Translator Students’ Perceptions of Their Success and Failure in Translation Practice

Abstract

Identifying the reasons to which students majoring in translation attribute their perceived successes and failures would yield useful information for translation students and teachers. The current study, as an initial attempt in the context of Iran, aimed at: 1) exploring the factors to which students majoring in translation attribute their perceived successes and failures in translating English texts, and 2) examining the ways in which these attributions vary according to the gender of the participants. To this end, the researchers opted for a simple questionnaire to discover students' attributions. In so doing, a pool of 197 subjects from different universities participated in the study. They were students of the third or the fourth year. The results of the study showed that out of 50 attributions for perceived success and failure, the most commonly cited attributions for doing well were practice, motivation, effort, and dictionary use. Lack of translation skills, lack of self-confidence, text difficulty and lack of effort were among the most commonly cited attributions for not doing well. The results also revealed important findings regarding attribution differences between males and females. The research work offers psychological and potentially useful implications for students and teachers.