Learners’ Translation Improvement

In order to understand to what extent a bilingual referencing tool could help learners’ translation performance improve and what part, including vocabulary and grammar, improved the most, participants’ answers in pretest and posttest were analyzed and compared. Only the two experimental groups’ tests results were compared.

In each group, ten participants’ translation answers were randomly selected and their

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answers to translation questions were analyzed. The comparison is as follows.

1. Question 1

It was found that learners’ errors in question 1 mainly focused on the phrase, “玉 山 (Mt. Jade) ”and “生態多樣性 (ecological diversity).” Hence, they were the main focuses of the comparison of Question 1. Table 4.8 shows the comparison of participants’ answers to the two phrases. According to Table 4.8, nine participants in Concordancer Alpha Group could not translate “玉山” correctly, but only 2 of them were able to produce correct translation in the posttest. This is probably due to the fact that the corpus of Concordancer Alpha is based on English-speaking TV series and movies subtitles. One of the disadvantages of subtitle-based corpus was that it might not contain words that were more country-specific, such as geographical names.

Another focus of comparison in Question 1 was whether learners could produce

“ecological diversity,” a proper noun which refers to a type of bio-diversity. All participants could not translate the term correctly in the pretest. Since Concordancer Alpha provided equivalents of the term, all ten participants in concordance Alpha Group could correctly translate it in the posttest. By contrast, it was observed that all participants in Yahoo Dictionary Group wrote “bio-diversity” in the posttest. This was probably because Yahoo Dictionary only returned this phrase even though these two terms do not actually mean the same thing. Although Yahoo Dictionary provided more detailed explanation for the term, it seemed that learners simply copied down the phrase without differentiating the differences between the two terms.

Table 4.8 The Comparison of Participants’ Translations in Question 1 Chinese Question：玉山是東亞第一高峰，以生態多樣性聞名。

Suggested English translation: Mt. Jade is the highest mountain in East Asia, and it is known for its ecological diversity.

Main focus of the comparison: whether learners could translate “玉山” and “生態

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For Question 2, the main focus of the analysis was learners’ translation for “反對 (opposition)” and whether they could use the target translation with the required sentence pattern. As Table 4.9 illustrates, 4 out of 10 participants in Concordancer Alpha Group whose answers were wrong in the pretest could produce acceptable answers for “遭到反對 (being opposed)” in the posttest. However, six out of ten participants in Concordancer groups failed to use the target translation with correct sentence patterns. On the other hand, although 4 out of 10 participants in Yahoo Dictionary groups whose answers were wrong in the pretest could translate the target phrase correctly in the posttest, 3 remained wrong in the posttest. Moreover, 2 participants whose translation for “反對” were correct in the pretest turned out to produce wrong translation in the posttest. Although many participants were able to find the translations from the referencing tools, such as “opposed” ‘object” “objection” or

“are against,” their answers were still wrong because many of them failed to identify the part of speech or the usage of the target word in the results provided by the referencing tools. To illustrate, Table 4.9 also listed participants’ errors in the posttest.

Table 4.9 The Comparison of Participants’ Translations in Question 2

Chinese Question：雖然遭到許多癮君子的反對，這項規定對不抽煙的人的確 是一大福音。

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Suggested English translation: Although being opposed by many chain/ heavy smokers, this rule is indeed good news for non-smokers.

Main focus of the comparison: whether learners could produce correct translation for “反對” correctly..

Errors found in the posttest of participants in Concordancer Alpha Group Although many smokers against it

Although many smokers againsted it Although it is against by many smokers Although getting many smokers’ against, Although getting many addicts’ object,

Errors found in the answers of participants in Yahoo Dictionary Group Although we suffer from lots of against from smokers,

Although suffer many smokers’ oppose, Although suffer many smokers to oppose, Although it opposed by many smokers,

According to Table 9, two participants whose answers were correct in pretest but wrong in posttest actually both used “opposition” with the correct usage in the pretest.

