Exploring Intermediate Learners' Use of Two Corpus Tools in a Contextualized Lexical Translation Task
Journal
英語教學期刊
Journal Volume
40
Journal Issue
3
Pages
1-40
Date Issued
2016
Author(s)
鄭詩萍
Abstract
The use of corpora in language learning and translation has become an important research topic over the past decade. While previous studies have shown the value of corpora in language learning and translation, few studies have investigated the actual use of corpus tools by lower level learners. This study aims to explore the potentials and limitations of the TotalRecall Chinese-English bilingual concordancer and the Tango English collocation retrieval system by intermediate learners in a contextualized lexical translation task. Three research questions are addressed: (1) How well do intermediate learners perform in a lexical translation task with the two corpus tools? (2) How do they actually use the two tools to solve lexical translation problems? and (3) What difficulties do they encounter? A case study was conducted in which 29 college students majoring in English at a Taiwanese university participated. Based on their scores in the college entrance exams, the subjects were classified into the three groups of G1, G2, and G3, whose levels ranged from lower-intermediate to intermediate. A pre-test, post-test, query log analysis, surveys, student group interviews, and students' online feedback were adopted as instruments. The results show that the students performed significantly better with the aid of the two corpus tools and that learners of different proficiency levels exhibited qualitatively and quantitatively different patterns in their query strategies, errors, and correlations between scores in the pre-test and post-test. The implications of the study are discussed at the end of the paper.
Type
journal article