Master of Translation and Interpreting

Program Overview

In 2007, with the approval of the State Council’s Academic Degrees Committee Office, the School of International Studies (SIS) of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) became one of the first 15 teaching units to be granted the privilege to offer a Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) program. The program is divided into two concentrations, translation and interpreting, aiming to cultivate professional translators and interpreters with high-level language proficiency, practical skills, and all-round development in morality, intelligence and physique. Upon successful completion of the program, students will be able to meet the demands of economic globalization, international competition as well as national economic, cultural and social development.

Over the past eight years, SIS has been exploring a range of training methods in this field, combining advantages of cultivating MTI students in a comprehensive university with the forte of the School and the University. Its mode of training multilingual and interdisciplinary talents has served as a model for MTI programs in other universities.

Curriculum Design

The courses for MTI students feature targeted training from multiple perspectives, disciplines and application areas, covering topics such as business, law, diplomacy, culture, and medicine. In this way, students’ language competency and professional knowledge are fully integrated.

SIS provides students with courses from basic to advanced levels. Basic compulsory courses such as Introduction to Translation, Basic Translation Skills and Basic Interpreting Skills aim at polishing students’ language proficiency and preparing them for further translation training. After basic training, students can choose advanced interpreting courses like Simultaneous Interpreting, Topic Interpretation, Mock Conference Interpretation, Business Interpretation, Court Interpretation and Diplomatic Interpretation, as well as advanced translation courses like Law Translation, Medical Translation, Commercial Translation and Translation Workshop. This kind of curriculum that combines theories with practices hones students’ interpreting and translation skills in specialized fields.