The Effects Of Back-translation On Chinese Learners’acquisition Of English Attributive Clauses

Written output includes writing and translation,both of which have three major functions of output,namely noticing/triggering,hypothesis-testing and metalinguistic reflection.So far,quite a few studies have been conducted on the language learning potential(LLP)of writing at home and abroad,but little on that of translation.Among the existing research on translation,back-translation,as a special form of translation,has become a research hotspot in recent years.In contrast to one-way translation,back-translation involves two translation processes: from the target language(TL)to the native language(NL)first,then from the NL to the TL.The contrast between the two languages can promote the learners’ awareness of the characteristics of the TL.In addition,Chinese learners’ translation of the original text(hereinafter referred to as“self-translation”)under the influence of thinking in the first language(L1),and reference translation of the original text(hereinafter referred to as “reference translation”),as different back-translation materials,may have certain effects on learners’ acquisition of language knowledge.On the other hand,the attributive clause is an important grammar structure in learning English while its output in the written tasks by Chinese learners is fewer than expected,meaning that learners have not grasped and acquired it completely.Given these,the paper chooses the attributive clause as the target structure and attempts to investigate the effects of back-translation on Chinese learners’ acquisition of English attributive clauses,answering the following questions:(1)Can back-translation facilitate Chinese learners’ acquisition of English attributive clauses?(2)Is there any difference in the effects of different back-translation tasks on the learners’ acquisition of English attributive clauses? And why?The thesis adopted an experimental design of “pretest—intervention—immediate posttest—delayed posttest”,with 67 freshmen majoring in English from one university in Jiangsu Province as subjects,texts in New Concept English 3 as intervention materials and texts in the New Concept English 2 as test materials.The three test means were all text translation and topic writing and the experiment lasted for 13 weeks in total.In the first week,subjects were divided into the “self-translation group”(STG)and the “reference translation group”(RTG)based on pretest data results.From the second to the seventh week,two groups of subjects were assigned back-translation task each week,with English-Chinese(E-C)translation on Thursday and Chinese-English(C-E)translation on Sunday.Before C-E translation,subjects were given feedback on the misunderstanding of the texts that appeared during E-C translation to ensure that there was no difference between the two groups in understanding the general idea of the original text.Besides,both groups were also asked to compare their English translation with the original text after back-translation to find problems and then correct them.In the eighth week,an immediate posttest was conducted,and six subjects from each group who produced the most or the least attributive clauses were selected for the retrospective interview based on test data.Meanwhile,each subject handed in his or her introspective summary after the immediate posttest as a kind of qualitative data to be further analyzed.Finally,a delayed posttest was conducted in the thirteenth week.The results of the study showed that:(1)after six weeks of intervention,there was a significant effect of back-translation on facilitating the output and accuracy of attributive clauses in text translation according to the analysis of the Paired-Samples T Test;and the ratio of attributive clauses output in the delayed posttest was still higher than that in the pretest,indicating that back-translation not only promotes subjects’ acquisition of attributive clauses,but also has a good long-term effect;however,there is an insignificant effect on the output of the attributive clauses in topic writing,which is mainly due to the nature of writing and the fact that the TL forms noticed by two groups of subjects in back-translation were not fully transformed into implicit knowledge that can be used flexibly;(2)by means of the Independent-Samples T Test,there was no significant difference in the effects between different back-translation tasks on promoting learners’ acquisition of attributive clauses.One possible reason for this is that although the “self-translation” and “reference translation” are respectively the products of pedagogical translation and practical translation,both groups had a comparison of two translations and the same output during back-translation.Secondly,many subjects who did not reach the level of flexibility using English attributive clauses showed a “subconscious underproduction” and a few subjects adopted“conscious avoidance” in the actual output due to certain factors according to the retrospective interview.From the theoretical aspect,some higher-level subjects were supposed to behave better than middle-level or low-level subjects in RTG;however,the study did not take subject’s English proficiency level into account.This study,on the one hand,aims to examine the LLP of back-translation and support the Output Hypothesis with empirical results,so as to supplement and enrich the research on “translate to learn”;on the other hand,by verifying back-translation is an effective learning tool for second language acquisition(SLA),this paper intends to recommend this appropriate and efficient learning method to English learners and teachers in China for second language(L2)teaching and learning.