2.1The database

The present database was a result of continuous development, expansion and refinement of two earlier constructions, i.e., one composed of annotated IS journal articles (Yan et al. 2013Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. ) and the other of journal articles on T&I training in general (Yan, Pan and Wang 2015Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. ). In particular, Yan et al. (2013)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. surveyed 9 T&I journals and identified 58 articles on interpreter training and assessment, out of a total of 235 articles on IS from 2000 to 2010. Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. , in order to reflect the recent development in the field of T&I training, built on the interpreter training sub-database of Yan et al. (2013)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. to cover both interpreter and translator training. In addition, the T&I training database added one more journal to the resource pool and extended the data coverage to 2012, resulting in 323 entries in total. The present database, furthering the effort in Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. , had a more recent development by extending the data collection year to 2013, with the main purpose to review and compare the features of research on translator training and interpreter training respectively.

Similar to Yan et al. (2013)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. and Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. , the present study followed several criteria, in addition to the operational feasibility concerns, in the selection of data sources to ensure comparability between data entries. First, journals were the only type of publication included in the database. Academic journals usually have fixed number of periodic productions, similar peer-review systems, and require homogeneous article structure and lengths, which allow for the possibility of constructing a shared classification system of research themes and methods and for the cross-theme comparison (cf. Yan et al. 2013Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. ). In addition, T&I journals, taking a comparatively small fraction in previous T&I research databases (cf. Pöchhacker 1995Pöchhacker, Franz 1995 “Writings and Research on Interpreting: A Bibliographic Analysis.” The Interpreters' Newsletter 6: 17–31.; Gile 2005Gile, Daniel 2005 “Citation Patterns in the T&I Didactics Literature.” Forum 3 (2): 85–103. ), are attracting increased attention along with its growth into one of the major channels for the publication of T&I studies in the new millennium (cf. Grbić 2007Grbić, Nadja 2007 “Where Do We Come from? What Are We? Where Are We Going? A Bibliometrical Analysis of Writings and Research on Sign Language Interpreting.” Sign Language Translator and Interpreter 1 (1): 15–51. ; Grbić and Pöllabauer 2008Grbić, Nadja, and Sonja Pöllabauer 2008 “Counting What Counts: Research on Community Interpreting in German-Speaking Countries: A Scientometric Study.” Target 20 (2): 297–332. ; Gao and Chai 2009Gao, Bing, and Ming Jiong Chai 2009 “A Bibliometric Analysis of New Developments in Simultaneous Interpreting Studies in the West.” Chinese Translators Journal 2: 17–21.; Shlesinger 2009Shlesinger, Miriam 2009 “Crossing the Divide: What Researchers and Practitioners Can Learn from One Another.” Translation & Interpreting 1 (1): 1–14.). Second, the database only included peer-reviewed journals recognized by the international academic society. There are many good T&I journals that are worthy of study; however, it was only feasible, at least at this stage, to include a limited number of journals for detailed annotation and analysis. Therefore, the authors took into consideration the earliest and internationally recognized citation indexes used for academic journals in social sciences and arts and humanities, i.e., the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), due to a lack of internationally agreed citation index in the field of T&I research at the time of the study (also see Grbić 2013Grbić, Nadja 2013 “Bibliometrics.” In Gambier and van Doorslaer 2013, Handbook of Translation Studies, 20–24. ). A total of 9 journals were kept in the database after the ones with very few or no entries relevant to the topic were excluded. In addition to the 9 SSCI/AHCI-indexed journals, The Interpreters’ Newsletter was added into the database sources for its importance in IS as “the first journal devoted to interpreting” (Gile 2009Gile, Daniel 2009 “Interpreting Studies: A Critical View from within.” MonTI 1: 135–155. , 139) and as a major citation resource in IS (Pöchhacker 1995Pöchhacker, Franz 1995 “Writings and Research on Interpreting: A Bibliographic Analysis.” The Interpreters' Newsletter 6: 17–31.; Gile 2000Gile, Daniel 2000 “The History of Research into Conference Interpreting: A Scientometric Approach.” Target 12 (2): 297–321. ; Yan et al. 2013Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. ). Besides, as shown in Table 1, the 9 indexed journals were mostly TS oriented, two of which included only articles on translator training. It was therefore hoped that the inclusion of this interpreting specialized journal could help narrow down the numeric differences between entries on translator training and interpreter training to facilitate the follow-up thematic comparisons. Third, the database only contained articles in English, as suggested in the title of this article. It is, of course, important to look into journal articles in other languages. However, it would be better to ensure comparability between the entries by keeping the database mono-language. The journals in the database featured English as the language of publication with two exceptions: 1) Meta: Translators’ Journal, which publishes articles in French and English; 2) The Interpreters’ Newsletter, which accepts papers written in English and Italian. Only English articles in these two journals were kept in the database.

The authors understand that the above selection procedure may sacrifice a certain degree of representativeness of the database and may therefore limit the generalizability of the results gained thereby. Nevertheless, as stated by Grbić (2013Grbić, Nadja 2013 “Bibliometrics.” In Gambier and van Doorslaer 2013, Handbook of Translation Studies, 20–24. , 21), “it is important to take into account that no database will ever be able to cover the entirety of scholarly production.” The authors hope that the study, based on the above selection criteria of database resources, could at least render a snapshot of features of research on translator and interpreter training in recent years (cf. Yan et al. 2013Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. ; Yan, Pan and Wang 2015Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. ).

