Exploring The Identity And Investments Of Mti Students

In recent years,the MTI education in China has been expanding and has received a lot of attention in the field of foreign language education.The existing studies mainly focus on the MTI programs and teaching methods and discuss how to improve the quality of translation talents,while few studies investigate translation learners.The studies on the identity of language learners usually examine the individual learners in specific learning contexts,which is of great significance for the understanding of the learning process and learning outcomes.However,there are a very limited number of studies about the identity of translation learners.This study,with Norton's identity theory as the theoretical basis,explores the identity and investments of 74 MTI graduates from five universities in Beijing.Data was collected through questionnaires and interviews.A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods were used to investigate MTI students' imagined identity,translator identity,their investments in translation learning,and the relationship between their imagined identity and investments.The major findings of the study are as follows:Firstly,MTI students' imagined identities are multiple,including translators,interpreters,employees in foreign enterprises,English teachers,editors,civil servants,journalists,etc.After the study and practice in postgraduate period,most MTI students have some changes in their imagined identity,including the linear change and nonlinear change.These changes may be influenced by personal factors,university factors and social factors.Secondly,after receiving the postgraduate education,their translator identity has basically undergone a positive change.Almost all of them think that their translation proficiency has been more or less improved and become the slightly experienced translators or relatively experienced translators.Thirdly,MTI students' investments in translation learning include time investment,learning strategies investment,affective investment and practice-related investment.Fourthly,the investments of MTI students are related to their imaginary identities.Different imaginary identities will bring about different investments.The more closely students' imagined identity is related to translation,the more investments they will make in translation learning;and the more stable their imagined identity is,the more investments they will make in translation learning for improving their translation proficiency.Therefore,MTI programs should try to help students construct positive identities,so that they can strive to achieve the imagined identity and improve their translation proficiency by exercising their agency and increasing their investments in translation learning.