Chapter One Introduction
1.1 The Background of the Study
The objects of translation research consist of three parts, the research on translationproducts, the research on translation process and the research on translation quality, amongwhich the research on translation products dominates traditional translation research.Meanwhile, the research on translation process started relatively late and received lessattention, which rooted in the lack of efficiencies and coordinated translation researchmethods, which was in turn caused by the characteristics of translation process research: thetranslation process is a mental operation in translators’ mind, not as specific and concrete astranslation products or interpreters’ behaviour. In 1957, the famous British linguist Firthclaimed that “The interpreters can pass through a variety of languages barriers even withoutknowing exactly which bridges they pass through in the translation process.” (1957:27).Therefore, it is compulsory to choose scientific and appropriate methods to researchtranslation process.Think-Aloud Protocols, often abbreviated as TAPs, which has already been applied inlinguistics since 1980s, has become a primary means of data collection and data analysis inprocess-oriented translation research on other languages rather than Chinese, and has beenwidely used in relevant linguistic research recently.Some scholars claims that this psycholinguistically oriented Think-Aloud Protocols iseffective and efficient to collect data from testees through their self-reporting of theirproblem-solving processes while translating assigned task. However, other translationresearchers have shown concern and even doubt over the feasibility of translator’sverbal reporting as a source of data (Toury, 1995), but some of them admitscientifically and objectively designed, research employing Think-Aloud Protocols iscertainly a reliable and efficient method to explore the translators’ mental operation intranslation process. For example, TAPs data acquired from testees’ report must betranscribed word by word. And later the coded TAPs data should be analyzed bothqualitatively and quantitatively according to previously defined code system, which emphaseson the concerning translation elements and types in translation process of translating.Up to now, TAPs translation process research has reached certain achievement whetherusing students or using professional interpreters as research subjects in many languages otherthan Chinese.
1.2 The Significance of the Research
The aim of the present case study, a psycholinguistic study, is to analyze students’ mentalactivities in the English-Chinese written translation processes. The case study helps to exposethe unique features of this kind of English learners in translation processes, and then offerscientific and feasible evidence for further research on Chinese translators’ cognitiveprocesses. This study will not only provide objective and detailed data for theoretical andpedagogical innovations in increasingly important process-oriented translation research andlanguage learning in China, but also put forward scientific and practical methodology.
1.3 The Structure of thesis
The whole body of this paper is comprised by five chapters, which are closely related withone another, and support the fundamental views of this study.Chapter One, which acts as a br，英语论文，英语论文题目 |
