Abstract

This paper aims to find out whether current business English (BE) translation textbooks in China can meet the demand of the industry and the need of the learners under the guidance of Hutchinson and Waters’ need analysis model for ESP (English for Specific Purposes). Through analyzing coursebook content and conducting a questionnaire survey among 96 university English major students and 61 industrial employees, the research gives an evaluation of current mainstream textbooks in China. The results show that the current textbooks can generally meet the essential needs of the learners. Covering a variety of genres, the textbooks can cultivate learners’ translation skills as well as business competences. The translation materials often include typical examples from the industry and classic texts. Most translation theories are also systematically presented. However, there are still some areas to be improved. In terms of text types, foreign trade and logistics documents, tender & bid documents, annual reports, business meeting reports, business cards, industry news, research reports are still lacking. In terms of scaffolding for learners, some textbooks lack the lists of business vocabulary. In terms of translation examples and exercises, more real-world challenges can be included. In terms of digital resources, the current teaching materials can do more to provide timely updating, and the forms are expected to be richer. In view of these, the paper puts forward some suggestions, in the hope that they can provide some new insights for the development of business translation teaching materials in China.

Keywords

Business Translation, Need Analysis, Translation Coursebooks, Textbook Evaluation

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1. Introduction

With China’s further opening up, international trade cooperation has deepened significantly. The volume of China’s foreign trade reached 41.76 trillion yuan (USD5.9 trillion) in 2023. Therefore, the demand for high-end English talents who have a good command of both business knowledge and translation skills is increasing.

“Business English (BE) Translation” is a popular course for college English majors in China, as students seek to bridge the gap between classroom learning and the real-world application through such profession-oriented courses. In this context, developing translation textbooks that align with the demand in the business world is of vital importance. Many BE translation textbooks are available in the market, and analyzing these materials can help evaluate current teaching resources. Such evaluation is crucial for the selection, development, and revision of BE translation coursebooks.

Though many scholars have done research on ESL coursebook evaluation, there is a notable lack of studies focused on business translation textbooks. Previous researches in this niche area often discuss transformation skills in translation, the relationship between translation theory and practice, translation assessment, etc., which seem to be more teacher-centered. A more learner-centered and multi-dimensional perspective investigating into both school courses and the business world’s real practice will be helpful to address both educational and professional needs in the future.

1.1. Literature Review

With the publication of Munby’s (1978) Communicative Syllabus Design, needs analysis in ESP has gone through many phases. Munby’s overall model is made up of the following elements: participants, the communication need processor, the meaning processor, the language skills selector, the linguistic encoder, and the communicative competence specification. The most prominent element of this model is Communication Need Processor (CNP), which aims to find the forms of language that ESP learners are likely to use in a variety of situations in the target work environment. However, West (1994) mentioned some shortcomings in Munby’s model, including complexity, too much learner-centeredness, etc. In 1987, Hutchinson and Waters brought forth a new need analysis model, which includes target situation needs and learning needs. They looked at the target situation needs in terms of necessities, wants and lacks. Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) further pulled together theory and practice by introducing many practical key issues for Business English (BE), such as discourse community, business genres, learners’ expectations and strategies, and different cross-cultural features, etc. They also included many different parameters: intensive or extensive courses, assessed or non-assessed, broad or narrow focus, pre-experience or parallel with experience, etc.

When ESL research came into the 21^st century, McDonough et al. (2013) suggested that materials evaluation could be carried out in two complementary stages—the external stage and the internal stage. In recent years, online translation and interpretation training can be as good alternative as face-to-face lectures, encouraging experts to continue researching and developing more effective training approaches (Lee & Huh, 2018).

In China, the development of teaching materials is also considered to be essential for translation teaching. Tao (2005) suggested modifications of Holmes’ map of Translation Studies by incorporating translation textbook development as a component in the “applied branch”. But business translation studies during the first decade of the 21^st century in China were generally more of practice than of theory in nature. For example, Gu (2007) analyzed the problematic translation examples from four perspectives: redundancy with synonyms, sentence structure misunderstanding, plural problems, professional terms and jargon. He pointed out that the core of the understanding stage in the process of translation is to find the references in the source language, which emphasized the accuracy and seriousness of business translation.

