An Empirical Research On The Relationship Between Interpreting Anxiety And Interpreting Performance Of MTI Student Interpreters

Interpreter's performance can be affected by various factors in the interpreting process. As for inexperienced MTI student interpreters, they can be easily affected by unstable psychological factors such as psychological stress and anxiety, which can lead to poor performance. Different interpreters suffer different degrees of anxiety with different characteristics, leading to different performances in interpreting. Currently, a lot of scholars have made some studies on anxiety phenomenon in foreign language learning, including the causes of anxiety, correlations between anxiety and other factors, etc. Studies on interpreting anxiety are comparatively rare and have appeared only in recent years. Moreover, there is no track study on the relationship between interpreting anxiety and interpreting performance of MTI student interpreters. This paper focuses on the correlation between interpreting anxiety and interpreting performance, through which studies on interpreting anxiety can be enriched.The writer selected 30 MTI first year student interpreters as the subjects for the study. Based on the reference of Yang Chengshu's Evaluation Criteria of Interpreting Performance, through questionnaire, recording analysis, interview and tracking survey, the writer kept a 5-month tracking survey in MTI students'interpreting performance and analyzed the collected data with the aid of SPSS. The paper has thus reached the following conclusions:1) All student interpreters suffer from interpreting anxiety, differing in degree and manifestation, and interpreting anxiety will reduce with the increase of learning time and experiences in interpreting.2) Interpreting anxiety is negatively related to interpreting performance in general.3) Student interpreters of high anxiety group, low anxiety group and those with most evidently reduced anxiety group have different features in interpreting performance. This paper further proves the above results by analyzing students'interpreting recordings. Therefore, the paper puts forward the following suggestions:Firstly, interpretation teachers and learners should recognize and accept the fact that all interpreters suffer interpreting anxiety and then find causes for their anxiety. Secondly, interpretation students should adopt practical methods to enhance comprehensive language ability and grasp certain interpreting strategies and skills. Besides, teachers must adopt some pertinent countermeasures to help students, such as inspiring students' interest and motivation and cultivating their intercultural communicative competence. By exploring the correlation between interpreting anxiety and interpreting performance of MTI student interpreters, this paper aims to provide beneficial revelation to interpretation learners and teachers, and helps to promote the learning and teaching efficiency in interpreting.