A Study of Interpreting Students’ Anxiety and Flow Experience and its Implications for Teaching Interpreting

• Main Author: 盧姿麟
• Other Authors: 廖柏森
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/95287306495645287566

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 翻譯研究所 === 99 === Stress from cognitive processing demand in interpreting is said to be most strongly felt by interpreting students who are still grappling with multitasking. Anxiety is one of the responses to stress, and it may interfere with students’ concentration, thinking and performance. While students have described interpretation learning as more stressful and anxiety-provoking than English learning, they have also voiced their interests in interpreting and willingness to take more advanced courses. It is likely that students have experienced certain level of positive emotions, or flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), during interpreting learning process, thereby motivated to repeat the activity. The purpose of the study is to explore the affective domain of interpreting learning, namely anxiety and flow, via questionnaires and interviews. Interpreting students in this study reported a moderate level of anxiety (M= 3.42) towards interpreting training. While the result of an independent t-test showed no significant difference between interpreting learning anxiety in terms of students’ genders, years of study, and field experience in interpreting, interpreting classroom anxiety proved to be significantly correlated with their foreign language classroom anxiety (r= .59, p= 0.01). Among the various factors contributing to interpreting anxiety, unfamiliar subject of speech was the most anxiety-provoking (M= 4.28), followed by jargons (M = 4.26) and unfamiliar accent (M= 4.26). As evidenced by interview responses, the state of flow was an experience shared by many informants, who described it as smooth, effortless, and merging with the speaker. Students also expressed a sense of achievement and felt better and more confident after the flow experience. Although speaker and topic are the main determinants of flow, good preparation, both mentally and physically, could also facilitate the state of flow during interpreting. Based on the aforementioned findings, the study ends with a discussion of an interpreting training process that takes into account anxiety and flow experiences among students, in an attempt to achieve greater interpreting learning and teaching outcomes.