A Study on the Learning Effect of Interpretation Theory Education: Focused on Chinese Interpretation Courses

Abstract

This research is a case study on interpretation education in majors related to Chinese, the most widely taught language at foreign language faculties in Korea following English. The study focuses on an undergraduate interpreter education subject called “Theory and Practice of Chinese Interpreting”, a two-hour class that consists of teaching interpretation theories in the first hour and interpretation practice in the second hour, designed to provide continuous and multifaceted theoretical lectures for enhancing interpreting competence. Research method consists on studying its effect on students attending the class, which is offered every first semester, based on questionnaires conducted on a total of 109 students over a period of 2 years. According to results, 76.2% of students felt that interpretation theory education at an undergraduate level was necessary, and they preferred those that could be directly applied to interpreting practice, such as note-taking, over those that were purely theoretical. In the matter of educational effect, students answered that it deepened their understanding on interpretation and the profession of an interpreter.