STFL Public Lecture – The What, Why and How of Interpreting

Dr. Anson Wang, Assistant Professor of the School of Translation and Foreign Languages, delivered a well-attended public lecture entitled “The What, Why and How of Interpreting” on 22 March 2022.

Dr. Wang kick-started the lecture by sharing some interesting figures with the audience. There are 195 countries and 7,151 known living languages in the world. By facilitating communication between people from different countries, interpreting has taken an important role in our everyday life. Dr. Wang mentioned that interpreting is needed on many scenes, such as business, healthcare, court, tourism, sports and negotiation.

In addition to further explaining the definition of interpretation and indicating the differences between interpreting and translation, Dr. Wang also introduced the role of interpreters, and talked about the capabilities required, such as a solid language foundation, a good memory and interpersonal skills.

“There is a growing need in the global language services industry,” Dr. Wang said while discussing the job prospects of interpreters. She also pointed out that the Asia-Pacific region has presented great opportunity to the interpreters as there is a strong demand for interpretation between different Asian languages, and between Asian and Western languages. Dr. Wang ended the talk by encouraging the young participants to enrol on the relevant interpreting modules offered by the School of Translation and Foreign Languages to have a taste of interpreting.

Dr. Anson Wang introduces the roles of interpreters, and talks about the capabilities required.

Dr. Wang points out the exciting prospects of the global language services industry.