A Needs-analysis-based Survey Of The Curriculum Design For Undergraduate Translation Majors

In2006, the Ministry of Education of China approved to set up translation as anundergraduate major on the Mainland. Fifty seven universities have got thequalification for recruiting students of the major since then. To cultivate excellenttranslation talents, designing curriculum for translation majors is evidently important.However, curriculum design is not linear or fixed, it is necessary for us to dointermittently on-going needs re-analysis to ensure that the curriculum meets thechanging learning needs of students and social demands for translation talents as well.Up to now, few domestic researches have been done on the needs-analysis ofcurriculum design for undergraduate translation majors, either from the perspective ofsocial needs or from learners’ needs. With the booming economy and translationmarket in recent years, two universities have set up undergraduate translation major inShandong province, namely, Shandong University and Qufu Normal University.However, no needs-analysis research has been done yet on their curriculum design forundergraduate translation majors. In order to find out whether the currentundergraduate curriculum design can effectively meet the learner’s needs and thesocial needs and provide reference for better curriculum design, the author initiatedthe current survey study.This study adopted questionnaire and interview, i.e. qualitative and quantitativeanalyses, based on the model of needs analysis proposed by Munby and Hutchinson﹠Waters.180undergraduate translation majors from Year1to Year4, of whom77from Shandong University and103from Qufu Normal University,39professionaltranslators and4administrators from government units, foreign trade companies andtranslation company were surveyed in order to find out:1) what approbation degreeundergraduate translation majors have towards curriculum design (includingcurriculum objectives, curriculum content, curriculum implementation, curriculumevaluation) for translation majors in their school and whether students’ learning needs can be met;2) what the current situation of social needs is for professional translatorsand employees and whether current curriculum design can effectively meet the socialdemand;3) how to optimize the current curriculum designs if they do not adequatelyreflect social needs or students’ learning needs.The study findings indicated that:1) Generally speaking, the approbation degreeof undergraduate translation majors towards curriculum design is high in bothShandong University and Qufu Normal University and students’ learning needs aresatisfied to a large extent.2) According to the social needs, excellent translatorsshould be equipped with a high level of English and Chinese proficiency, richinterpretation and translation experience, translation skills, abilities to access andindentify authoritative references, logical thinking and quality of probing intotranslation problems. The greatest challenge for professional translators at work ischoosing the right style for a particular type of text and translation speed. And thebiggest challenge for new recruits is the lack of related field knowledge andspecialized terminologies. Generally speaking, the curriculum design of the twouniversities can largely meet the social needs, still twith some room to be improved.3)To bridge the gap between the current curriculum design in two universities andlearners’ and social needs, first of all, students’ English and Chinese proficiencydevelopment should be more highlighted and strengthened in the current curriculum.Besides, teaching content of certain courses should be timely updated, attaching moreimportance to translation practice and impartment of translation strategies and skills;and translation internship bases need to be set up. In addition, more specializedtranslation courses like engineering, technology, machinery etc. should be opened upto expand students’ knowledge in different fields, with logic courses added to enhancestudents’ logical and analytical thinking.In the end, the author pointed out the study limitations and put forwardsuggestions for future researches.