Research Design
This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the Chinese-to-English translations of 30 adult Taiwanese English language school students in Taipei, Taiwan who did not have any professional translation experience.
First, students were recruited for the study and three Chinese and English Translation and Interpretation Competency Examinations (中英文翻譯能力檢定考試) from the
Ministry of Education (MOE) were chosen and administered in order of the year they had been held (2007, 2010, and 2011). Then Task 1 (Translation 1) was sent to the study participants, who were given one month to complete it and email it to the researcher. Once the first set of translations had been collected, the researcher used the comment feature of Microsoft Word to provide the participants with direct
feedback and corrections. These steps were repeated for Tasks 2 and 3. As soon as all the data had been collected, the top five and bottom five translators for Tasks 1 and 3 (Translations 1 and 2) were invited to partake in retrospective interviews. After the interviews were over, a voluntary biographical questionnaire was sent to the participants, the majority of whom completed it and returned to the researcher via Google Forms. Next, an error typology was developed, tested, modified and finalized.
The translations were then hand coded in Microsoft Word using the error tags from the error typology. Once this was complete, a scoring scale was developed, tested, modified and finalized. Scores for each translation were calculated using the scoring scale. Finally, the error codes and translation scores were statistically analyzed.
Participants
The current study consisted of 30 adults (22 females and 8 males). They were a homogenous group in that they were all adults (18 or older), all born in Taiwan, all (but one) spoke Mandarin Chinese as their first language, all had passed the
advanced-level English placement test at the language center where they were
studying, and were all recruited from the researcher’s upper-division English classes.
The study participants were asked to fill out a voluntary biographical questionnaire, and 21 responded. The respondents had backgrounds in various professional (non-English related) fields, such as information technology,
government, finance, medicine and law. Education levels encompassed everything from vocational college to Ph.D. studies. Reported ages for the group ranged from 21 to 63 years of age (average reported age: 37.6 years {see Table 1}). Although none had formal training in translation, 11 reported experience translating from Chinese to English or English to Chinese for work or academic purposes and 11 had taken at least one English writing class. Exposure to English varied widely, with some
students reporting having studied English for merely 1-2 years, while others said they had studied for 40 years (average reported time of English study: 17.6 years {see Table 1}). Only 4 students reported having studied English overseas for any length of time. It was found that all of the survey respondents habitually use English at least sometimes in their daily lives. The English-use categories Rarely (1-29%) and Sometimes (30-49%) received 6 responses each, while Often (50-69%) and
Frequently (70-89%) each received 4, and Always (90-100%) received 1 response.
The type of daily English usage ranged from travel abroad, to work, to leisure, with 11 of the respondents saying they used English mainly for work.
Table 1
Participants’ Ages & Length of English Study
Materials
From 2007 to 2011, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education (MOE) held annual Chinese and English Translation and Interpretation Competency Examinations (中英 文翻譯能力檢定考試). The Chinese-to-English translations used in the current study
were selected from this exam. The reasoning behind this was threefold. Firstly, the participants in the study all have advanced English abilities. Thus, a college entrance exam such as the GSAT or an intermediate or high-intermediate translation test such as the GEPT would be too simple for the participants—particularly since they were told they could use grammar books and dictionaries. Secondly, the texts of the other available Taiwanese tests with translation components are too short. Taiwan’s college
intermediate text is longer, at approximately 130 words per test, but due to its
simplicity and length, it still might not be long enough to elicit a broad range of errors from advanced-level students. However, each MOE test was approximately 350 Chinese characters in length, and therefore long enough to offer insight into a wide variety of errors and to provide opportunities for students to commit multiple errors from the same category. This, in turn, provided the researcher with an increased amount of data concerning both error type and frequency. Finally, although the MOE Translation and Interpretation Competency Examinations were typically taken by translators, interpreters and other professionals, this need not be the case, as the texts which appeared on the exams are general and not discipline specific. There is no complicated terminology or underlying theory that would present problems for the students translating the texts. In general, the MOE tests are fairly straightforward.
The administration of the official MOE test and that of the tests in the current study varied somewhat. The test time given by the MOE for completion of each Chinese-to-English translation was 60 minutes. However, the suggested completion time for the research participants was 60 to 120 minutes because they were not professional translations and had no prior formal translation experience. Furthermore, the MOE test takers were not allowed any translation aids, but the study participants were encouraged to use dictionaries and grammar books. They were, however, asked not to solicit outside help or use the Internet or electronic translators.