On the Relationship between Critical Thinking Ability and Translation Accuracy in SLA

Abstract While the effect of different psychological, individual, contextual, and cultural variables has been investigated in the past three decades and there have been few studies on the role of the learners’ critical thinking ability in translation accuracy, this study aimed to examine the relationship between critical thinking ability and translation accuracy of 40 intermediate Iranian translation studies students. To this end, the critical thinking ability questionnaire filled by the translation studies students, who were in the last semester of their B.A program. The standard text extracted from PNU Translating Texts in Politics, which includes 30 lines and asked for translating. Then, the students’ translation accuracy measured by Khanmohammad and OsanloRubic (2009) model. The obtained data analyzed by SPSS (version 21) and descriptive and inferential statistics were computed. The correlation calculations indicated that there was a positive relationship between critical thinking ability and translation accuracy. Moreover, the regression analyses showed that critical thinking ability was able to significantly predict translation accuracy.