All article entries of the database were manually selected through reading of the whole texts in order to include all possible entries covered by or related to translator and interpreter training.22.For the purpose of this study, articles including words such as “train,” “trainer(s),” “teach,” “teacher(s),” “pedagogy,” “pedagogical,” “didactics,” “didactical,” “education,” “student(s),” “trainee(s),” “learner(s),” and “learn” were paid special attention to during the selection process. Because the list of words may not be exhaustive or decisive in describing research on translator and interpreter training, the researchers’ expertise and judgment are still heavily relied on at this stage. These articles were then itemized in bibliographical formats and entered into Microsoft Office Access 2010. The database included information on the article ID, author(s), affiliation(s), country/countries, publication year, article name, journal name, volume, issue, key words, abstract, etc. (see Yan et al. 2013Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. ; Yan, Pan and Wang 2015Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. ). The articles were also primarily tagged by the words “translator training,” “interpreter training” and “translator/interpreter training” (those concerning both translator training and interpreter training) according to the types of activity involved. The article entries can therefore be easily grouped and sorted by these tags in addition to bibliographical information such as authors and publication years.

Table 1 lists the sources and composition of the database. According to the table, of the 350 articles in the database, 213 (about 61%) focused on translator training (hereafter referred to as the “T training” sub-database), and 97 entries (28%) on interpreter training (hereafter referred to as the “I training” sub-database). In addition, 40 entries (11%) did not differentiate between the two or treated translator training and interpreter training as a combined entity (hereafter referred to as the “TI training” sub-database).

2.2Data analysis

An investigation of previous literature on T&I research or translator and interpreter training suggests that many previous studies treated training as a separate single-layer entity in contrast to other themes under TS or IS (e.g., Pöchhacker 1995Pöchhacker, Franz 1995 “Writings and Research on Interpreting: A Bibliographic Analysis.” The Interpreters' Newsletter 6: 17–31.; Gile 2000Gile, Daniel 2000 “The History of Research into Conference Interpreting: A Scientometric Approach.” Target 12 (2): 297–321. ; Baker and Saldanha 2009Baker, Mona, and Gabriela Saldanha eds. 2009 Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. ; Gao and Chai 2009Gao, Bing, and Ming Jiong Chai 2009 “A Bibliometric Analysis of New Developments in Simultaneous Interpreting Studies in the West.” Chinese Translators Journal 2: 17–21.; Shlesinger 2009Shlesinger, Miriam 2009 “Crossing the Divide: What Researchers and Practitioners Can Learn from One Another.” Translation & Interpreting 1 (1): 1–14.; Gambier and van Doorslaer 2012Gambier, Yves, and Luc van Doorslaer eds. 2012 Handbook of Translation Studies, Vol. 3. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 2013Grbić, Nadja 2007 “Where Do We Come from? What Are We? Where Are We Going? A Bibliometrical Analysis of Writings and Research on Sign Language Interpreting.” Sign Language Translator and Interpreter 1 (1): 15–51. ; Toury 2012Toury, Gideon 2012 Descriptive Translation Studies – and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ), or described the sub-themes of training by mono-layer sporadic keyword systems, which sometimes turned out to be difficult to compare or combine (see Appendix 1). Yan et al. (2013)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. , though providing a similar data-driven multi-layer system of IS and its sub-themes of interpreter training, could not be applied directly for the description of research on translator training without verification. Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. , drawing from the data-driven thematic analysis method developed in Yan et al. (2013)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. , offered a multi-layer classification scheme that could be applied to studies on translator and interpreter training in general, yet it was not clear if new themes would be added or adapted in the present study given the expansion of the database in size and its different research focus.

Similar to Yan et al. (2013)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. and Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. , the authors of the study applied a method adapted from thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke 2006 “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3: 77–101. ) and content analysis (Elo and Kyngäs 2008Elo, Satu, and Helvi Kyngäs 2008 “The Qualitative Content Analysis Process.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 62 (1): 107–115. ) to find the thematic and methodological features of the newly added articles and to see if it was necessary to make adjustments to the classification scheme applied in Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. ³. During the process, the authors followed a combination of top-down and bottom-up procedures to analyse and tag each article entry by reading the whole text, comparing the generated themes with those in Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. . The thematic mapping of articles in the database was represented both by hand-operated measures and the corpus analysis tool WordSmith 5.0 (Scott 2008Scott, Mike 2008 WordSmith Tools Version 5. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software.). The study also recruited multiple coders and measures to ensure inter-coder agreement to reduce subjectivity that may occur in the data analysis process (Saldana 2009Saldana, Johnny 2009 The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.).

According to Braun and Clark (2006)Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke 2006 “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3: 77–101. , thematic analysis involves six phases: (1) familiarizing yourself with your data; (2) generating initial codes; (3) searching for themes; (4) reviewing the themes; (5) defining and naming themes; and (6) producing the report. Likewise, content analysis involves three steps: preparation, organising and reporting (Elo and Kyngäs 2008Elo, Satu, and Helvi Kyngäs 2008 “The Qualitative Content Analysis Process.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 62 (1): 107–115. ). In particular, content analysis includes an inductive approach (for the data coding without an existing framework, following steps of open coding, categories creation and abstraction, cf. the bottom-up procedure in the present study) and a deductive approach (to code and test data according to existing framework, cf. the top-down procedure in the study) (Elo and Kyngäs 2008Elo, Satu, and Helvi Kyngäs 2008 “The Qualitative Content Analysis Process.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 62 (1): 107–115. ).

