A Study On MI Thesis Topic Selection In Eight Foreign Studies Universities In China

Since Master of Translation and Interpreting(abbreviated as MTI) program was set up in 2007, scholars have conducted in-depth studies on MTI discipline construction and have achieved abundant research results. With the development of MTI professional degree education, the number of master of interpreting(abbreviated as MI) is growing year by year. However, there has been little research on MI thesis, especially research based on MI students’ perspective. As a supplement to the research of MI thesis, this thesis investigates the current state of MI thesis topic selection in foreign studies universities in China. By collecting and analyzing 495 theses of the target universities, this thesis shows the status quo of MI thesis topic selection and categorizes those topics according to interpreting modes, five models of writing and research areas. Then, in order to get a comprehensive view of the current situation, questionnaires were distributed to the graduating MI students in the target universities to learn about the difficulties and challenges that MI students have encountered during the process of topic selection. Results show that, with the development of MTI education, the model of MTI thesis is no longer limited to traditional research paper. The increasing number of practice reports is a progress of MTI education. However, there are still some deficiencies and room for improvement. Therefore, suggestions are made accordingly, in hoping of providing some references for future research on MI thesis and providing some help for future MI students during their thesis topic selection process.