Exploring Taiwanese EFL Learners’ Lexical Avoidance Strategies in Handling Chinese Culture-Loaded Words in Chinese-to-English Translation

Abstract

Culture-loaded words are common and often pose challenges for translators seeking equivalent terms. Observations in an undergraduate translation class indicated that Taiwanese EFL learners frequently employed lexical avoidance (Schachter, 1974) as a strategy. However, a deeper investigation is necessary to gain a fuller understanding of this behavior. Therefore, the objectives of this study are threefold: 1) to analyze the types and frequencies of lexical avoidance used by students, using Blum & Levenston's (1977) model as a framework, 2) to identify any new categories of lexical avoidance that may emerge, and 3) to offer suggestions for enhancing translation training in the undergraduate EFL context. The study involved 28 sophomore EFL students at a public university in northern Taiwan. Data were gathered from a translation assignment called “translation diagnosis”, which included 28 copies of written translation for analysis. The results showed that when translating Chinese culture-loaded terms—specifically those related to body expressions and other non-social or non-body-related concepts—over half of the students (67.8%) resorted to using synonyms or paraphrasing. A smaller proportion, ranging from 3.6% to 10.7% depending on the term, used total avoidance (i.e., leaving the term untranslated), a new category of avoidance strategy that was not previously recognized in the adopted model. Based on these findings, recommendations for improving translation training were offered.