Memoire Online - Linguistic and Cultural Knowledge as Prequisites to Learning Professional Translation

In the previous analysis procedure, the second independent variable i.e. cultural knowledge was found to have no significant relation to the students' translation scores. As a result, only one independent variable, i.e. language scores, remained to be investigated in the second research question.

This question is concerned with the magnitude of the relationship existing between one dependent variable and one independent variable. These variables were both measured at an interval scale. Therefore, the appropriate statistics procedure was Pearson product-moment. It is one of the best known techniques used to measure correlation or association between two variables (Cohen & Manion, 1980). In other words, it measures the two variables' "tendency to vary consistently" (Cohen & Manion, 1980, p.126). Consequently, this type of analysis fits the mentioned research question.

Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r) is a statistical value that indicates the strength and the direction of the relationship between variables. It can be as high as (+1) when the relationship is positive. This implies that if one variable increases, so does the other and

vice versa. When the relationship is negative r can have a value as high as (-1). This means that when one variable increases, the other decreases and vice versa. When there is a weak or no relationship between the variables, the coefficient can be as low as (0). To sum up, the nearer is r to (1) or to (-1) the stronger is the relationship and vice versa. If it is preceded by (-), the relationship is negative. Otherwise, it is positive. (Brown, 1988; Cohen & Manion, 1980).

H 1: There is a systematic positive relationship between language scores and subsequent translation scores. In other words,

H 1: the higher the prior language scores the higher the subsequent translation scores.

Ho: There is no systematic positive relationship between prior language scores and subsequent translation scores.

This decision implied that there was only 1% probability (p) that rejecting the null hypothesis be an error. In other words, it meant that 99% of the correlation represented by r was due to factors other than chance. "Directional" meant that this study assumed that any relationship proved to exist between the two variables would be positive.

r=		274307,99 - 264094,43

	1"[298864,57-287049,49 [257294,4825 - 242975,06]

In order to know if this observed value of Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was statistically significant, we consulted a table of r critical values. With a sample size of 44, which made a degree of freedom of 42 (df= n-2), r crit = 0.3578. It was obvious that: r obs > r crit

(0.79 > 0.3578). At p < 0.01 directional, there was only 1% probability that this observed correlation coefficient was due to chance. This result permitted the rejection of the null hypothesis (Ho: r = 0). And as the relationship was expected to be positive, only one alternative hypothesis was there (Hi : r > 0). This is, hence, automatically accepted with only 1% probability that the observed correlation (r obs =0.79) was due to chance alone.

Once the significance of the observed Pearson correlation coefficient had been established remained to investigate its meaningfulness. One way to do so is to examine its magnitude. It is clear that it reflects a strong relationship since it is much doser to (1), which indicates perfect correlation, than it is to zero, which indicates no correlation. Another way to check the outcome's meaningfulness is to calculate the coefficient of determination (r²). This coefficient provides us with the percentage of variation of each variable that is due to the variation of the other i.e. the covariance. It is calculated simply by squaring the value of the observed r.

This coefficient implied that 62% of the two variables correlated with each other, which is quite meaningful. Only 38%, the remaining of the relationship, could then be explained by other variables.

The following scatter diagram represents correlation between each student's translation score and his Baccalaureate language mean.

This pattern indicates a strong correlation. The gap in the middle of the two groups of points represents the absent marks of average students, who were not included in the sample. It is clear that the points of the whole population would form a linear shape that goes up toward the right. This is a typical shape for a strong positive correlation. This is supported by the assumption that correlations ranging from 0.65 to over 0.85 "make possible group predictions" ( Cohen & Manion, 1980, pp. 138-9). This means that, with this strong correlation, it is possible to predict a student's translation score from his language score, which suggests that the relationship is systematic.


	q Correct 1=1 Partially Correct q No Answer q Wrong
1 2 3 4 5 6 Question Numbers

Question one is correctly answered by 56% of the students. What is worth mentioning is that most of them don't write the correct spelling of film titles. They simply transcribe the words as they heard them. The least we can deduce from this is the lack of interest in accurate information about the movie. Partially correct answers reflected, for example, confusion between titles or between British and American actors or movies.

Second World War is one of the main subjects of the History program of third year of secondary school. Winston Churchill is, therefore, frequently mentioned in the course. This is not reflected in the high percentage of wrong answers: 38% and "no answer": 27%. To

illustrate this better, here are some answer examples: Churchill is "a German soldier"," an ancient president of the USA" ,"the commandant of the Americans during the Cold War".

The correct answers of the third question (38%) were all a literal translation of the Arabic equivalent of "World Trade Centre", which is quite comprehensible. The partially correct answers (11%) included the "Pentagon". The wrong answers (11%) and the "no answer" cases (38%) seemed to reflect a considerable disinterest in what's happening in the world.

As to question four, only two students (6%) wrote "Times". We considered it as a partially correct answer because we assumed that it was just a failure to write "Thames" correctly. The rest either did not answer (66%), or answered wrongly (26%). "The Amazon" ,"the Danube" and the "Rayne" are examples of wrong answers.

Question five concerned the British currency. Not more than 23% answered correctly --some in Arabic. The rest either did not answer at all (38%), or answered incorrectly (38%). These are some wrong answers: "Lira"," Oro" ,"Dollar" , and "American Dollar".

The last question was about American political parties. "No answer" cases represented 66% of the sample, partially correct answers, 11% and correct, 6%. This was unexpected because, as stated earlier, the presidential campaign was the first headline in every news edition of the

day. The two most important American Political Parties were mentioned each time. In addition, what characterised an important number of wrong answers, which represented 16% of the sample, is that students did not understand the question at all. Some answers were: "war and race toward weapons","Dollar and petroP' ,"Washington and New York".

Linguistic and Cultural Knowledge as Prequisites to Learning Professional Translation

2.1.7.2. Correlation: Research Questions (c) & (d)