CHI2850 - Basic interpreting skills (Mandarin) 1

Leader(s): Chunming Shan

Offered

Clayton First semester 2009 (Day)

Synopsis

The unit consists of a series of lectures, seminars, workshops, and practical sessions, covering 5 common areas. It also covers a brief introduction to the concepts, techniques and background knowledge of interpreting skills. After the introductory module introducing the history and procedures of interpreting, topics covered will include Culture & Education, Public Health, Social Issues, and Tourism.

Objectives

This course aims to train bilingually proficient students in the role, theory, ethics, and practice of inter-cultural verbal communication at elementary level.

This course helps students':

1. Basic concepts of interpreting skills To fully understand the differences between verbal and non-verbal interpreting skills and concepts underlying principles and practice of interpreting and to recognize the specific requirements of different types of interpreting.

2. Skills To improve and develop students' linguistic competence as well as their verbal and non-verbal interpreting competence in both Chinese and English, to help them acquire fundamental skills and strategies essential to interpreting and to help students in developing underlying techniques for summarizing, memory enhancement, note taking, public speaking skills, etc. To get involved in various kinds of communicative activities which are closely in line with real-life situations and explore solutions to problems involved in decoding and encoding messages in the process of interpreting.

3. Cultural context To enable students to enhance their multicultural understanding, as a prerequisite to interpreting and to communicate culturally specific information into an understandable format in the target language.

4. Pathways To provide a pathway/articulation into further interpreting and translation studies by giving students a solid foundation and confidence to participate in postgraduate level of interpreting and translation studies and/or other higher level of professional training programs.

Assessment

Tutorial participation & homework: 10%
Written work: 50%
Final oral exam: 40%

Contact hours

One 2-hour lecture, one 1-hour seminar per week, and one 1-hour tutorial per week

Prerequisites

Chinese Translation 1, Chinese Translation for Professional Purposes 1, or permission

Prohibitions

CHI2985, CHI3850, CHI3985, CHI4850