In the top-down process, a review of previous thematic classification schemes in TS and IS was first performed to build a primary scheme, which was later tested, adjusted and enriched through the bottom-up coding process. A shared set of possible categories for both translator and interpreter training was first generated at the top level of the pyramid, which included “A. Teaching,” “B. Learning” and “C. Assessment”; see Teaching and Learning of Translation by Washbourne (2013)Washbourne, Kelly 2013 “Teaching and Learning of Translation.” In Chapelle 2013, 5622–5628., Teaching and Learning of Interpreting by Wilson (2013)Wilson, Christine W.L 2013 “Teaching and Learning of Interpreting.” In Chapelle 2013, The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, 5612–5618., the three trends of “what to teach,” “how to teach” and “how students learn” described in Kelly and Way (2007Kelly, Dorothy, and Catherine Way 2007 “Editorial: On the Launch of ITT.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 1 (1): 1–13. , 2; italics in the original), the term “translation assessment” in Vandepitte (2008, 585)Vandepitte, Sonia 2008 “Remapping Translation Studies: Towards a Translation Studies Ontology.” Meta 53 (3): 569–588. , the sub-theme “assessment” under “pedagogy” in Pöchhacker (2004)Pöchhacker, Franz 2004 “I in TS: On Partnership in Translation Studies.” In Schäffner 2004b, 104–115., and the subtheme “tests and assessments” for research on translator training in H. Liu and Mu (2013)Liu, Hongwei, and Lei Mu 2013 “The Status Quo of and Reflections on the Research Methods of Translation Teaching in China. A Scientometric Analysis of Articles on Core Foreign Language Journals from 2002–2011.” Foreign Language Education 34 (2): 105–109.. These three top-level categories were generated as the secondary categories under the category “studies on interpreter training and assessment” in Yan et al. (2013)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. and became the primary categories in Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. . The sub-categories developed in Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. , drawing from tags such as “curriculum design,” “implementation,” “typical problem areas” (Williams and Chesterman 2002Williams, Jenny, and Andrew Chesterman 2002 The Map: A Beginner‘s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome.); “competence” (van Doorslaer 2009Van Doorslaer, Luc 2009 “Risking Conceptual Maps: Mapping as a Keywords-Related Tool Underlying the Online Translation Studies Bibliography.” In Gambier and van Doorslaer 2009, 27–43.); “teaching models and approaches,” “translation competence and translator competence,” “discipline construction and talents cultivation” (H. Liu and Mu 2013Liu, Hongwei, and Lei Mu 2013 “The Status Quo of and Reflections on the Research Methods of Translation Teaching in China. A Scientometric Analysis of Articles on Core Foreign Language Journals from 2002–2011.” Foreign Language Education 34 (2): 105–109.), were taken into consideration in classifying and naming the secondary and tertiary categories in the database (see Appendix 1).

The top-down process provided a starting point and an intuitive framework to look into the data. The bottom-up procedure thus followed the steps taken in inductive content analysis (Elo and Kyngäs 2008Elo, Satu, and Helvi Kyngäs 2008 “The Qualitative Content Analysis Process.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 62 (1): 107–115. ) and thematic coding (Saldana 2009Saldana, Johnny 2009 The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.). During this process, a team of at least three coders read the full text of each article independently and tagged each with a “descriptive code” that best summarized its primary content (Saldana 2009Saldana, Johnny 2009 The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications., 3) in the column next to the article entry. The individually tagged codes were later compared and discussed where there was disagreement. For example, after reading the article “Personality Characteristics of Interpreter Trainees: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)” (Schweda Nicholson 2005Schweda Nicholson, Nancy 2005 “Personality Characteristics of Interpreter Trainees: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).” The Interpreters’ Newsletter 13: 109–142.), two coders gave the same keyword “personality” and the third coder gave the word “learner profile.” The coders then discussed with each other and agreed that “personality” was a better code at the bottom-level.

After the initial coding, the coders gathered to discuss the codes one by one and grouped them into higher rank categories. A category name was given to each cluster of codes to help describe their shared main features (cf. “grouping” in Elo and Kyngäs 2008Elo, Satu, and Helvi Kyngäs 2008 “The Qualitative Content Analysis Process.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 62 (1): 107–115. , 110; “categorizing” in Saldana 2009Saldana, Johnny 2009 The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications., 11). Figure 1 shows an example of the categorizing process.

The resulting codes, categories and themes were later examined and further refined through a process of “recoding” and “recategorizing” (Saldana 2009Saldana, Johnny 2009 The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications., 10). This process confirmed that the three-level classification scheme in Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. was sufficient to cover all subcategories and codes generated in the bottom-up process (see Appendix 3 for the classification scheme and results).

The analysis of research methods applied in articles of the database was similar to the categorizing process of the research themes (see Appendix 3). Incorporating classification schemes of research methods in previous studies (see Appendix 2) while tagging each article entry from the bottom, a three-layer categorization scheme was developed for the present study. Since the differences between “Empirical” and “Non-empirical” research were not always clear-cut (see Williams and Chesterman 2002Williams, Jenny, and Andrew Chesterman 2002 The Map: A Beginner‘s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome.), in the study, a spectrum of research methods was identified between the two extremes of “Empirical” and “Non-empirical” (see Table 2; with reference to the parameters used in Seliger and Shohamy 1997Seliger, Herbert W., and Elana Shohamy 1997 Second Language Research Methods. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press., also see Yan et al. 2013Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. , 14).

