Foreign Language Anxiety and Student Interpreters’ Learning Outcomes: Implications for the Theory and Measurement of Interpretation Learning Anxiety

Abstract

<jats:p>Although anxiety has been documented as an important variable in both interpretation performance and second language acquisition, there has been virtually no research on the interconnections between the anxiety reactions induced by these two cross-linguistic / cultural endeavors. A review of the literature on anxiety and interpretation performance finds that most of the existing studies have treated the anxiety induced by interpretation as a transfer of other general types of anxieties, such as trait anxiety, without considering the probable role of second language anxiety in interpretation performance. In order to determine the role of foreign language anxiety in 213 Chinese-English interpretation students’ learning outcomes, which were indexed by the participants’ mid-term exam scores and semester grades, this study employed Spielberger’s (1983)<jats:italic>Trait Anxiety Inventory</jats:italic>to measure the students’ trait anxiety, while utilizing Horwitz, Horwitz<jats:italic>et al.</jats:italic>’s (1986)<jats:italic>Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale</jats:italic>(<jats:italic>FLCAS</jats:italic>) to measure the participants’ foreign language anxiety. Results of correlation analyses showed that a) trait anxiety was not related to either mid-term exam scores or semester grades, b) foreign language anxiety was significantly and negatively associated with both outcome measures, c) after controlling for the effect of trait anxiety, the relationship between foreign language anxiety and interpretation learning outcomes remained significant, and d) a vast majority of the<jats:italic>FLCAS</jats:italic>items had significant and negative associations with both outcome measures. Implications for developing a theory of and a measurement instrument for interpretation learning anxiety are suggested.</jats:p>

Foreign Language Learning Strategies and Consecutive Interpreting Achievement: An Exploratory Study on Taiwanese Interpreting Students

“…Nevertheless, two individual affective strategies (items 39 and 40) were significantly and positively associated with semester grades, suggesting that the strategies used by interpreting students to lower their foreign language anxiety and overcome their fear about making mistakes did have some bearing on their interpreting achievement. This result echoed both Chiang's (2010) finding that foreign language (English) anxiety had a negative correlation with Mandarin-English interpreting achievement and Bontempo and Napier's (2011) finding that emotional stability (anxiety and neuroticism) was a significant predictor of signed interpreters' self-rated interpreting competence. These results suggested that the ability to contain anxiety in general, and foreign language anxiety in particular, was a part of interpreting aptitude which could effectively discriminate between more and less successful interpreting students.…”

Interpreting as a stressful activity: physiological measures of stress in simultaneous interpreting

“…In survey research participants are asked to fill in a questionnaire in which they are asked about their current mental or emotional state. For details on the results of studies on self-reported stress/anxiety in interpreting, see : Cooper et al (1982), Jiménez Ivars and Pinazo Calatayud (2001), Chiang (2009), Chiang (2010 and Kao and Craigie (2013).…”

Evaluating student interpreters' stress and coping strategies

“…Interpreters' stress has been conceptualized as situation specific (Chiang, 2010). Most of those who have researched interpreters' stress have focused on the causes and seriousness of stress.…”