Developing an Interpreting Competence Scale (ICS) and evaluating the interpreting competence of prospective interpreters and professionals in Turkey

Abstract

Even though the translation activity is as old as humankind's history, academic translation teaching started towards the end of the 20th century. The demand for interpreting has also increased with international relations, migration, asylum, and two world wars. The need to train interpreters has emerged in this field, similar to written translation. Accordingly, what kind of knowledge, behavior, skills, and perspectives must be gained by individuals who want to be interpreters has been researched by translation scholars. The concept of interpreting competence has also emerged in interpreting studies. Different studies regarding this concept have been performed, and an attempt has been made to create interpreting competence models, especially by the German scholars. This study basically intends to develop an interpreting competence scale by investigating the opinions of prospective interpreters and professionals regarding interpreting competence. Accordingly, a literature review was carried out in this area, and the developed interpreting competence scale was implemented. Through this developed scale, the situation of the interpreting market in Turkey in terms of the professionals and prospective students who have interpreting training at different universities were compared. In the study, it was concluded that the scale is valid and reliable (having four sub-dimensional and 22 items). In interpreting, a significant difference is available in favor of male participants in linguistic-cultural competence, and besides, the effect is positive. In addition, there is a significant difference in favor of those desiring to work in the interpreting market in the interpreting process management. Furthermore, it can be said that there is a significant difference in favor of participants considering interpreting their primary profession in interpreting process management. A significant difference is present in favor of those living in a country where a foreign language they know has been spoken for more than three months, and the effect can be positivemedium. For correlation values, participants' interpreting competence has a low significant relationship with sex and the status of living in a foreign country. In contrast, the relationship between age and students' grades can be either medium or positive. The study also found out a high and positive significant relationship between the desire to work in the interpreting market and considering interpreting the primary profession. Finally, those who want to specialize in interpreting must have a high level of dedication to the profession because interpreting is a practice-based process requiring intensive effort in a cognitive, intellectual, and affective sense.