In the scheme, empirical research was divided into experimental and observational research (also see Gile 1998Gile, Daniel 1998 “Observational Studies and Experimental Studies in the Investigation of Conference Interpreting.” Target 10 (1): 69–93. ; Williams and Chesterman 2002Williams, Jenny, and Andrew Chesterman 2002 The Map: A Beginner‘s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome.). Non-empirical research was divided into expository and theoretical research (see “theoretical research” in Gile 1998Gile, Daniel 1998 “Observational Studies and Experimental Studies in the Investigation of Conference Interpreting.” Target 10 (1): 69–93. and “conceptual research” in Williams and Chesterman 2002Williams, Jenny, and Andrew Chesterman 2002 The Map: A Beginner‘s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome.). The major difference between observational and expository research was that the former “seeks new data, new information derived from the observation of data” (Williams and Chesterman 2002Williams, Jenny, and Andrew Chesterman 2002 The Map: A Beginner‘s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome., 58), and thus belongs to “primary research” (Rugg and Petre 2007Rugg, Gordon, and Marian Petre 2007 A Gentle Guide to Research Methods. New York: Open University Press., 31), while the latter is “based purely on existing information” (Goddard and Melville 2001Goddard, Wayne, and Stuart Melville 2001 Research Methodology: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Lansdowne: Juta Academic., 10) and is typical “secondary research” (Rugg and Petre 2007Rugg, Gordon, and Marian Petre 2007 A Gentle Guide to Research Methods. New York: Open University Press., 32), being guided more by a synthetic and heuristic point of view than an analytical and deductive one. A survey study of students’ learning needs (e.g., Li 2002Li, Defeng 2002 “Translator Training: What Translation Students Have to Say.” Meta 47 (4): 513–531. ) would be classified as observational research since the survey provided new data, while a review of research on aptitude in interpreting (e.g., Russo 2011Russo, Mariachiara 2011 “Aptitude Testing over the Years.” Interpreting 13 (1): 5–30. ) or a conference report (e.g., Pym 2000Pym, Anthony 2000 “Innovation in Translator and Interpreter Training: Report on an On-Line Symposium.” Across Languages and Cultures 1 (2): 209–273. ) would belong to expository research, since it was based on secondary data and old information. In addition, observational research identified in the bottom-up procedure included the subcategories of case study, corpus research, survey research, correlational research and action research, all related to studies “that investigate a phenomenon or a process as it takes place in real life in its natural setting” (Williams and Chesterman 2002Williams, Jenny, and Andrew Chesterman 2002 The Map: A Beginner‘s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome., 62) rather than research that “deliberately interferes with the natural order of things” (Williams and Chesterman 2002Williams, Jenny, and Andrew Chesterman 2002 The Map: A Beginner‘s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome., 63) (see Appendix 3).

The study adopted whole counting in the calculation of authorship, institutions and countries that produced the article entries in the database (see Grbić 2007Grbić, Nadja 2007 “Where Do We Come from? What Are We? Where Are We Going? A Bibliometrical Analysis of Writings and Research on Sign Language Interpreting.” Sign Language Translator and Interpreter 1 (1): 15–51. ; Yan et al. 2013Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. ; Yan, Pan and Wang 2015Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. ). If an article is written by two or more authors, the name of each author was counted once. The same applied to institutions. However, if the co-authors of an article come from the same institution, the institution was calculated only once. The purpose of this practice is to recognize the efforts of all authors and institutions related to the production of each article (see Yan et al. 2013Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. ). Corpus-based statistics were then run to generate the frequency lists of authors, institutions and countries in the database.

3.1Translator training and interpreter training: A panorama overview

Some basic calculations were performed to find the statistical development of research on translator and interpreter training since the new millennium. Figure 2 shows the number of articles produced each year from 2010 to 2013. An overall quantitative growth can be spotted, in particular for research on I training. A sudden increase in T training in the year 2005 led to a peak of research on translator and interpreter training in total, but this number dropped slightly after a second peak in 2011. In addition, the number of articles on T training was always greater than that on I training, but the gap seems to grow narrower, especially in 2013.

3.2Translator training vs. interpreter training: Research themes

To compare the research themes of translator training and those of interpreter training, the number of articles in each thematic category was calculated (Appendix 3). Table 3 displays the numbers of entries in each sub-database of T training, I training and TI training at category level I. It appears that in each of the sub-databases, the largest thematic category remained the same, namely, “A. Teaching,” which was followed by “B. Learning” and then “C. Assessment.” While T training and TI training both featured a large numeric difference between “A. Teaching” and the other two thematic categories, the numeric differences between the three thematic categories in I training look much smaller.

3.2.1Translator training vs. interpreter training: Teaching

The subcategories under “A. Teaching” were examined. Table 4 shows the number of article entries in each subcategory under “A. Teaching” at the second and third levels.

