Unity of knowing and acting: an empirical study on a curriculum approach to developing students’ translation technological thinking competence

ABSTRACT Though students are taught translation technology, when confronted with real-life translation tasks, they frequently fail to use technologies flexibly and properly. To address this issue, this study first highlighted the concept of translation technological thinking competence (TTTC) and its significance. Then it proposed the Knowing-Acting Translation Curriculum (KATC), characterised by integrating knowledge-based design, problem-oriented learning, in-class interactive modelling and near-authentic translation projects. Further, the study investigated: 1) Is KATC an effective approach to developing students’ TTTC? 2) How does TTTC influence translation performance? To answer the questions, a quasi-experimental/empirical study was conducted with two groups of comparable translation students, one group given the KATC-based teaching intervention. The results show that: 1) KATC is an effective approach in improving students’ TTTC, measured by enhanced performance in solving real-life translation technological problems; 2) TTTC is positively correlated with overall translation quality. Therefore, we argue that the ultimate goal of translation technology teaching is to help students become technological thinkers with high TTTC, who can maximise the power of technology to act professionally and technologically, particularly in solving translation problems that require discretionary judgment and action.