| Interpreters are made not born(Mackintosh,1999:67).It is believed that everybody has the potential to become an interpreter after training.Nonetheless,time constraints and financial limitations make it advisable to select applicants who need the least training.Aptitude testing for interpreting,with a purpose to admit the most promising candidates,has thus become not only a practical necessity for institutions,but also a concerned issue among interpreting researchers.Literature review and empirical survey discover that aptitude testing for interpreting attaches great importance to cognitive aptitude,such as language transfer,comprehension,analysis and the like,which is characterized by being standardized,quantified,replicable.Most importantly,it determines success or failure of a specific task.Comparatively,non-cognitive attributes,personality in particular,albeit recognized as important,are seldom measured,due to their complex structure and shortage of scientific measurement tools.Bearing this void in mind,I intend to focus this dissertation on the research of personality traits in aptitude testing for interpreting,with an aim to expand objective ways of testing candidates for the requisite knowledge and skills.Personality hardiness,underpinning in existential psychology,is such a vital and valuable personality trait for interpreters.With a constellation of three crucial characteristics,namely,Commitment,Control,and Challenge,personality hardiness is presented as facilitating perception,evaluation and coping that lead to successful resolution of the situation created by stressful events.It not only contributes to decreasing physical and psychological illness,but also conduces to improving performance under stress in a wide range of contexts from the military to medical schools,and to colleges.Interpreting is a highly stress-provoking activity and interpreters normally work under great pressure.Accordingly,an ideal interpreter is expected to possess personality traits of "stress-resistance","resilience","psychological stamina" and"nerves of steel",to name but a few.Apparently,personality hardiness shares similarities with the aforementioned aptitudes.Indeed,available research reveals that it is a better predictor of effective coping with stressful circumstances.Hence,I attempt to borrow this useful psychological concept—personality hardiness to interpreting studies,exploring whether it facilitates the performance of interpreters as it does among lawyers,military cadets,nurses,teachers and so forth.Since the current research is an exploratory study of the relations between personality hardiness and interpreting performance,it is worthwhile to investigate whether there lies a mediator or moderator to affect this relationship.Given the Hardiness Model that it is via alleviating stress that hardiness enhances performance,as well as the evidence that hardiness and self-efficacy are intimately associated,this dissertation is devoted to an empirical investigation into the effects of personality hardiness on interpreting performance,with interpreting anxiety and self-efficacy as two intermediates.Toward this end,a quantitative method of questionnaire survey and a qualitative in-depth interview are adopted amongst 149 Chinese student interpreters at postgraduate level.In this dissertation,Chapter 1 presents a succinct introduction to the research motives,questions and methodology.In Chapter 2 and 3,relevant literature is thoroughly and critically reviewed,and a research framework is clearly unfolded.Chapter 4 introduces in details the research design,hypotheses,data collection procedures and analysis methods,followed by Chapter 5 in which findings pertaining to each hypothesis are presented.In Chapter 6,an elaborated discussion on the effects of personality hardiness on interpreting performance,self-efficacy as well as interpreting anxiety is provided.With the substantiated effectiveness,a framework for personality hardiness measurement in aptitude testing for interpreting is tentatively proposed in Chapter 7,aligned with a detailed illustration on measuring tools and procedures.Chapter 8 concludes the dissertation with a summary of major findings,significance and suggestions for follow-up endeavors in the future.The major findings of the current research are:firstly,personality hardiness,interpreting anxiety,self-efficacy and interpreting performance are interrelated.Specifically,personality hardiness is significantly negatively correlated with interpreting anxiety and positively related to self-efficacy and interpreting performance;secondly,personality hardiness is of significant predictability on interpreting performance,interpreting anxiety and self-efficacy respectively;thirdly,interpreting anxiety and self-efficacy play a mediating role in personality hardiness and interpreting performance linkages separately,which indicate,in addition to a direct correlation with interpreting performance,personality hardiness influences students' interpreting performance via relieving interpreting anxiety and enhancing sense of self-efficacy.The present investigation reveals that personality hardiness is a valuable trait to student interpreters.By presenting systematically the effects of personality hardiness on interpreting performance,this dissertation is believed to contribute theoretical as well as empirical stepping stones to understanding the position of personality hardiness in aptitude testing for interpreting,providing the stake-holders with insights or blueprints in selecting the most teachable candidates for interpreting training programs.In addition,findings of this dissertation will shed light on personality dispositions research on interpreter performance,injecting fresh impetus to embark on a new research agenda designed to further understanding of hardiness-performance linkages in interpreters.Finally,this study,taking an interdisciplinary viewpoint of and drawing a heavy load of scholarship from research on psychology and second language acquisition,will in return lend itself to these flourishing domains in one way or another. |
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