A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BILINGUAL AND TRILINGUAL STUDENTS’ WORKING MEMORY CAPACITY

The notion of interpreters' working memory capacity and ways to increase it have been important areas of research in translation studies. The aim of the present study was to compare the working memory capacity of trilingual and bilingual students of translation studies. The participants were twelve upper intermediate students of translation studies, including six trilingual ones (speaking Turkish as their first language, Persian as their second language, and English as their third language) at Daneshvaran University in Tabriz and six bilinguals (speaking Persian as their first language and English as their second language) at Birjand University. First, the participants were asked to answer the Oxford Placement Test in order that we could be sure everyone was at the same level of English language proficiency. To compare the capacity of working memory capacity of trilingual and bilingual students, we gave them Digit Span Test one by one and measured the total score for digit span, Two Error Maximal Length (TE _ ML) for backward and forward Digit Span. The obtained data were analyzed using Independent Sample T-test. The findings showed no significant differences between the working memory capacity of trilingual and bilingual students of translation studies. The results were discussed and the recommendations for theory and practice were given.

کلیدواژه ها:

working memory ، digit span ، bilingual and trilingual Translation students