently appear in academic text,the author mainly adopted the translation methods of voice conversion and structural adjustment.At textual level,in order to make the translation more in line with the logic and clarity of the academic text,the author used the skills of cohesion and coherence as well as substitution to modify the translation product.This report describes the translation process in detail in order to provide useful experience for future translators.These experiences include,for example,the use of translation tools,the selection and application of translation theories and techniques,and the process of specific translated texts.The translation report consists of four parts.Part one is about task description.It introduces the research background,source text,objective,significance and framework of the translation report.Part two is process description comprising pre-translation,during-translation and posttranslation.It includes the selection of translation tools,theories and strategies,the understanding of the source language and the organization of the target language,the key points and difficulties during the translation process,proofreading of the translation product and the glossary of terms.Part three is concerned with the analysis of translation cases at lexical level,syntactical level and textual level.The last part is conclusion,mainly summarizing major findings gained in the translation process,limitaions of the report and related suggestions.