The second decade saw an attempt to establish comprehensive framework for research of business translation textbooks. He (2013) suggested that a textbook series should take distinctive care of five relationships systematically. The translation teaching should meet both the learning needs of students and the job needs of employers (Xie, Jiang, & Zhou, 2016). Tao (2017: p. 84) stressed that textbooks need to shoulder the mission of transmitting the curriculum concepts and expressing the curriculum content.

In recent years, translation has entered the era of professionalism and specialization. On the one hand, both empowering effect and new challenges brought by translation technology and artificial intelligence raised much discussion (Tao, 2017: p. 84). On the other hand, need analysis was re-visited. The employers expect students to have a good foundation in both general and specialized business knowledge and communicative skills to solve practical problems in work (Shi & Cheng, 2019).

Researchers agree that as one of the basic teaching resources in classroom teaching, textbooks not only determine the teaching plan, but also influence the quality of teaching (Long & Gong, 2023: p. 93). Moreover, six modules of main teaching materials were suggested for materials development in the new era: online courses, dynamic teaching materials, data platforms, electronic courseware and course forums (Qin & Yang, 2023).

However, the impact of the quality of teaching materials on the quality of business English talent training has rarely been investigated from a multi-dimensional perspective taking into account the needs of students, clients, markets and industries. Most existing researches mainly focus on the business English textbooks of vocational colleges, and the researches on the undergraduate and postgraduate business English textbooks are much fewer (Wang & Ren, 2021: p. 48). From the perspective of research methods, textbook research used to be mainly based on subjective analysis and experience description, and there have been few empirical studies supported by data. Therefore, the present research intends to address these research gaps.

1.2. Research Questions

Based on the above analysis, it can be seen that the evaluation of existing BE translation textbooks deserves serious consideration. By analyzing the needs of students and foreign trade industry, the needs of “pre-experience ESP learners” at college will be clearer for teachers, thus helping them to better respond to the needs of students and promote the development of society as a whole. Such evaluation will also help language teachers and course designers to develop suitable teaching materials and eliminate the possible mismatches between the learners’ needs and employers’ needs. Therefore, the research questions to be answered in this study include the following:

1) What are the target needs and learning needs of BE translation learners?

2) Do existing textbooks meet the above needs?

3) What suggestions can be provided to improve BE textbook design and teaching philosophy for pre-experience college students?

2. Theoretical Framework: Needs Analysis by Hutchinson and Waters (1987)

The study chooses the theoretical framework proposed by Hutchinson and Waters in 1987, because their model puts forth a practical and classic learning-centered method which is line with real-world demand of ESP competences. They have analyzed both target needs and learning needs among ESP learners.

2.1. Target Needs

Target needs or target-situation needs is something of an umbrella term, which is generally concerned with language use and can tell us what people do with language. In other words, it emphasizes language performance. In practice, the idea of “target needs” includes a number of important distinctions. It is more useful to look at the target situation in terms of three components: necessities, wants and lacks.

Necessities mean what learners have to know in order to function effectively in the target situation. This component mainly discusses the skills that learners have to obtain in order to work well.

Wants are learners’ understandings of their needs, which are subjective needs. Learners’ wants are indispensable for textbooks design, and textbooks designers should have a good understanding of what the learners want and desire. Therefore, the learners’ wants should be attached importance to in the textbooks design so as to meet the learners’ expectations and inspire their motivation.

But it is not sufficient to just identify necessities and wants. After knowing what the target situation is and what the learners want, the researchers can decide what the learners lack.

Some typical questions to be considered in target situation analysis proposed by Hutchinson and Waters are as follows:

Why is the language needed?

How will the language be used?

What will the content areas be?

Who will the learner use the language with?

Where will the language be used?

When will the language be used?

