An Empirical Study On The Influences Of Self-assessment Competence Of Interpreting On Interpreting Quality

The core of the thesis is to explore how to foster MTI student interpreters’self-assessment competence of interpreting with the aim to meet the requirements ofthe interpreting industry. Based on the interpreting competence model and the existingempirical studies on interpreting self-assessment, the notion of self-assessmentcompetence of interpreting and its components are proposed firstly. And then theinterpretative theory and its application in interpreting training are introduced acrossthe board. Integrated this theoretical basis with the development of interpretingcompetence, the experiment in enhancing self-assessment competence of interpretingis built, and has been applied to the later empirical study on MTI students’self-assessment competence of interpreting. With the help of the data drawn from theexperiment, the thesis concerns the following three aspects:(1) The components ofself-assessment competence of interpreting;(2) The structure of the experimentenhancing self-assessment competence in interpreting;(3) From the point of empiricalstudy, how the self-assessment experiment influences students’ self-assessmentcompetence of interpreting and interpreting competence as well as interpreting quality.Few MTI interpreting students attend the experiment which lasts for eight weeks.Self-assessment sheet and self-report are selected as empirical instruments to obtaindirect data for analysis. Post-interview is also applied to cover the shortages of theformer two. The final results are acquired through qualitative and quantitativeanalyses.(1) There are five sub-self-assessment competences of interpreting:1) bilingualassessment competence;2) extra-linguistic assessment competence;3) interpretingtechniques assessment competence;4) psychological&physical assessmentcompetence as well as5) professional qualities assessment competence. The formerthree belongs to intelligence factors and the rest two non-intelligence factors.(2) Based on interpretative theory and the development of interpreting competence,and focused on the application of interpreting self-assessment, the experimentintegrates with the characteristics of MTI education and can be divided into threestages:1) Comprehensive recounting exercises with the aim to improve studentsbilingual competence and the accumulating of extra-linguistic knowledge, whichfollows the first stage in interpretative theory;2) Consecutive interpreting withoutnote-taking, which is to mainly train students’ interpreting memory competence through de-verbalization;3) Consecutive interpreting with notes, which completes thereformulation of source discourse and places much attention to foster target discourseexpression ability. After the interpreting exercises in each stage, students will useself-assessment criteria to evaluate their performances and know their weaknesses andstrengths.(3) Through analyzing the experiment data, some findings have obtained in thefollowing aspects:1) Remarkable achievements have been made in the overalldevelopment of self-assessment competence of interpreting;2) The improvement ofself-assessment competence of interpreting is in a hierarchical ranking and two bestdeveloped components are: interpreting skills assessment competence andpsychological and physiological assessment competence;3) As for interpretingcompetence, the memory skills in interpreting techniques have improved the most, andtheir comprehension skills and production skills also have enhanced to some extent;4)By analyzing the results of self-reports and self-assessment sheets, studentinterpreters’ interpreting quality has also been enhanced.The research is exploratory and experimental, synthesizing the methods ofconceptual speculation (conception research) and empirical research. According to thefindings, the enhancement of student interpreters’ self-assessment competence ofinterpreting plays a positive role in improving interpreting quality. Therefore, in thecourse of upgrading students’ interpreting techniques, interpreting training should alsoattach great importance in fostering their self-assessment competence of interpreting tomeet the requirements of interpreting industry.