The effect of global conditions on the academic interpreting education in Turkey: A case study based on curriculum analysis and the views of representatives of interpreting market

The phenomenon of globalization has affected the profession and market of interpreting, as well as other professions. Thus, the fields of translation and the languages demanded are diversified, creating a demand for new knowledge and skills in the interpreting service. Communicating with foreigners requires various skills beyond the knowledge of foreign language. Knowledge and skills required in the process of interpreting become evident when the areas of interpreting are examined. In order to be comprehensible in these areas, arising with the phenomenon of globalization, professional interpreters, who have interpreting competence, are needed. The aim of this study is to analyze the effects of globalization on the interpreting market; to analyze the effects of interpreting competence models on the interpreting curricula and to analyze the expectations of interpreting market from the interpreting education in comparison with the interpreting lectures on the curricula. The study employed quantitative and qualitative research methods. The situation and expectations of the interpreting market have been indentified and the extent to which interpreting training can respond to these expectations has been analyzed. In order to determine the status of the interpreting market, an online questionnaire consisting of 41 questions was administered to 34 representatives of the Çeviri İşletmeleri Derneği (Association of Translation Companies). The study determined the current situation of the interpreting market and the expectations of market from the interpreting education within the framework of changing needs via the questionnaire, consisting of multiple choice, ranking and open-ended questions. Afterwards, in order to find out to the extent to which interpreting education meets these expectations, the interpreting courses given in the translation and interpreting departments were analyzed with a focus on the interpreting competence, by employing document review method. Interpreting courses in the four state and two foundation universities offering bachelor degrees in translation and interpreting have been selected as sample and analyzed. The contents and objectives of the interpreting courses presented in these departments have been employed as the corpus and analyzed with the content analysis method. For the content analysis method, the themes and codes were formulated based on the interpreting competence matrix and the learning objectives presented by Kautz (2002). Interpreting matrix was formulated based on the models presented by Kutz (2010), Pöchhacker (2000), and Albl-Mikasa (2012), as well as the results of aforementioned the questionnaire administered to the representatives of the interpreting market. Firstly, each university has been taken into consideration one by one and competence-focused evaluation has been conducted; the results have been presented in graphs in terms of hours of courses. Afterwards, the analysis was detailed and the departments were compared with each other. As a result of the questionnaire and curriculum analysis completed by market representatives, various suggestions have been presented for interpreting education.