Curriculum Development In Postgraduate Translation Education-A Learner-centered Approach From The Perspective Of Constructivism

With the rapid economic, social and cultural development, China is in need of more and more qualified professional translators and interpreters. Translation education has thus attracted great attention, whose increasing importance can be well illustrated by the approval of translation as a major for undergraduates in 2006 and the setting up of Master of Translation and Interpreting program(MTI for short) in 2007.In this thesis, the author discusses postgraduate translation education at master's level for English majors from the perspective of curriculum development, the macro-research on such processes as objective setting, curriculum content choosing, organizing, implementation and evaluation, which may shed some light on the status quo of translation education field.The author, first of all, analyzes the major problems with the current postgraduate translation curriculum development in the Mainland of China, that is, lack of distinction between undergraduate and postgraduate, academically-oriented and professionally-oriented translation education. Second, by differentiating the characteristics of some representative curriculum development models in curriculum studies, foreign language teaching and translation teaching, the author further explores their merits and demerits in accordance with translation teaching practice. Third, by distinguishing two popular terms in translation studies, namely, translation competence and translator competence, the author intends to find out the principal and subordinate relationship of the two competences in postgraduate translation education. Fourth, based on the implications from constructivism and postgraduate translation education in some well-known institutes in Taiwan, Hong Kong and abroad, a revised curriculum development model is presented from a learner-centered approach.Under the new model, it is proposed that academically-oriented postgraduate translation education should focus on research potential development whereas professionally-oriented postgraduate translation education ought to aim at translator competence development. At the end of this thesis, improvements are suggested on the current postgraduate translation curriculum development in the Mainland of China.