An Empirical Study On The Application Of Multimodal Discourse Analysis To Undergraduate English Interpreting Teaching

Considering China’s more frequent international exchanges with other countriesand the inter-culture communication around the world, there is no surprise to notice thathighly qualified interpreters have been in urgent need. China Education Ministry hasissued the decree that interpretation be the compulsory course in many universities.However important it is, the teaching method of interpretation is still in exploration. Thetraditional interpretation teaching method uses single teaching mode which can not meetwith the interests and needs of students and so that it will influences the improvement ofinterpreting level directly.Taken the theories of Constructivist Learning Environment as the theoretical basis,this research applies Multimodal Discourse Analysis to the teaching of undergraduateinterpreting. In order to investigate the validity of multimodal interpreting teachingmodel on students’ interpreting ability, the author carries out the interpreting teachingexperiments. Multimodal interpreting teaching is made through the use of modalities(such as visual, aural and somatic) and semiotic resources (such as language, images,gestures, mathematical and scientific symbolism) in class with the aid of richinterpreting materials, simulated teaching environment and multimodal interpretingactivities so as to stimulate students’ interest in interpreting learning and enhance theirinterpreting ability.The subjects involved in this study were64English major seniors of two naturalclasses chosen from School of International Relations in Sichuan International StudiesUniversity according to their interpreting performance in last semester’s interpretingfinal test.33of them formed the experimental group (EG) which would be taught by themultimodal interpreting teaching method; and naturally the other31constituted thecontrol group (CG) with the traditional method of interpreting teaching. After threemonths’ teaching experiment, the author conducted the interpreting test and gave thescores on the base of the evaluation of interpretation test which includes three indices: completeness (35%), accuracy (35%) and language (30%). The analyses of the results ofthe teaching experiment indicate that there exists statistically significant differenceexists between EG and CG that students in EG has made obvious progress in overallinterpreting ability compared with CG. Students in EG get higher scores incompleteness and language with obvious difference, while there exists no significantdifference in their accuracy. After the teaching experiment, the author carried out thequestionnaire so as to figure out their attitudes towards multimodal interpreting teaching.After analyzing the questionnaire, the result shows that multimodal interpretingteaching is beneficial to arouse their interests in learning interpreting.The analysis of result from the teaching experiment and the questionnaire provesthat multimodal interpreting teaching has positive influence on students’ interpretingability with the application of authentic interpreting materials, simulated learningenvironment and multimodal teaching activities which are not only helpful to stimulatestudents’ learning interest but also improve the completeness, accuracy and language ofstudents’ interpreting.Based on the findings above, the author deduces the pedagogical implications forEnglish interpreting instructions. Limitations of the present research and suggestions forfuture studies are also pointed out at the end of the thesis.