However, since the query of “反對” in Yahoo Dictionary returned “to oppose” and “to be against,” they changed their answers to “smoker’s oppose” and “were against by smokers” in the posttest. These errors occurred probably because they both relied on and trusted the results given by the dictionary without performing further search on the word usage or the part of speech of the target word.

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3. Question 3

The main focus of the comparison in Question 3 included whether students could produce “In addition to” or “Besides” and whether students could use gerund after these two prepositional phrases. The former focused on students’ improvement in vocabulary and collocation, while the latter in grammar. Table 4.10 shows the comparison of participants’ answers in the two tests. As Table 4.10 displays, in Concordancer Alpha Group, among six participants who made errors in translating “除了讀書 (In addition to studying),” five of them could use the target translation and put gerund after the prepositional phrase. However, in Yahoo Dictionary Group, among 7 whose answers were incorrect, only 2 learners produced correct translations in the posttest. Moreover, 2 learners who could produce correct translation changed their answers to incorrect one in the posttest. To further investigate this situation, their answers were analyzed. It was found that a majority of them used “except” instead of “besides” or “in addition.” This was because the first equivalent shown in the search phrase results of “除了” was

“except.” In addition to using the wrong prepositional phrase, many of the participants in Yahoo Dictionary did not use gerund after “except” or “in addition to.” It seemed that participants in Yahoo Dictionary Group did not perform further search on the equivalents the dictionary had provided them, so they could not understand the differences in these phrases. Also, since Yahoo Dictionary did not provide any example sentences when queried in Chinese, learners could not know that these prepositional phrases should be followed by gerund.

Another main focus of the observation in Question 3 is whether learners could produce collocation, including “gain knowledge,” “obtain knowledge” and “acquire knowledge.” Among 9 participants in Concordancer Alpha Group whose translations were wrong in the pretest, 7 of them could use the correct verb in the posttest, while 2

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remained incorrect. In Yahoo Dictionary Group, among 8 participants whose translation was wrong in the pretest, only 3 of them produce correct equivalents in the posttest.

However, some errors the other five participants’ made were not related to the wrong verb choice. Instead, they used the plural form of “knowledge” though the word is actually an uncountable noun.

Table 4.10 The Comparison of Participants’ Translations in Question 3

Chinese Question：除了用功讀書獲取知識外，學生也應該培養獨立思考

的能力。

Suggested English translation: In addition to studying hard to gain knowledge, students should also develop the ability to think independently.

Main focus of the comparison: whether learners could translate “除了” and “獲取 知識” correctly and whether they could use gerund after prepositional phrases, “in addition to” and “besides.

In Question 4, learners’ use of the sentence pattern “not only…but also…” was analyzed. As the grammatical rules stipulates, the words that follow this correlative conjunction should belong to the same parts of speech. In the pretest, a majority of participants failed to follow the rule of parallelism. As illustrated in Table 4.11, among nine participants in the Concordancer Alpha Group who used the sentence incorrectly, 4 corrected the errors, while the other 5 still did not apply parallel structure. On the other hand, among 8 participants in the Yahoo Dictionary Group who had grammatical

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errors with the sentence patterns, only 2 of them corrected the errors, while the other 6 remained incorrect. This improvement was not satisfying, compared with their improvements in lexical items, such as “ecological diversity” and “gain knowledge,” as shown in previous analysis. It is possible that students might not be aware of the errors they made, so they did not search for its use in the referencing tools. Even if they did, it was found that the referencing tools might not provide adequate assistance. For example, when queried “不但(not only)” in Concordancer Alpha, truncated sentences were shown with the half part of the sentences omitted, which hindered the learners from finding the rule of parallelism in the sentence pattern. If queried “不但…還…(not only…but also…),” no result was found. Only when participants query “not only but also” could they find a few results that show them how this correlative conjunction was used. Similarly, when queried “ 不 但 (not only)” in Yahoo Dictionary, only its equivalents were shown, without any example sentence that could demonstrate the usage of this conjunction. Only if learners query “not only but also” will two example sentences be shown. The lack of sufficient example sentences in both referencing tools might have contributed to participants’ limited sentential improvement in Question 4.

