An Empirical Study Of Translation Strategies And Translation Units In Translation Process

Translation studies have traditionally dealt with translation products instead of translation process. Recently, however, some scholars and experts have tried to describe and explain the translation process from different perspectives and within various theoretical frameworks. But due to the complexity of the inner mechanisms of the brain and lack of reliable research methods, the sub-processes of translation remain a mystery, and the psychological reality of the translator in translating is still unknown. However, it is believed that, without process-oriented study, translation studies could not stand by themselves, as a separated discipline, and that with the research method used in cognitive psychology, it is one of the possible ways to unveil the "black box" in translating.This thesis employs the popular triangulation module, which combine TAPs (Think-aloud Protocols) with an interview, questionnaires and translated works, to avoid the shortage and weakness of the sole TAPs. Psycho-linguistically oriented TAPs is used to collect data from the reports of three high proficiency participants and three low proficiency participants while translating essays and scientific texts into Chinese. Based on these questionnaires and interviews, the data are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively, emphasizing the application of translation strategy and translation units in the translating process. The results of the experiment indicate that high proficiency participants and low proficiency participants differ in their use of translation strategies and translation units. By sorting out the results of the experiment, we get the final conclusions:The translation process in general is a non-linear but a recursive process.On the issue of translation strategy, various strategies have been more or less covered. Both groups employed cognitive strategies more frequently than that of meta-cognitive ones. It is also noted that low proficiency participants tend to use more strategies than high proficiency participants do. This indicates that the low proficiency participants come across more problems in the process of translation. In the inner thinking phase, the majority of translation strategies are involved among the three phases (input phase, inner thinking process phase, output phase). Essay translation process include more translation strategies than that of scientific ones.On the issue of translation units, translators use of translation units change in inverse proportion to the levels of participants, the high proficiency group tends to use sentences, while the low proficiency one prefers words. The results indicated that participants from both groups use smaller and shorter translation units. Most translation strategies are employed in the phase of inner thinking process. Stylistically, essay translation needs larger translation units.Due to the limitation of the participants, software, translation material style and language types, the results should be treated as some assumptions for research. Meanwhile, it plays a certain role in helping discover the nature of the translation process and provides the orientational and practical implications for English translation teachers and students.This paper helps discover the nature of translation process and provides orientational and practical implications for English translators.