The translating processes of expert and student translators : a protocol study in process

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This study used the thinking-aloud method to investigate the working processes of translating an expository from english to Chinese. Five translation students and five translation expert participated in this study. They were asked to translate a paragraph of expository text in a published book and verbalized their thoughts while translating the text from English into Chinese. This paper reports and discusses some results af the in-progress date analysis of the study. After studying the cognitive moves present in the expert and the novice translating processes, differences were found between the students and the experts in terms of outside resourses, negotation of competing pressures, etc. The study is significant in identifying the key elements and strategies that characterize expert working processes, which in turn will shed lights on translator and teaching. This study in another step forward from my previous study of investigating the cognitive processes of translating. The reason for adding this dimension of expert vs. novice comparison is primarily pedagogical. If differences were indeed found between experts and novices, such information could be used to develop pedagogical tools for translation students. In this way, the experts can set a model for the students not only in what they can produce in translation but also how they have produced such translation. In other words, it can provide a source for cognitive apprenticeship, which may affect students beyond the limits of the conventional teaching method of having students study "good" translated texts. Second, by looking al how experts and students might use certain skiils diferently, it is possible to identify some feautures that exclusively characterize experts and that may be teachable but not yet taught explicitly to students. In short, the expert-novice comparision would have much to offer to translation instruction in terms of both what to teach and how to teach.