| Given the importance of psycho-affective variables in interpreting performance and considering the status quo, there have been few studies on them at home and abroad and especially few dissertations that study AA Mode (Auditory Anxiety Mode) in interpretation and IA Mode (Interpreting Mode) in China until now. This dissertation thereby works on the exploration of their theoretical constructions and empirical studies in terms of Spielberger's (1970) basic state and trait anxiety theory, Gile's (1995) Effort Model, Cassady and Johnson's (2002) Test Anxiety Model and Chen and Tang's (2009) experimental research on anxiety scales. Nevertheless, the main theoretical basis of this study is Cassady and Johnson's (2002) theory and the main empirical basis is Chen and Tang's (2009) experiments.Besides the findings and the statue quo of interpretation studies in China elaborated above, another important reason why this study undertakes the research of AA Mode and IA Mode is that, in the course of final interpretation examination we astonishingly found that 78.884% of the interpretation students have AA and 79. 116% of them have IA. They are very anxious about their listening and interpreting in the course of interpretation when they can not understand SL and can not interpret it into TL. Thus, this dissertation, from the perspective of cognitive psychology, has made an attempt to undertake the interdisciplinary study of constructing AA Mode and IA Mode. The two modes have theoretically and empirically been examined by a research method of combining cognitive psychology with interpreting as well as auditory perception in interpretation, so as to render the students a good psychological mode to successfully accomplish their interpretation tasks.The procedure of this study contained three stages. The first stage (the stage of basic theory study) was a kind of period in which related literature on interpretation theory, anxiety theory, cognitive psychology and other theories had been reviewed and analyzed, the existing theories had been developed and the new ones had been conceived from February 2008 to August 2009. The second stage (the stage of theoretical and empirical studies) was such a phase in which before December 2009 the subject's basic theories had been put into students'interpreting practices using all kinds of experimental activities. The third stage (the stage of composing the dissertation) was the last one in which the higher quality dissertation had been composed in light of experimental data as well as related theories like interpretation theory, anxiety theory and cognitive theory etc from August 2009 to September 2010.The research issues addressed in this dissertation include:(1) the constructions of the new integrated theory of AA Mode and IA Mode containing sources, the scale, the severity of students' AA and IA, and their impacts on interpretation; (2) the underlying psychological constructs of AA Mode and IA Mode, the effects of different levels of AA and IA, and the correlations between the two modes; (3) the coping strategies to solve the problems of HA and LA in the two modes.In order to explore these issues, the research methods employed in this dissertation are novel ones, such as psychological tests by psychologists, cerebral blood flowing tests by an associate professor of neurology and consulting experts via the internet and phone alongside traditional methods such as questionnaires, interviews, videotaping, on-the-spot recordings, statistical analyses and so on that scholars frequently draw on.There were altogether 291 subjects who accepted the survey, meantime there were 6 interpretation instructors,3 psychologists and 1 neurology physician who were interviewed and consulted in order to gain good results from experiments. The main findings of this study are listed in the following.1. AA Mode and IA Mode have been theoretically constructed; the sources, the scope, the severity and the impacts of AA and IA on interpretation have been proved.1) AA Mode has been theoretically constructed. It mainly focuses on AA that derives its name from AP in interpretation due to a multitude of reasons like different auditory characteristics of sounds, being short of large vocabulary, passive listening, attention distraction, poor LC ability, heavy information, a very short time in interpretation and so on which make students induce anxiety when they listen to the speaker in the course of interpretation. Exactly to say, AA originally from the organ of AP is hence a kind of anxiety related to AP and caused by the abnormal AP when an interpreting student can not perceive the acoustic waveform well from SL. This kind of anxiety caused by the abnormal AP from an information process might as well be called AA and this kind of mode is called AA Mode. It is not only AA and the whole process of interpretation that has a close relationship, but also AA and listening in interpretation has a closer relationship because AA directly comes from listening in interpretation. Thus, AA has more direct impacts on listening as well as interpretation.2) IA Mode has been theoretically constructed. It mainly focuses on IA that derives its name from interpreting due to the six illocutionary factors (biological factors, knowledgeable factors, psychological factors, environmental factors, personality factors and cultural factors), and six locutionary factors (differentiation between SL and TL, unnatural accent of different speakers, fast speaking rate, density of information, bilingual knowledge and skills) which make students incur anxiety when they do interpretation. IA and interpreting has a close relationship because IA is directly from interpreting and has impacts on interpreting. In IA Mode some new concepts like HA, MA and LA; the creative terms were also pointed out by this study and were proven by students' ITts.3) The sources, the scope, the severity and the impacts of AA and IA have been proved. The sources of AA and IA were illustrated above. The scopes were differentiated by finishing AAS and IAS with 28 items based upon Cassady and Johnson's (2002) Test Anxiety Inventory. The severity of AA like hearing nothing temporarily and that of IA like "choking" was surprisingly found by the final interpretation examinations. And the impacts were mainly evidenced by the use of questionnaires. What has been emphasized is that the possible range of score was 28 to 112 by finishing 28 items in AAS with a Cronbach alpha of.91 through SPSS and in IAS with a Cronbach alpha of.93 which means a higher reliability. The higher score ((?)72 points) indicated more anxiety on the students' part. Thus, HA (72 and over 72 points), MA (from 62 to 71 points) and LA (61 and below 61) of IA can be classified in terms of the scores that the subjects gained by finishing the questionnaire.2. The underlying psychological structures of AA Mode and IA Mode in interpretation have been analyzed, the effects of different levels of AA and IA have been proved by the evidence and their correlations have been confirmed by SPSS. From the perspective of cognitive psychology, this study has analyzed and proved the possible origins of the four psychological conditions that can hinder interpreting performance——fear of public interpreting, others' evaluation, lack of self-confidence and insecurity, feelings of threat (Jimenez & Pinazo,2001) which induce some students' AA and IA. The result of experimental studies shows that HA and LA in AA Mode and IA Mode have an obstacle to interpreting, whereas MA, as one mode in them, can promote their interpreting. The quantitative findings of statistical analyses by SPSS show that interpretation students'AA has the positive correlation to IA regardless of differences. That is to say AA Mode and IA Mode are two distinctive but related psychological modes. Both of them have HA, MA and LA in which HA and LA had significant negative relationships with interpretation achievement, whereas MA has positive relationship with it, which is different from the past traditional studies.3. Coping strategies to solve the problems of psychologically negative factors like HA and LA in AA Mode and IA Mode have been conceived. It is imperative that interpretation instructors take a more proactive approach than waiting for anxious students to ask for their help. As the sources of HA and LA of students' AA and IA are being identified, interpretation instructors can adjust students'emotional states in interpretation examinations by adopting good coping strategies to their HA and LA like "AA+EA" Strategy, Medium Arousal Strategy, RL-Mode Strategy and Five Classroom Strategies to formatively adjust their teaching and examinations accordingly.Thus the theoretical significance and the pragmatic value of this study lie in not only the theoretical creation of AA Mode and IA Mode, but also the definite referential value to China's interpretation teaching, and interpretation testing in particular. |
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