Miroslava Melicherčíková

Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Mateja Bela, Banská Bystrica

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State and trait anxiety among interpreting trainees, recent graduates, and professional interpretersThis paper focuses on anxiety in interpreting. The main objective was to find out how anxiety differs among interpreting trainees, recent graduates, and professional interpreters with shorter and longer experience. The research instrument used was the STAI – the State- Trait Anxiety Inventory. The data indicated that the interpreting trainees and professional interpreters with both shorter and longer experience scored comparably on the X-1 form (state anxiety) and X-2 form (trait anxiety). The recent graduates differed substantially from the other groups, scoring much lower on both the state and trait anxiety measures. This could be due to the small group size, which could have caused skewing of the results. The majority of the groups were characterised by higher trait anxiety and lower state anxiety scores (the exception being the professional interpreters with longer experience, although the difference was minimal). In terms of gender, noticeable differences were only observed for the X-2 form, with females appearing more anxious than males. These findings, although they only apply to a small research sample, suggest a similarity between skilful interpreting trainees and professional interpreters.

 

Key words: state anxiety, trait anxiety, interpreting trainees, recent graduates, professional interpreters