2.2. Learning Needs

Apart from target needs, what course designers also need to know is how people learn to do what they do with language. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) compare ESP learning to a journey, where learning need means not only what learners need to master but also how they master the language. In other words, learning need stresses the process of language study. It includes the following aspects: the learners, their motivation, learning style, resources available, and so on.

Hutchinson and Waters also proposes some typical questions to be considered in determining learning needs:

Who are the learners?

Why are the learners taking the course?

How do the learners learn?

What resources are available?

Where will the ESP course take place?

When will the ESP course take place?

3. Research Methodology

3.1. Research Instruments

The methods employed in the current research are: 1) observation and analysis of the content of existing textbooks; 2) questionnaire survey. Two questionnaires were designed according to Hutchinson and Waters’ (1987) model of ESP needs analysis. The first questionnaire (A) is for junior and senior English major students who have taken “Business English Translation” course. It is designed to find out their learning needs. The other questionnaire (B) is for working professionals who have graduated from English/BE major. It is designed to find out the target situation needs of business translation.

The above questionnaires were made into electronic ones on a popular survey platform in China—Wenjuanxing and distributed to students and alumni using social media tools like WeChat and DingTalk.

3.2. Subjects of Survey

3.2.1. English Major Students

The main participants of this study are junior and senior students who have taken Business English Translation course at the corresponding author’s school. The course runs for 17 consecutive weeks, with 90 minutes of study per week. A total of 117 questionnaires were recovered, among which 96 were valid.

3.2.2. Industrial Employees

It is relatively difficult to distribute the questionnaire to in-service employees. The authors use WeChat alumni groups. The respondents are all alumni in the corresponding author’s school. A total of 69 samples were collected, among which 61 were valid. The respondents used to be English/Business English major students and have now graduated and been engaged in English-related work in foreign trade companies, companies with international business, etc.

3.2.3. Business English Translation Textbooks

After the questionnaire survey, the authors examined 6 business English translation textbooks to find out if they meet the needs expressed in the survey. In order to ensure the quality and representativeness of the selected textbooks, the study chooses 4 Five-Year Plan Textbooks, which are generally considered to be the highest-level textbooks in China. They are Book 1, 3, 5, 6 as shown in Table 1. Among them, Book 1 was used by English major students in this study as the textbook for BE Translation course.

Another two textbooks (Book 2 and 4 in Table 1) are published by University of International Business and Economics Press, which is renowned for its strength in the discipline of business English.

Table 1. The six business English translation textbooks under review.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Needs Analysis

This part presents the results of industrial needs and ESP learners’ need analysis according to the theory of Hutchinson and Waters (1987). Learners’ need analysis includes target needs and learning needs, with the former focusing on language use while latter on language learning.

4.1.1. Target Needs Analysis

As mentioned before, target needs consist of necessities, wants and lacks. This part will analyze the above three aspects one by one to find out how coursebooks used in universities can better help students to be prepared for industrial expectations.

1) Necessities

The best way to determine the necessities is to analyze the responses from the in-service business professionals. Due to local industrial structure, most English/BE major graduates at the university in the present study enter foreign trade industry or related fields. Their job duties often include export sales, foreign trade procurement, import trade, cross-border e-commerce, international exhibition, translation, management, office work related to trade documentations and formalities, etc. These are also the typical areas many English/BE graduates in China will be engaged in.

Table 2 shows the evaluation results of employees on topics related to BE translation according to their perception of importance. They use the 5-point Likert scale to rate each area. Therefore, the result shows the market demand for knowledge and skills of English talents.

Table 2. Importance of knowledge and expertise from the perspective of in-service employees.

The data in Table 2 reveals business translation necessities and the market’s expectations of English talents. Translation of business correspondence, product introduction and user manuals, business contracts, foreign trade and logistics documents are considered to be the most important areas of knowledge and expertise. The mean scores of these four areas are all above 4 points out of 5, which indicates that the teaching materials of business translation should not only provide English talents with knowledge related to business documents, but also help them to develop communicating skills for customer interaction and product promotion. Among them, translation of business correspondence is considered to be the most important by in-service employees.

