Understanding students’ motivation in translation learning: a case study from the self-concept perspective

To meet the increasing needs for translators and interpreters, Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) program was launched in Chinese universities. Discussion on how to cultivate MTI students who are supposed to be excellent users of foreign language except their mother tongue attracts many Chinese researchers, while little is done from the perspective of students, the main stakeholders of the program. Therefore, this case study, informed by self-concept theories, tracked one MTI student in a Chinese key university, to investigate factors influencing students’ learning motivation and their response towards the influence. Using the student’s diaries reflecting on daily translation training and the semi-structured interviews, the study found significant others, self-perceived ability, curriculum, and coursework played significant roles in the ebbs and flows of translation learning motivation. The findings also reveal the dynamic interaction among students’ self-representations (including the ideal self, the ought self, the actual self, and the feared self) in the dynamic context. This paper not only provides a new understanding to the translation education by incorporating students’ voice into professional training, but also offers advice for MTI program management.