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Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics
Research Degree Forum

How Differently Do Learners Err? An Analysis of the Perceptions of Learners on their Semi-Natural Interpretation

Presented by

Miss PAN Jun

PhD candidate, Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong

Date: 8 Dec 2009, Tuesday
Time: 4:30 - 5:30pm
Venue: B7603 (7/F, Blue Zone), Academic Building, CityU

Abstract

Currently, a seesaw battle has embarked in the field of interpreter training. The heterodoxy of “non-professional” interpreter training for language learners starts to gain some position against the prevalence of the orthodoxy of “professional” interpreter training as the very existence and large quantity of the former has proved to be non-neglectable.

A brief literature review demonstrates that research on language learners’ translation has been very useful for understanding the nature of translation, the sister or father subject of interpretation. However, studies on learners’ perceptions on their interpretation output have long been discarded in the literature of interpreter training, although such studies can be very constructive as they can serve for a norm-setting purpose of not only syllabus design but also performance assessment. Thus the current study aims to fill such a gap. Based on Loescher (1992), this study looks at the nature of “Semi-natural Interpretation” by learners and its relation to learner variables from the perspective of problem perception analysis based on the empirical data gathered from an interpreter training program in China. It is hoped that further studies can be conducted so as to build a competence model of interpretation acquisition for language learners based on learner variables, which can not only serve as an orientation for interpreter training but may also be applied to classroom assessment.

Speaker