高中生中英翻譯錯誤與翻譯困難之研究

Abstract

本研究旨在探討台灣高中生中英翻譯錯誤與翻譯困難。研究兼採量性和質性方法，研究材料來自歷屆大學入學考試翻譯試題，研究對象為68位高三學生，依據其學測英文科級分為高成就與低成就兩組。量性方面以描述性統計分析兩組學生在冠詞／數量詞、代名詞、被動語態、時態、連接詞、詞性轉換、詞序及標點符號等八個方面的翻譯錯誤；質性方面則以回溯性訪談進一步釐清高中生遭遇到的翻譯困難。 量性研究結果發現，在代名詞、被動語態、連接詞、詞序及標點符號等五個方面，學生表現較為一致，顯示學生基本句型掌握度高，影響表現的因素絕大多數是單字問題；在冠詞／數量詞方面，高成就學生有複數類指名詞誤加定冠詞the的問題，低成就學生則是經常忽略名詞的複數詞綴-s；在決定時態方面，學生還是需要熟悉的中文提示；在詞性轉換方面，學生經常無法隨前後搭配的詞語變換詞性，因而產生錯誤。質性研究結果顯示，無論高低成就學生，採取的翻譯學習策略大多是背單字，導致寫作翻譯時過於依賴中文提示，也缺乏詞彙應用能力與搭配詞知識。研究最後根據上述分析結果提供翻譯試題命題原則及翻譯教學活動作為參考。

The present study investigates senior high school students’ errors and difficulty in Chinese-English translation. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are adopted. Research materials used are the Chinese-English translation tasks from college entrance examinations in Taiwan. Research subjects include 68 third-year senior high school students, who are categorized as high achievers and low achievers according to their English performance on the General Scholastic Ability Test. Descriptive statistical analyses are conducted to examine students’ use of articles, pronouns, passive voice, tenses, conjunctions, parts of speech, word order, and punctuation in the Chinese-English translation tasks. Qualitative data collected from retrospective interviews is analyzed and further explores students’ difficulties concerning translation. The quantitative results are as follows. In terms of pronouns, passive voice, conjunctions, word order and punctuation, students perform consistently as they have basic ideas about English sentence structures. However, their performance deteriorates when there are words they do not know how to translate. In terms of article use, some high achievers overuse the definite article for plural generic nouns while low achievers tend to forget plural suffixes. In terms of tense use, students still need familiar L1 translations to indicate which tense to use. In terms of parts of speech, students are usually unable to change the parts of speech of a word in different collocations. Qualitative research results show that both high achievers and low achievers attempt to improve their translation ability by memorizing more L2 words via their L1 translations. However, this means that students will need the exact Chinese translation to come up with the right English word when doing translation tasks. Such a learning strategy also fails to teach students the importance of word usages and collocations. In light of the research results, some suggestions are proposed for designing translation tasks and teaching activities.