Self-Efficacy for Metalinguistics and Its Relationship to Writing Quality: Exploring the Translation Box

• In Event: 73.062 - Poster Session 17
  In Poster Session: 73.062-2 - Motivational and Cognitive Processes: Language, Literacy, Communication, and Reasoning

Abstract

This study developed a metalinguistic self-efficacy scale to measure participants’ confidence for engaging in metalinguistic tasks. Participant responses matched with essays they wrote to identify any relationships between the two. This study assumes that metalinguistics explicates cognitive and linguistic processes that occur during translation. Exploratory factor analysis revealed two factors, which represent a broad range of metalinguistic tasks. Correlation analysis indicated a positive relationship between the metalinguistic self-efficacy measure and ratings of participants’ essays for one of the factors. Regression analyses found that the two metalinguistic dimensions were not equally related to essay ratings. These findings are largely consistent with previous studies, but there were unexpected findings. The researcher concluded that metalinguistic ability influences writing quality during translation.

Author

• Michael S Dempsey, Boston University