2) Wants

Learners’ wants are researched through the questionnaire survey among students at college. They also use the 5-point Likert scale to rate the content areas in business translation. The results are summarized in Table 3. It can be seen that from the perspective of students, foreign trade and logistics documents are the most important. The other three important areas are business contracts, business correspondence and commercial letter of credit. The average scores of these four categories are all above 4 points out of 5.

Table 3. Importance of knowledge and expertise from the perspective of college students.

3) Lacks

When we compare Table 3 with Table 2, the gap between in-service business professionals and the college students emerge. Although both groups of survey respondents agree that the translation of foreign trade documents, contracts and business correspondence are among the most important areas to be grasped, there are some notable differences between the two groups.

Pre-experience college students tend to put more emphasis on the translation of more technical materials like foreign trade documents and contracts, as shown in Table 4. In all the four content areas that are more related to technical terms, students rate them with a higher ranking of importance than the professionals.

Table 4. Ranking of importance for translating technical materials.

In contrast, for more communicative content areas like business correspondence, experienced professionals tend to value more the translation skills in these categories. As shown in Table 5, for the four areas that are more related to soft skills like courtesy, consideration, need perception, audience awareness, in-service employees rate them with a higher ranking of importance than university students.

Table 5. Ranking of importance for translating communicative materials.

The above comparison indicates that college students need to pay more attention to communicative skills in business translation. Because they will be more familiar with the technical terms soon after they begin to work, but for the more interactive skills, it needs a much longer time to develop. This also gives insights for college teachers when they choose or develop course materials for business translation.

4.1.2. Learning Needs Analysis

The learning needs analysis aims to identify students’ motivations and difficulties in the process of learning BE translation. Students’ learning habits, expectation of resources, etc. will also be discussed in this part.

1) Motivations

In the questionnaire survey, nearly half of the students hope that learning business translation can improve employment competitiveness. When asked about their objectives in BE Translation course, more than 80% of them want to learn practical translation methods and techniques (see Table 6). This percentage is much higher than all the other choices, and it indicates that classroom teaching cannot just be limited to specific business expressions, but need to help students understand why language is used in that way.

Table 6. Students’ objectives in BE Translation course.

2) Difficulties

Table 7 shows that in the process of learning BE translation, the biggest difficulty that students encounter is translating long sentences. The second challenge is accurate understanding of lexical concepts. In addition, they also encounter difficulties in reader awareness and cross-cultural knowledge.

Table 7. Degree of difficulty among the learning areas of BE translation.

Through the survey, we have learned that students hope the textbooks can give more explanation and more exercises for the difficult areas. They also like the latest business examples and typical case studies to feel more connected with real-world solutions. Students also expect multiple reference versions in translation explanation. Most of them use textbooks under the guidance of the teacher. All these factors can be taken into consideration in classroom pedagogy and coursebook development.

4.2. General Evaluation of Business English Translation Textbooks

After the need analysis, this part will evaluate the 6 coursebooks under review in this study. The evaluation includes five areas: text types, content highlight, translation examples and related practices, theoretical interpretation, digital resources.

4.2.1. The Text Types

There are many text types within business context, and the previous discussion have shown the similarities and differences between in-service business professionals and college students in terms of their rating for the importance of each text type. Students think the translation of foreign trade documents is important because of their lack of work experience. But from the perspective of the industry, business correspondence is the most significant area. Translation of product materials is also considered of essential importance. Because they are used to explain the design, function, and characteristics of the product, and to inform the customer how to use the product properly. These are the values a business can bring to its customers.

However, textbooks in college study should not only meet the practical expectations of the industry, but also need to take into account the long-term professional competences, thinking-skill-related capabilities and all-round ability of a whole person. Therefore, text types like industry news and research reports also have their unique values to broaden the learners’ vision and to improve the higher-level translation skills.