Table 4.The number of article entries in the database by themes under the category “A. Teaching”

Category Level II	T training	I training	TI training	Category Level III	T training	I training	TI training
a. Training philosophies	75	28	15	(a) Theoretical concerns / framework	36	9	9
				(b) Disciplinary typology	9	5	2
				(c) Training elements	30	14	4
b. Training methods & models	30	9	7	(a) Institutional training models	10	3	7
				(b) Classroom training approaches	20	6	0
c. Competence development	26	3	2	(a) General	3	0	1
				(b) Translator / interpreter competence	3	2	0
				(c) Translation / interpretation competence	20	1	1
d. Needs analysis	8	1	3
e. Technology & training	24	10	0
f. Training of research skills	5	3	5
g. Translation & language teaching	7	0	1
Total	175	54	33

At category level II, of the total 175 entries on T training, the largest number of articles was in “a. training philosophies” (n = 75), while the second and third largest subcategories were “b. training methods & models” (n = 30) and “c. competence development” (n = 26), respectively. In the I training sub-database, the top subcategory was also “a. training philosophies” (n = 28), but the second and third largest subcategories were “e. technology and training” (n = 10) and “b. training methods & models” (n = 9). Whereas the subcategory “g. Translation & language teaching” included 7 entries on T training, none of the articles on I training belonged to this category. In the TI training sub-database, the largest subcategory remained the same, i.e., “a. training philosophies” (n = 15), but the second and third largest subcategory became “b. training methods & models” (n = 7) and “f. training of research skills” (n = 5).

At category level III, within the category “a. training philosophies,” the largest subcategories for T training and TI training were the same, i.e., “(a) Theoretical concerns/framework” (36 and 9 respectively), while the largest subcategory of I training fell on “(c) Training elements” (n = 14). Within the subcategory “b. Training methods & models,” while research on T training and I training both favored “(b) Classroom training approaches” to “(a) Institutional training models,” the TI training sub-database only included articles on “(a) Institutional training models.” In addition, it should be noted that a comparatively large number of T training articles were on “(c) Translation competence” (n = 20) as compared to “(b) Translator competence” (n = 3) under the subcategory “c. Competence development.” The number of I training or TI training articles under this subcategory, however, seems to be too small to show any pattern (3 and 2 respectively).

3.2.2Translator training vs. interpreter training: Learning

This section reports the differences found between translator training and interpreter training under category “B. Learning.” Table 5 shows some significant differences: T training appears to focus more on “a. Learner performance” while I training on “b. Learner factors.” TI training seems to be more evenly distributed between the two subcategories but the total number of entries on “B. Learning” was very small (n = 4).

Table 5.The number of article entries in the database by themes under the category “B. Learning”

Category Level II	T training	I training	TI training	Category Level III	T training	I training	TI training
a. Learner performance	16	8	2	(a) Features	1	1	1
				(b) Errors / difficulties	10	2	0
				(c) Expertise development	5	5	1
b. Learner factors	10	24	2	(a) General / multi-factors	0	10	1
				(b) Personality	1	2	0
				(c) Anxiety & stress	1	4	0
				(d) Learning styles	0	0	1
				(e) Strategies	8	8	0
Total	26	32	4

At category level III, under the subcategory “a. Learner performance,” T training seems to favor research on the subtype “(b) Errors/difficulties” (10 out of 16), and I training “(c) Expertise development” (5 out of 8). Under the subcategory “b. Learner factors,” T training tended to give prominence to research on “(e) Strategies” (8 out of 10), and I training on “(a) General/multi-factors” (10 out of 24, in comparison with none in T training).

3.2.3Translator training vs. interpreter training: Assessment

In category “C. Assessment” (see Table 6), there appears to be no sharp difference between the article numbers of the two subcategories, i.e., “(a) Theoretical framework” and “(b) Models & methods.” T training seems to focus slightly more on “b. Models & methods,” and I training on “a. Theoretical framework.”

Table 6.The number of article entries in the database by themes under the category “C. Assessment”

Category Level II	T training	I training	TI training
a.   Theoretical framework	5	6	2
b.  Models & methods	7	5	1
Total	12	11	3

3.2.4Translator training vs. interpreter training: Title analysis

Figure 3 reveals the high-frequency content words in the sub-databases of T training and I training by leaving out the “outlier” keywords related to “translation” (also “translator(s)” and “translating”) and “interpreting” (also “interpreter(s)” and “interpretation”). The two sub-databases shared a few high-frequency words such as “training,” “study/studies” and “student(s).” What is worth noting is that the words “teaching” and “approach(es)” seem to occupy a more outstanding position in T training than in I training. There were also a few high-frequency words listed as the top-frequency items in T training but not in I training, such as “English” (F = 21), “competence” (F = 14), “education” (F = 14), “process(es)” (F = 13), “corpus/corpora” (F = 11), “professional” (F = 11) and “text(s)” (F = 11). In contrast, some salient words in the top high-frequency word list of I training included those such as “simultaneous” (F = 17), “consecutive” (F = 9), “learning” (F = 9), “aptitude” (F = 8) and “performance” (F = 7), “trainee(s)” (F = 7) and “strategy/strategies” (F = 6).

Figure 3.High frequency content words in the title analysis of the T training and I training sub-databases

3.3.Translator training vs. interpreter training: Research methods

To investigate how research on translator training and interpreter training were performed, the present study looked into the research methods applied in each sub-database. Table 7 gives the results related to research methods at category level I. As shown in the table, both T training and I training sub-databases had more empirical studies than non-empirical studies. In the TI training sub-database, however, non-empirical studies took the lead.

Table 8 gives more detailed information under the subcategory “A. Empirical.” A similar patterning was found, in which observational studies were the majority as compared to experimental studies. Under the subcategory “a. Observational,” case study was a more prominent research method as compared to the rest of the observational methods, although it appears to be more so in T training than in I training.

