An Empirical Study On The Correlation Between Interpreting Self-efficacy And C-E Interpreting Quality Of MTI Interpreter Trainees

Growing globalization and China’s reform and opening up reinforce the demand for the country’s participation in increasing global affairs,entailing a large amount of high-quality workable translators and interpreters.Interpreters present the bridge in foreign exchanges,in which interpreting quality has a directive influence on the success of international exchanges.Therefore,it is of extreme significance to explore what factors are relevant to interpreting quality.Self-efficacy（SE）,as understood by Albert Bandura,is"beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the course of action required to produce given attainments"（Bandura,1997）,which constitutes a pillar of his Social Cognitive Theory.Interpreting self-efficacy（ISE）plays an important role in predicting language performance.It is worthwhile to explore what relationship it bears with interpreting quality and what enlightenment could be drawn in interpreting training.The study measured 20 MTI interpreter trainees’ ISE through a slightly-modified ISE scale put forward by Sang-Bin Lee（2014）and assessed their interpreting quality based on interpretation test and quality criteria of Yang Chengshu（2005）.Through both quantitative and qualitative analyses,major findings are as follows:（1）MTI interpreter trainees’ ISE is generally at a high level,with a strong sense of self-confidence and self-regulation,but it differs obviously among students;（2）ISE is positively and significantly correlated with MTI interpreter trainees’C-E interpreting quality;（3）Among all dimensions of ISE,interpreting quality is highly correlated with the interpreter’s self-confidence and self-regulation efficacy,but not with students’ preference for task difficulty.In addition,suggestions were put forward for interpretation teaching and learning.It is hoped that this study can provide some enlightenment for interpreter trainees to improve their self-efficacy and interpreting quality.Admittedly,there are some limitations in this study,such as the small size of case samples.It is expected that in the future,these limitations could be overcome and studies could draw upon this thesis and dig deeper into interpreting self-efficacy and C-E interpreting quality of MTI interpreter trainees.