It can be seen from Table 8 that all the six textbooks cover the following topics: advertisements, product materials, company profiles, and business contracts. But only Textbook 4 covers foreign trade documents. Textbook 2 doesn’t include business correspondence. And for the letter of credit that students need, it is included in Textbook 1, 4, and 5. But few of these textbooks contain tender & bid documents, annual reports, business meeting reports, business cards, industry news, and research reports.

4.2.2. Content Highlight

The survey results show that most students believe the content of business English translation textbooks should give highlight to business vocabulary and business knowledge. All the six textbooks cover some different areas of business knowledge, and combine English language application, understanding of Chinese & English culture and business knowledge together.

Among the 6 coursebooks, only Textbook 1 doesn’t include the business vocabulary, while others incorporate vocabulary and expressions in different ways. Among them, Textbook 5 introduces the vocabulary features of the different genres at the beginning of each chapter and then list the relevant vocabularies. Some students find this helpful, because it meets their expectation of combining abstract principles with concrete examples. For example:

The vocabulary for commercial correspondence is precise and specialized, such as enquiry, offer, delivery, CIF, FOB (Li & Lv, 2020: p. 132).

In addition, for the translation skill analysis that students need, only Textbook 1 identifies translation methods in the analysis of each translation example. The remaining materials only use special modules to introduce the translation techniques involved in different genres. For example, in Textbook 4, the author points out that 5 translation techniques can be used in advertisement translation, including literal translation, free translation, equivalent translation, amplification, and four-character structures. He first introduces the concept of these methods and then gives explanations, but the subsequent examples are not all equipped with detailed discussion of methods to illustrate why a particular technique can be used in that specific context. In other words, the textbooks can go deeper into the cognitive processes of language use.

Table 8. Different text types that the six textbooks cover.

4.2.3. Translation Examples and Related Practices

By looking into the detailed content of the six coursebooks, the translation examples in them can be divided into four types: up-to-date translation, classic translation, improper translation, and translation by famous translators.

The translation examples in all six books contain up-to-date business examples and classic examples. One of the outstanding features of Textbook 1 is that each chapter includes a special section that is devoted to comparison of different translation versions, enabling learners to see more possibilities of language. At the same time, some of the translations in Textbook 1 are from famous translators as shown by the sample below:

Chen Xiaowei: Honesty is the key to success. A great business wins the world by merits (Li, 2007: p. 65).

Li Ming: Honesty is the key to success. Quality paves the way to the world (Li, 2007: p. 65).

A comparison of different translated texts can be found in Textbook 2, with an explanation as to which one is better. For example:

Poor: Our cause has won victories one after another (Pan, 2010: p. 48).

The translation does not conform to English expression and is not authentic English. The translation needs to be rewritten (Pan, 2010: p. 48).

Better1: We have won one victory after another for our cause (Pan, 2010: p. 48).

Better2: A series of victories have been won for our cause (Pan, 2010: p. 48).

The inclusion of such improper translation examples can remind learners to avoid making the same mistakes and at the same time enable them to learn different translation techniques.

With regard to translation exercises, only Textbook 1 provides a variety of reference versions. Textbooks 2 and 4 do not provide reference versions, but do provide ideas for translation and questions for evaluating translations. Textbook 3, 5 and 6 provide only one kind of reference translation. In Textbook 3, only key words are provided.

4.2.4. Theoretical Interpretation

Business translation textbooks are more practice-oriented, but translation practice cannot be separated from the guidance of theory, and only when the theory is well mastered can it be applied flexibly in practice.

However, most students believe that translation theories should be combined with translation examples. Among the six textbooks, the introduction of theoretical explanations can be divided into two types. The first type is to introduce business translation theories systematically in the first few chapters, and to introduce the corresponding translation theories in relation to different genres in later chapters. Textbook 1, 3, 4, 5 all adopt this method.

The second type combines the principles of translation with specific translation examples. Textbook 2 and 6 belong to this type. From the perspective of students, this approach is preferred as it will help them to better understand the relation between theory and practice with concrete examples.