A similar ranking of research methods was identified under the category “B. Non-empirical”: all three sub-databases of T training, I training and TI training had more expository studies than theoretical studies, although the numeric discrepancy between these two types of non-empirical studies seems to be much smaller in I training than in the other two sub-databases (Table 9).

3.4Translator training vs. interpreter training: Active authors, institutions and countries/areas

There were 386 authors who contributed to the 350 articles in the whole database. In particular, 239 authors produced the articles in the T training sub-database and 108 authors in the I training sub-database. Table 10 lists the most active authors in the two sub-databases, covering 23% and 36% of the author lists respectively. As shown in the table, the most active author in the T training sub-database showed a production rate of 10, whereas the highest repetition rate for I training authors was only 3. In addition, there seem to be no shared authors in the top active author lists of T training and I training, although 6 authors produced articles simultaneously in the sub-databases of T training and I training, in addition to another 57 authors who contributed to the sub-database of TI training.

Interestingly, of the 10 entries produced by the top-ranked author in the T training sub-database, i.e., Defeng Li from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 9 entries were on the category “A. Teaching” (5 on “d. Needs Analysis” of “A. Teaching,” in particular). In the I training sub-database, one author (Yung-nan Chiang) was from the National Taiwan University, two authors (Jackie Xiu Yan and Jun Pan) were affiliated to the City University of Hong Kong. These 3 authors, together with Sherry Shaw (University of Arkansas at Little Rock), mainly contributed to the category “B. Learning,” in particular “b. Learner factors.”

There were 215 institutions contributing to the article entries in the whole database. In particular, 154 institutions accounted for entries in the T training sub-database and 74 for those in the I training sub-database. Table 11 provides the top productive institutions for research on T training and I training, covering 31% and 35% of the institution lists respectively. The Autonomous University of Barcelona was the most productive institution in T training and the University of Bologna in I training. Both feature a specialized T&I department. The Autonomous University of Barcelona is home to the PACTE research group, which has been dedicated to empirical research on translation competence and the use of new technologies (PACTE 2005PACTE 2005 “Investigating Translation Competence: Conceptual and Methodological Issues.” Meta 50 (2): 609–619. , 2009PACTE 2009 “Results of the Validation of the PACTE Translation Competence Model: Acceptability and Decision Making.” Across Languages and Cultures 10 (2): 207–230. ). Most of the university’s research outputs on T training (9 out of 14) were contributed by members of the PACTE and concentrated on “A. Teaching” (n = 13), in particular competence development (n = 5) and technology and training (n = 3). The University of Bologna, in particular, proposed the Bologna Process in Europe that aims at enhancing inter-country comparability of higher education standards (Rico 2010Rico, Celia 2010 “Translator Training in the European Higher Education Area: Curriculum Design for the Bologna Process. A Case Study.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 4 (1): 89–114. ). A total of 4 out of its 6 entries were on the thematic category “A. Teaching,” and 3 were published in the Italian-based journal The Interpreters’ Newsletter.

There were a few overlapping institutions in these two lists, such as Macquarie University, City University of Hong Kong and University of Granada, which were active in both translator training and interpreter training, although the rankings differed slightly.

In total, 50 countries/areas appeared in the whole database. The number was 45 and 26 respectively for the T training and I training sub-databases. Table 12 compares the most productive countries/areas in the two sub-databases, covering 68% and 75% of the sub-corpora of countries/areas respectively. Spain was found to be the most productive in T training, whereas the Greater China Area (including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) was ranked second in the sub-database. In the sub-database of I training, the Greater China Area was at the top of the list, followed by Italy, Spain, Australia and the United States. The leading countries/areas, i.e., the Greater China Area (in both T training and I training), Spain (in T training) and Italy (in I training), correlated with their presence in the previous two tables of most productive authors and institutions. Countries/areas such as Spain, the Greater China Area, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and Switzerland were actively represented in both the T training and I training sub-databases.

4.1Translator training vs. interpreter training: A general overview

Findings from the database suggest that articles on translator training appeared to outnumber those on interpreter training, which is partially attributable to the fact that TS and translator training have enjoyed a longer history than IS and interpreter training (Pöchhacker and Shlesinger 2002Pöchhacker, Franz, and Miriam Shlesinger 2002 “Introduction.” In The Interpreting Studies Reader, ed. by Franz Pöchhacker and Miriam Shlesinger, 1–12. London: Routledge.; Pym 2002Pym, Anthony 2002 “Translator Training: A Global Overview” [English version of Pym 1998]. http://​usuaris​.tinet​.cat​/apym​/on​-line​/training​/stauffenberg​.pdf; Schäffner 2004aSchäffner, Christina 2004a “Researching Translation and Interpreting.” In Schäffner 2004b, Translation Research and Interpreting Research: Traditions, Gaps and Synergies, 1–9.) have. This numeric difference may be able to account for the fact that results regarding translator training in the study, as compared to those of interpreter training in Yan et al. (2013)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. , look closer to the general landscape in T&I training research in Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. . Findings also indicate a comparatively steadier numerical growth for studies on interpreter training than for those on translator training, which is reflective of the stable development of worldwide interpreter training programmes as well as relevant research, in particular after the new millennium (Gile 2009Gile, Daniel 2009 “Interpreting Studies: A Critical View from within.” MonTI 1: 135–155. ; Pöchhacker 2010Pöchhacker, Franz 2010 “Why Interpreting Studies Matters.” In Why Translation Studies Matters, ed. by Daniel Gile, Gyde Hansen, and Nike K. Pokorn, 3–14. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ; Yan et al. 2013Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. ).

