The Relationship between Crystallized Intelligence and Translation Performance of Undergraduate Translation Students

Abstract

Translation students’ crystallized intelligence, as an important theme in the psychology of translation, has not been investigated by the professionals in the field of translation studies. Students majoring in English translation studies are not well familiar with the importance of knowing how to use their skills, knowledge and experience in their translation practice. To this end, the current study mainly aimed at: 1) examining the association between crystalized intelligence and translation performance of the undergraduate translation students, and 2) investigating if the participants’ age makes any difference between crystalized intelligence and translation performance of the undergraduate translation students.In doing so, a pool of 62 students majoring in Translation Studies participated in the study from different universities. The results confirmed that there was a large, positive correlation between crystallized intelligence and translation performance (r= .64, n=62, p<.05). Having divided the students into two groups including the first group (from 21 to 23) and the second group (from 23 to 25), the results obtained from Pillai’s statistics showed that the age of the participants could moderate between scores obtained from crystallized intelligence and scores obtained from translation performance. Finally, the study offered practical implications for both translation students and translation teachers.