4.2.5. Digital Materials

Digital materials refer to mobile apps, interactive video games, online quizzes and downloadable materials from the web, and so on.

Textbook 3, 4, 5 provide online courseware and answers to exercises, but these online resources cannot provide updating of the translation materials or meet students’ need for online interaction.

Digital materials should keep pace with the times. Therefore, BE translation coursebooks in the future need to focus on the frontier of the translation industry, and update the teaching content in time, so that they can make up for the shortcomings of traditional textbooks. It is suggested that electronic teaching materials can make use of the digital course platform to establish a translation learning community with teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction and student-content interaction.

5. Conclusion

This research conducted a survey using questionnaires distributed to 96 undergraduate students and 61 in-service business employees to gain insights into learner needs in the context of BE translation. Based on this, the study then evaluated six BE translation textbooks to determine their effectiveness in meeting the target and learning needs of students. Following a thorough data analysis, the three research questions proposed at the beginning can be answered as follows:

Regarding the target and learning needs of BE translation learners, a significant number of English major graduates pursue careers in foreign trade, primarily as export sales staff, while some others take on management roles. Business employees indicated that skills in translating business emails, product descriptions, contracts, and logistics documents are of utmost importance. In contrast, college students tend to prioritize skills in translating technical materials.

In terms of learning motivation, nearly half of the student respondents expressed a desire to enhance their employment competitiveness. They aspire to acquire practical translation skills and build a solid foundation in business language. Students also seek assistance in overcoming challenges associated with translating long sentences. They believe that textbooks should incorporate up-to-date business examples and relevant case studies. Furthermore, they suggest that exercises should provide translation strategies, methodologies, and multiple reference versions. As for the integration of translation theory, students feel that combining theoretical concepts with specific translation examples is the most effective approach. Additionally, they emphasize that the textbook content should encompass essential business vocabulary and relevant business knowledge.

Regarding the alignment of textbook materials with learners’ needs, the study found that these textbooks generally meet the essential requirements of learners. They demonstrate strengths in both relevance and practicality of content. Despite some areas to be improved, learners expressed overall satisfaction with the textbook they have used.

In terms of text types, most of the textbooks address the genres required by both employees and learners. However, many are deficient in content related to foreign trade and logistics documents. All the textbooks introduce various aspects of business knowledge, and most include lists of relevant business vocabulary. Translation techniques are typically explained, and all textbooks feature both up-to-date and classic translation examples. However, only one textbook provides multiple translation versions; others either present only translation ideas and key terms or offer just a single reference version. Regarding theoretical interpretation, two textbooks align with students’ preferred approach of combining translation theories with specific examples. Additionally, half of the textbooks provide online courseware and digital materials, but they can hardly keep pace with current technological development. Therefore, the development or revision of BE translation coursebooks is urgently needed.

In terms of pedagogical implications, the following suggestions are proposed to improve future BE translation textbooks:

1) Incorporate practical text types such as foreign trade and logistics documents, tender and bid documents, annual reports, business meeting reports, business cards, industry news, and research reports.

2) Add business vocabulary in a user-friendly format.

3) Expand business knowledge related to export and management practices.

4) Provide multiple translation versions to broaden learners’ perspectives.

5) Include more exercises for translating long sentences and provide accompanying translation strategies and methodologies.

6) Enhance digital resources.

The present study is still limited by its scope, particularly in terms of the survey participants. Engaging a larger number of employee respondents and including more universities could yield more comprehensive insights. In addition, the textbooks we evaluated were published up to 2020. There might be some latest developments the present study hasn’t covered. Therefore, more researches could be carried out on the evaluation of BE translation textbooks so as to provide robust support for learners and enhance the cultivation of BE professionals in China.

Acknowledgements

This study is sponsored by the Project “Exploration and Practice of OMO Smart Teaching in ‘Business Translation’ Course Based on New-modal Coursebook Design” (jg20220686) supported by Department of Education of Zhejiang Province, and coursebook development project supported by Ningbo Tech University. The authors are grateful for their support.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

References