The fluctuating yet small number of TI training articles in the database shows a continuing entangled relationship between TS and IS that has been perplexing relevant scholars since the birth of IS (Gile 1995Gile, Daniel 1995 “Mirror Mirror on the Wall: An Introduction.” Target 7 (1): 1–6. ; Shlesinger 2001Shlesinger, Miriam 2001 “Shared Ground in Interpreting Studies Too.” Target 13 (1): 165–168. ; Schäffner 2004bSchäffner, Christina ed. 2004b Translation Research and Interpreting Research: Traditions, Gaps and Synergies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. ). Nevertheless, the majority of articles in the database were found to address translator training and interpreter training separately, indicating that a split between the two may be unavoidable in the future.

4.2Translator training vs. interpreter training: Research themes

Articles in the database, through a combined top-down and bottom-up procedure of annotation, were found to share the same multi-layer thematic classification scheme, except for a few categories that were applicable only to translator training or interpreter training. This possibility of shared thematic tagging suggests that these two sub-disciplines may have more in common than originally thought (cf. Gile 1995Gile, Daniel 1995 “Mirror Mirror on the Wall: An Introduction.” Target 7 (1): 1–6. ; Shlesinger 2001Shlesinger, Miriam 2001 “Shared Ground in Interpreting Studies Too.” Target 13 (1): 165–168. ; Schäffner 2004bSchäffner, Christina ed. 2004b Translation Research and Interpreting Research: Traditions, Gaps and Synergies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. ), at least as far as research interests are concerned. There is somehow a possible common ground, which stands as a basis to unite research on translator training and interpreter training, or even TS and IS at large (cf. Schäffner 2004bSchäffner, Christina ed. 2004b Translation Research and Interpreting Research: Traditions, Gaps and Synergies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. ). As stated in Gile (2004)Gile, Daniel 2004 “Translation Research versus Interpreting Research: Kinship, Differences and Prospects for Partnership.” In Schäffner 2004b, 10–34., “the basic issues in both fields are similar” (25). The shared thematic classification scheme therefore forms an important part of this system, or at least a starting point for a shared set of “metalanguage” for both sub-disciplines (cf. Pöchhacker 2004Pöchhacker, Franz 2004 “I in TS: On Partnership in Translation Studies.” In Schäffner 2004b, 104–115.; Vandepitte 2008Vandepitte, Sonia 2008 “Remapping Translation Studies: Towards a Translation Studies Ontology.” Meta 53 (3): 569–588. ; Gambier and van Doorslaer 2009Gambier, Yves, and Luc van Doorslaer eds. 2009 The Metalanguage of Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ).

Despite the similar general landscape of research themes, differences in research focuses in translator training and interpreter training were identified. Translator training was found to concentrate comparatively more on teaching, whereas interpreter training, although also teaching-oriented, included an essential proportion of research from the learning perspective, similar to the findings of the interpreter training sub-database in Yan et al. (2013)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. . This result also confirmed that the prevalence of teaching-related articles in T&I training (Yan, Pan and Wang 2015Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. ) was more or less caused by the addition of TS entries in the database.

The shared interest in teaching over learning of research on both translator and interpreter training, supplementary to a similar finding on research in the overall field of translator and interpreter training (Yan, Pan and Wang 2015Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. ), may relate to the comparatively younger nature of studies on “how students learn” (Kelly and Way 2007Kelly, Dorothy, and Catherine Way 2007 “Editorial: On the Launch of ITT.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 1 (1): 1–13. , 2; italics in the original) and the only recent introduction of learner-centered theories and approaches to T&I classrooms (e.g., Kiraly 2000Kiraly, Donald 2000 A Social Constructivist Approach to Translator Education: Empowerment from Theory to Practice. Manchester: St. Jerome.). The greater interest in learning by interpreter training researchers, however, may be associated with the long obsession in the cognitive process, or the “black box” of interpreting performers in IS, leading to many investigations into topics such as aptitude, expertise and psychological stress, especially in simultaneous interpreting (Pöchhacker and Shlesinger 2002Pöchhacker, Franz, and Miriam Shlesinger 2002 “Introduction.” In The Interpreting Studies Reader, ed. by Franz Pöchhacker and Miriam Shlesinger, 1–12. London: Routledge.; Kelly and Martin 2009Kelly, Dorothy, and Anne Martin 2009 “Training and Education.” In Baker and Saldanha 2009, Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, 294–300.), including the famous debate over the “trainability” of interpreters (see Mackintosh 1999Mackintosh, Jennifer 1999 “Interpreters Are Made not Born.” Interpreting 4 (1): 67–80. ). It is therefore not surprising to find that there was a comparatively greater distribution of articles contributed to assessment in interpreter training than in translator training, given the popularity of aptitude tests in interpreter training (see Russo 2011Russo, Mariachiara 2011 “Aptitude Testing over the Years.” Interpreting 13 (1): 5–30. ).

