Investigating Chinese undergraduate students’ pragmatic competence in interpreting through repair in a Thai classroom setting

Abstract

Pragmatic competence in interpreting is important to students who study translation (Bao & Qian, 2013, p. 88; Lu, 2019, p. 37). This research aims to examine Chinese undergraduate students’ problems of pragmatic competence in Chinese-Thai interpreting. Hall’s (2007) concept of ‘repair’ was used as a micro analytical lens through which to analyze classroom interactions between a Thai teacher and twenty Chinese undergraduate students, the data being collected through participant observation. The findings reveal that the Chinese undergraduate students had problems of pragmatic competence in interpreting at both the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic levels. These problems reflect the fact that Chinese undergraduate students’ knowledge of the differences of language and culture between Chinese and Thai is insufficient and that they lack language training that focuses on pragmatic competence in interpreting. Repair, as an instructional practice used in the classroom, demonstrates that interaction can be used as a means for teaching Chinese undergraduate students’ pragmatic competence in interpreting in the translation classroom. The research has implications for training Chinese undergraduate students and developing their pragmatic competence in interpreting and for teaching and learning Thai as a foreign language.