A Survey Report:Sources And Negative Effects Of Interpreting Anxiety On Student Interpreters’ Performance

Anxiety is considered to be a common emotion in interpreting.The “interpreting anxiety” is defined as a kind of anxiety caused by interpreting.The interpreting anxiety is caused by the immediacy nature of interpreting,the complexity and differences of source language and target language,as well as psychological factors of interpreters.This thesis is intended to investigate the sources of interpreting anxiety of students interpreters(specifically,MTI students)and the negative effect of anxiety on students interpreters’ performance.In doing this survey,the author invites MTI students from China Foreign Affairs University,Beijing Foreign Studies University,and Beijing Language and Culture University to fill in the questionnaires.The author collated the research results manually,and interviews some of the MTI students.The author concludes that interpreting anxiety is commonly seen in students interpreters,and has great,negative effect on students interpreters,in most cases.In other words,a student interpreter who are highly anxious would perform worse than those who are less anxious.The author divides the anxiety into three kinds: listening anxiety,memorizing anxiety and output anxiety.Among the three kinds of interpreting anxiety,the students interpreters are mostly affected by listening interpreting.The reasons can be attributed into mundane bilingual ability,lack of practices and devoid of motivation.In addition,the author also collects the solutions of students interpreters to escalate interpreting anxiety,and offers some strategies and suggestions for students interpreters in their daily practices.It is hoped that this thesis could be conducive to interpreting studies,and offer some references for the study on interpreting anxiety.