Another focus of the observation in Question 4 was whether learners could write the phrase, “文化特色(cultural characteristics.)” In the pretest, some learners could not write “cultural,” “characteristics” or “features,” and some simply misused “character”

in their translation. According to Table 4.11, in Concordancer Alpha Group, 6 out of 9 participants who failed to write “cultural” in the pretest were able to write the correct word in the posttest. However, only 2 out of 9 participants in Concordancer Alpha Group who could not write “characteristics” and “features” were able to write the target translation in the posttest. Because the target translations, including characteristics and features, appeared at the bottom of the results in the concordancer, students might not

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have spotted them in the results and used other words shown more frequently in the results that were not context- appropriate.

By contrast, when queried “ 特 色 (characteristics)” in Yahoo Dictionary, participants were shown the two target translation, characteristic and feature, which was probably why there were 7 out of 9 who were able to produce the target translation in the posttest. However, when participants in Yahoo Dictionary Group searched for “文 化,” the results only showed “culture.” But actually in “ 文 化 特 色 (cultural characteristics),” the word “文化” was adjective. Since the leaners failed to consider the part of speech of the target word they were searching, it was probable that the participants in Yahoo Dictionary Group were not aware of the part of speech of the results they obtained and therefore did not use the adjective “cultural.” On the other hand, the query of “文化” in Concordancer Alpha returned abundant example sentences containing “culture” and “cultural.” Since participants could see how these two words were used respectively and collocated with other words in example sentences, they were more likely to choose the correct translation.

Table 4.11 The Comparison of Participants’ Translations in Question 4

Chinese Question：我們不但應該參與國際性的活動，並且應該展現我們

自己的文化特色。

Suggested English translation: We should not only participate in international activities, but also exhibit our own cultural characteristics.

Main focus of the comparison: whether learners could use sentence pattern “not only…but also…” correctly and whether they could translate “文化特色.”

Phrases Group

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YD 10 0 0 0

characteristics CA 7 1 2 0

YD 2 1 7 0

5. Question 5

In Question 5, most learners’ errors were mostly lay in the phrase, “探索奧秘 (explore the mystery).” Most learners misused the verb “discover” instead of “explore.”

To examine whether learners were able to produce the expected equivalents in the posttest, learners’ translation of “探索奧秘(explore the mystery)” was analyzed. As illustrated in Table 4.12, among 10 participants in the Concordancer Alpha Group who did not successfully translate “探索(explore)” in the pretest, 9 of them were able to produce target translation in their posttest. For Yahoo Dictionary Group, among 8 participants who made errors in the pretest, 7 of them were able to produce the target translation, “explore,” in the posttest.

Since most learners could not translate “奧秘(mystery)” in the pretest, another focus of the comparison in Question 5 is whether learners could produce the translation of “奧秘” that could collocate with “explore” in the posttest. All 8 participants in the Concordancer Alpha Group who failed to translate the word were found to produce target translation in the posttest. Similarly, all 9 participants in the Yahoo Dictionary Group who could not translate the word correctly were able to correct the errors in the posttest. It could be concluded that the two referencing tools were both effective in helping learners to retrieve target translation, “mystery.”

It should be noted that in Question 5, most leaners used sentence structures that were different from the one in the suggested answer in the pretest, and these sentence structures were not revised in the posttest. Some of them turned out to have subtly

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different meaning from the original Chinese sentence, and some of them were grammatically incorrect. Table 4.12 lists several example. This result suggested that these two referencing tools were less effective in helping learners to determining corresponding sentence structure so as to produce a sentence to express the same meaning as the source sentence.

