The academic background of translation and interpreting scholars in China: a survey of CSSCI/CORE journal articles

ABSTRACT

Despite sporadic surveys on the status quo of translation and interpreting studies in China (mainly interpreting studies), very little research has been undertaken on a large scale to understand the academic background of Chinese scholars. Intending to fill this gap, this study presents a survey of the academic background of translation and interpreting scholars in China. The analysis is mainly based on a survey of articles published between 2011 and 2015 in 16 important CSSCI and/or CORE journals. Through quantitative and qualitative content analyses, this study examines the academic background of Chinese scholars in terms of gender, age, affiliation, title, academic training/degree, overseas experience, research interest, thematic trend, and international output. Not only does this study present a portrait of Chinese scholars of translation and interpreting but it also gives insights into other areas.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic background
• translation and interpreting scholars
• China
• journals
• articles
• bibliometrics

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions, and to Dr Yanmeng Wang for his assistance in collecting the relevant data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Linxin Liang, Associate Professor, postdoctoral fellow, PhD from School of Foreign Languages at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. His major research interest lies in translation studies. He has published about 40 articles on SSCI, A&HCI, ESCI, CSSCI journals and other refereed journals, such as Across Languages and Cultures, Australian Journal of Linguistics, Babel, Chinese Science and Technology Translators Journal, International Journal of Communication, Language and Intercultural Communication, Language and Translation, The Interpreter and Translator Trainer and Translation Review.

Mingwu Xu, professor of translation and interpreting at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). His major research interests lie in translation studies, interpreting teaching and foreign language education. He has been teaching translation and interpreting for nearly 30 years. He has published books, book chapters and articles in journals such as Chinese Translators Journal, Critical Arts: South–North Cultural and Media Studies, Across Languages and Cultures, Babel, English Today, Terminology, Translation Review, and African and Asian Studies.

ORCID

Linxin Liang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1692-2563

Mingwu Xu http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9587-3530

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Project, Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China under grant number 18YJC740045.