A Study On Non-foreign University Students' Beliefs About Translation And Their Use Of Translation As A Strategy In Learning English

To the use of translation, different teaching methods hold different views, and most of the methods believe that translation can interfere the foreign language learning, but in the study of second language acquisition, students reported that they frequently use translation in English learning. In order to understand the role of translation in foreign language learning from the learners'perspectives, this study investigated university students'beliefs about translation, their use of translation as a learning strategy, the relationship between their translation beliefs and strategy use.The present study is a quantitative study with three research questions: (1) What are university students'beliefs about using translation to learn English? What are the most and the least common beliefs among university students? (2) What kinds of learning strategies about translation do university students use? What are the most and the least frequently used strategies among university students? (3) What are the relationship between learners'beliefs about translation and the use of translation as a learning strategy? Are these beliefs significantly related to the strategy use?"There are 283 students participated in this study, they are all Northwest Normal University sophomores majoring in Chinese linguistic literature, political science and law, and education. The instruments used in this study include two questionnaires: the inventory for beliefs about translation and the inventory for translation as a learning strategy, both of them were developed by Liao Posen. The data of the two questionnaires were analyzed by SPSS 16.0 (Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences).The findings are as following:1. Most participants hold the belief that translation played a positive role in their English learning experiences; among the 24 items, there are 17 most common beliefs and 3 least common beliefs about translation among university students.2. The participants used a wide variety of strategies involving translation; and there are 10 most frequently used translation-related strategies and 5 least frequently used translation-related strategies among 28 items.3. The participants'beliefs about translation generally affected the translation strategy they choose to use in learning English; and they are significantly related. As this study indicated, translation can plays positive role in students learning process. To the foreign language teaching field, the results of this study may provide a different view into the role of translation in students'foreign language leaning process. Teachers may integrate these insights into their teaching: they may not need to prohibit students'use of translation, and they should pay more attention to the instances when translation can be beneficial as students try to develop their English language system. And teachers may want to teach translation explicitly in the classroom in order to help learners to expand their learning strategies and encourage them to view translation as an effective and efficient strategy.