Table 4.12 The Comparison of Participants’ Translations in Question 5

Chinese Question：太空科技的快速發展，使我們得以探索外太空的奧秘。

Suggested English translation: The rapid development of space technology enables us to explore the mystery of outer space.

Main focus of the comparison: whether learners could translate “探索…奧秘.”

Phrases Group

1. Space technology develops fast and lead us to explore the mystery of outer space.

2. With the rapid development of space technology, we are allowed to discover the secret of the outer space.

3. Fast development of space technology made us/let us can explore the mystery of outer space.

4. Space technology develops quickly, so we can explore the mystery of outer space.

6. Question 6

In Question 6, whether learners could use “present perfect tense” in the sentence was analyzed. In this analysis, since the main focus was tense, whether learners could produce the equivalent of “造成(cause)” was not discussed. As shown in Table 4.13,

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among 8 participants in the Concordancer Alpha Group who did not use present perfect tense in the sentence, 3 participants corrected the errors, while the other 5 still did not use present perfect tense. On the other hand, among 8 participants in the Yahoo Dictionary Group who did not apply the expected tense in the pretest, only 2 of them corrected the errors, while the other 6 remained incorrect. It appeared that tense-related error was not corrected even though students had referencing tool at hand. There are two reasons that might be able to provide explanation for this finding. First, it is possible that students focused only on translating lexical items and did not notice the word, “已,”

which usually represents perfect tenses in Chinese, hence not using perfect tense in their translation. Second, it is also possible that students did not know that the word “已”

usually required them to use perfect tense. Finally, even if learners searched the word

“已” in the respective referencing tools, there was a chance that the results did not trigger them to use present perfect tense. In Concordancer Alpha, the query “已”

showed two equivalents in the translation box, including “have” with more than six hundred results and “already” with more than one hundred results. In the results of

“have,” learners could see the use of present or past perfect tense, which could probably remind learners to use perfect tense in their translation. However, not all the results of

“already” contained the use of perfect tense. In brief, the results in Concordancer Alpha did not necessarily helped learners to determine what tense they should apply. On the other hand, in Yahoo Dictionary, the query “已” only returned “already” and “(used in old times) to end.” In this case, it was highly probable that the results in Yahoo Dictionary were not helpful in prompting the learners to use present perfect tense, which might be the reason why fewer participants changed their tense to present perfect in the posttest, compared with Concordancer Group.

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Another focus of the observation in Question 6 is learners’ translation of “糧食危 機(food crisis).” In Concordancer Alpha Group, of all 10 participants who could not translate the word “crisis,” 8 of them were able to do so in the posttest. Only 2 of them wrote “danger” instead of “crisis” because the concordancer also provided this translation in the results. In Yahoo Dictionary Group, among all 9 participants who failed to translate the phrase, seven of them were able to produce the target translation in the posttest.

Table 4.13 The Comparison of Participants’ Translations in Question 6

Chinese Question：全球糧食危機已經在世界許多地區造成嚴重的社會問題。

Suggested English translation: (The) global food crisis has already caused serious social problems in many parts of the world.

Main focus of the comparison: whether learners could use present perfect tense in their translation and whether they could translate “糧食危機”..

Phrases Group

Based on the analysis above, it could be concluded that the two bilingual tools were effective in improving learners’ translation at lexical level, including unknown vocabulary and collocation. Generally, Concordancer Alpha was more effective in helping learners to retrieve target translation, as in most translation questions, it was observed that more learners’ errors were corrected. However, Concordancer Alpha also had limitation. As indicated in Question 1, country-specific words, such as geographical names, rarely had equivalents in the corpus of Concordancer Alpha. Furthermore, some

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query words did not return results that were more contextually-appropriate, as shown in Question 4.

Another conclusion that could be drawn from these comparisons was learners’

less significant improvement at syntax level, including verb form (Question 3), part of

less significant improvement at syntax level, including verb form (Question 3), part of