Asymmetrical Performance between English-to-Chinese and Chinese-to-English Translation on Asymmetrical Word Order NP + AdjP/AdvP Constructions among Chinese Learners of English: An Outcome of Underutilization of Syntactic Trial and Error Parsing

This study conducts an empirical experiment with 140 subjects and employs statistical analysis using SPSS, GraphPad Prism, and Cursor, confirming four findings: 1. Chinese learners of English show no significant difference in performance when translating symmetrical word order NP + AdjP/AdvP constructions from English to Chinese compared to from Chinese to English. 2. In contrast, their performance on asymmetrical word order NP + AdjP/AdvP constructions is significantly better when translating from English to Chinese than from Chinese to English. 3. The adoption of chunk strategy does not mitigate this asymmetrical translation performance. 4. However, from a confidence perspective, they demonstrate significantly higher confidence in translating both asymmetrical and symmetrical word order NP + AdjP/AdvP constructions from English to Chinese compared to Chinese to English. A model explaining this asymmetrical performance is described, identifying the underutilization of syntactic trial and error parsing among Chinese learners of English as a contributing factor.