A - It is highly likely that the direction of the translation tasks affects the translational behavior. But how this factor works requires rigorous investigation. Moreover, the experience may turn into a language proficiency problem if the research question is not properly formulated. One way to keep the factor of language proficiency as insignificant as possible would be the selection of professional translators or published translations as the object of investigation. If you wish to obtain reliable predictions or empirical observations, sufficient data and sound research design are the two requirements.

B - Awareness of text type is a critical element in translation competence. If you make up your mind to do a research regarding how the factor of text type affects, say, the strategies in the course of translating, the trainee will have to deal with at least more than one text type in his/her thesis and engage in a comparative study of their stylistic features.

C - Awareness of texture is another critical element in translation competence. The trainee has to familiarize him/herself with discussions of the property of being a text and the major linguistic devices involved.

E - This may motivate an inquiry into the nature of the translational phenomenon. Reading is regarded as essential to the process of translating. But this account seems to draw our attention to another equally (if not more) essential element in the picture of translating, namely writing. The experience may also serve to indicate the likely differences between reading in general and reading to translate, and hence calls for experiments on reading.

G - The observation concerns different translations of the same work over time. The amount of data has to be taken into account if one wishes to investigate along this line. B.A. level research cannot possibly cover too many texts. Any claim concerning the features characteristic of the translating activities during the specified period would require a longer-term project.

H - It brings up a problem that arises from the differences in the grammatical function of the subject in given languages. The trainee might collect existing translation examples that show different treatments of the English subjects. The attempts to summarize and classify them could follow.

I - At first glance, this seems to concern the effect of poetic translations. But a second thought would help us identify a similar language proficiency issue as D and F discussed above. It's likely that an English reader may consider the Chinese translations of English romantic poems as tasteless in comparison with the originals. What causes the incomparability here most likely lies not between translation and original but between the reader's feel for his/her native language and for a foreign language.

J - This is a hunch only, but it brings up valuable points. Professional skills in writing may have a significant bearing on the decision--making process in translating. A project may be designed to verify or falsify the hypothesis and to look into the detailed aspects involved, but enough texts have to be included to reach any reliable conclusions.

L - This says something about the status of translator as opposed to that of author, which has been a perennial discussion in translation studies. A related topic is the relationship between the original and its translation(s). However, this does not seem to be a manageable topic since discussion of abstract issues would come onto the scene. If there has been little theoretical training offered to the trainee, this kind of conceptual research would be difficult.

M - This can lead to an investigation into the strategies employed by translators through close analysis. The trainee may carry out an experiment by distributing the original to his/her fellow trainees and elicit their translations. Questionnaires will also be helpful in collecting information regarding how each trainee translator comes to a decision on which words or objects to be explained in detail. Analysis of the elicited translations and questionnaires has to be done before any conclusion can be reached. But statistically significant results would call for a well-designed questionnaire and sufficient replies from the survey.

N - This experience with translation is part of the foreign language learning experience.

O - The trainee may select a short text and collect two of its translations (which have to be products resulting from serious efforts if they are not published). Comparative study of the three texts may be conducted. But s/he has to be clear about the aspects in which the texts are to be examined. Such comparative work may finally lead to an awareness of the factors involved.

P - This raises a specific problem that the trainee has in dealing with particular tasks. This type of investigation, however, does not intend to work out solutions to such specific problems as any suggested solutions may well vary from case to case and will not stand as invariable exemplar to follow. Instead, we are expected to raise our awareness of the factors involved in the translational phenomenon and acquire a clearer understanding of our own translational behavior by doing investigations, which in the long run will improve the performance.

Q - The trainee can do an experiment on his/her fellow trainees to find out what might be going on in their mind in the course of translating. S/he may select a short text, then produce a detailed report on how they analyze the text before translating as well as how they tackle the difficulties in the course of translating. Analysis of their commentary and translation would reveal manifestly to the trainee how they have dealt with a particular translation task.