A Study On Individual Differences Of Long Sentence Reconstruction Capability In English-Chinese Translation Among Non-English Majors Of The Independent College

In recent years, the emphasis of second language teaching has gradually shifted fromteaching process to learning process, and the effects of learner differences have drawnmore and more attention home and abroad, mainly focusing on age, gender, affectivefactors, language proficiency, learning strategies, learning style, etc. Through greatamounts of research, it is widely acknowledged that learner differences may well achievedifferent results in second language acquisition. Meanwhile, translation capability, as oneof the aspects in SLA, has always received sustained attention in researches, among whichthe capability of long sentence reconstruction is an indispensible skill. In the theoreticalframework of second language acquisition, the present study has investigated theindividual differences of long sentence reconstruction capabilities in English-Chinesetranslation among non-English majors in independent colleges mainly from the aspects ofdifferent language proficiencies and gender differences, and intends to explore thedifferences of progress in long sentence reconstruction capabilities acquired with the sameclassroom instruction among different learners.The present study has been conducted through20weeks altogether.120juniors ofnon-English majors from Ningbo Institute of Technology, ZheJiang University, have beeninvolved in the experiment. They are required to take two tests of English-Chinese longsentence translation respectively before and after the deliberately designed classroominstruction, which is focused on the skills of position shift and sentence-type conversion ofclauses. Besides, they are also surveyed with a questionnaire which is about affectivefactors, including motivation, attitude and anxiety. The data are analyzed with theassistance of SPSS19.0. The results of the study indicate there are significant differences of original longsentence reconstruction capabilities in English-Chinese translation in different learners, i.e.between learners with higher and lower general language proficiencies as well as betweenmales and females. Originally, learners with higher language proficiency are better at longsentence reconstruction capabilities in English-Chinese translation than learners with lowerlanguage proficiency, and males are better than females. In addition, there are alsosignificant differences of progress acquired with the same classroom instruction amongdifferent learners. Specifically speaking, learners with lower language proficiency havemade significantly greater progress than learners with higher language proficiency,females have made significantly greater progress than males, and learners with moreproper affective factor levels have made significantly greater progress than the others.Based on the above results, some pedagogical implications are presented in the thesis:since general language proficiency is closely tied up with long sentence reconstruction andtranslation capability, in the process of instruction, the teacher should take appropriatemeasures to guide the learners to improve the general language proficiency. Apart fromtranslation skill itself, other aspects may also get involved properly, such as vocabulary,reading, etc. Of course, the learners themselves should also consciously strive forimprovement in various aspects. Besides, language skill learning involves the hierarchystructure, so learners are supposed to improve step by step from declarative knowledge toprocedural knowledge, and the teacher also should conduct the instruction according todifferent language proficiencies of the learners. On the other hand, learners of differentgenders appear significant differences in long sentence reconstruction capabilities as wellas the extents of progress acquired with the same classroom instruction, so the teachershould get rid of the stereotypes and adopt approaches such as mixed grouping as well asthe encouragement of mutual cooperation between males and females. Also differentiatedapproaches can be attempted. For example, different activities and tasks should bedesigned and conducted respectively for males and females, so as to assist the learners infully achieving their strong points and making up for their weaknesses. Accordingly,learners themselves also should value the adoption of appropriate learning strategies so asto improve learning efficiency in long sentence reconstruction capability. In addition,affective factors also have influence in the process of translation learning. So the teachersshould help the learners to hold a positive attitude in the process of learning withappropriate motivation, attitude and anxiety. The current study expects to make some contribution to SLA researches in theory andpractice. And further empirical researches are desired to make the study on individuallearner differences in SLA a more mature one.