Dai-Ling Chen
Passing through a threshold concept following the prefabricated gradational stages might not be as straightforward as it seems, especially with a tacit learning pattern against the socio-cultural environment. Predicated on autonomy from Self-Determination Theory, the teacher-researcher aims to investigate how 68 Chinese college students demonstrated their translation competence as the threshold concept in response to the teacher’s ‘bounded’ autonomy and discipline in teaching the class of English-Chinese interpreting current events. Perceiving the fundamental ideological difference between the West and China, the teacher used the media literacy approach adapting to the Chinese context in the process of interpreting. Given the restrained teaching area, the difficulty of students’ translation competence manifestation lies in not linguistic abilities but contextual knowledge leading to analytical skills and open attitudes. Using univariate analysis, it was found that students’ demonstration of translation competence based on media literacy stages significantly affected their final performance (ρ = 0.000, i.e. ρ < 0.001). Students’ reflection on translation learning showed their preference for using the media literacy approach mainly because of exposure to media messages contributing to their contextual comprehension of the texts. Their academic performance in the final, however, revealed that 39 out of 68 students were stuck in contextually comprehending messages. To probe into the reason for the discrepancy, according to the findings from qualitative content analysis of students’ responses to the three themes, students’ contextual understanding had three characteristics: 1) neutral description; 2) Confucian world view of achieving mutual benefits after resolving conflicts; 3) the inclination to adopt discourses from Chinese news media. Threshold-crossing tended to be confined to insufficient access to media messages from various perspectives and the uncritical learning pattern under the socio-cultural circumstances. The teacher’s bounded autonomy connected to reciprocal reserved teaching-learning thus brought about a hidden threshold concept which is difficult to be measured.
Threshold Concepts 