In particular, within the research theme of teaching, both synergies and differences were identified in translator training and interpreter training. In addition to a similar general landscape, both sub-disciplines focused on the investigation of classroom training approaches, supplemented by showcases of institutional training models. However, translator training shows a certain influence from language teaching that is missing in interpreter training. This may be accounted for by the historical intertwining relationship between translator training and foreign language teaching when the grammar-translation method was applied as one of the earliest teaching approaches for the latter (Richards and Rodgers 2001Richards, Jack C., and Theodore S. Rodgers 2001 Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ). This link, however, seems to be missing in interpreter training, in which the earliest trainers were composed mainly of working interpreters (Gile 2004Gile, Daniel 2004 “Translation Research versus Interpreting Research: Kinship, Differences and Prospects for Partnership.” In Schäffner 2004b, 10–34.). In addition, translator training was found to give more weight to theoretical frameworks or different theories in training philosophies compared to interpreter training (cf. Gile 2004Gile, Daniel 2004 “Translation Research versus Interpreting Research: Kinship, Differences and Prospects for Partnership.” In Schäffner 2004b, 10–34.; Yan, Pan and Wang 2015Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. ). Interpreter training, however, appears to struggle more often with what to teach (training elements) as reflected in the database (cf. Kelly and Martin 2009Kelly, Dorothy, and Anne Martin 2009 “Training and Education.” In Baker and Saldanha 2009, Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, 294–300.). Moreover, competence was found to be the third popular subcategory under “A. Teaching” in translator training, making it a prominent high-frequency word in the title analysis. A closer look into the theme shows that translator training focused more on the development of translation competence compared to translator competence, in line with the many earlier investigations in translator training concentrating on the cultivation of skills or knowledge core to translation (see Kiraly 1995Kiraly, Donald 1995 Pathways to Translation: Pedagogy and Process. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press.).

Within the theme of learning, although research concentrations seem to be very different in translator training and interpreter training, convergences are growing in the two. Translator training in the database focused more on learner performance, especially learners’ errors and difficulties in translation, which is traceable to the influence of the earlier grammar-translation method in which the correct form of the language was greatly emphasized (Richards and Rodgers 2001Richards, Jack C., and Theodore S. Rodgers 2001 Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ). Research on interpreter training, however, apart from having more discussions related to expertise development, shows a more general concern over different learner factors in interpreting, correlating to more prominence given to words such as “learning” and “trainees” in the title analysis. Despite the numeric dominance of entries of T training, the thematic distribution of learning in the I training sub-database in the study looks closer to that of the general T&I training database in Yan, Pan and Wang (2015)Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. , indicating the exceptionally strong influence on learning-related topics by IS at large.

Lastly, in the thematic category of assessment, the present study shows that translator training focused slightly more on models for classroom assessment than interpreter training. Findings of this study suggest that showcasing of good practice and market concerns may be composed of the more important issues in translator training. The overall low proportion of assessment research in both sub-disciplines, also reflected by the distribution of research in the general T&I training database (Yan, Pan and Wang 2015Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. ), confirms that assessment is still lagging behind, compared to the development of teaching approaches in both translator training and interpreter training (Kelly and Martin 2009Kelly, Dorothy, and Anne Martin 2009 “Training and Education.” In Baker and Saldanha 2009, Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, 294–300.).

4.3Translator training vs. interpreter training: Research methods

Orozco (2004Orozco, Mariana 2004 “The Clue to Common Research in Translation and Interpreting: Methodology.” In Schäffner 2004b, 98–103., 98) proposed a shared methodological model for TS and IS:

It is true that the differences between Translation Research (TR) and Interpreting Research (IR) make it difficult to contemplate areas of research in common but, in my opinion, the clue to bringing research into translation and interpreting closer lies in the acceptance – and the use – of a common research methodology by scholars in both fields.

The current findings demonstrate that, in addition to a shared methodological model, research on translator training and interpreter training applied many common research methods. Of course, some specific research methods were used more often in one field than the other.

In the study, research on translator training and interpreter training both applied more empirical than non-empirical designs (also see Yan et al. 2013Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, Hui Wu, and Ying Wang 2013 “Mapping Interpreting Studies: The State of the Field Based on a Database of Nine Major Translation and Interpreting Journals (2000–2010).” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 446–473. ; Yan, Pan and Wang 2015Yan, Jackie Xiu, Jun Pan, and Honghua Wang 2015 “Studies On Translator and Interpreter Training: A Data-Driven Review of Journal Articles 2000–12.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 9 (3): 263–286. ), suggesting that the field of translator training may differ from that of TS, in which one may expect a more humanistic-oriented research method or a non-empirical mainstream (cf. Gile 2004Gile, Daniel 2004 “Translation Research versus Interpreting Research: Kinship, Differences and Prospects for Partnership.” In Schäffner 2004b, 10–34., 2005Gile, Daniel 2004 “Translation Research versus Interpreting Research: Kinship, Differences and Prospects for Partnership.” In Schäffner 2004b, 10–34.). This may partially be attributed to the “applied” nature of research on training (Toury 2012Toury, Gideon 2012 Descriptive Translation Studies – and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 12), and more importantly, to the many articles on competence development and strategies in translator training, both of which feature an experimental research design (see Williams and Chesterman 2002Williams, Jenny, and Andrew Chesterman 2002 The Map: A Beginner‘s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome.; Lörscher 2005Lörscher, Wolfgang 2005 “The Translation Process: Methods and Problems of its Investigation.” Meta 50 (2): 597–608. ; PACTE 2005PACTE 2005 “Investigating Translation Competence: Conceptual and Methodological Issues.” Meta 50 (2): 609–619. , 2009PACTE 2009 “Results of the Validation of the PACTE Translation Competence Model: Acceptability and Decision Making.” Across Languages and Cultures 10 (2): 207–230. ; Toury 2012Toury, Gideon 2012 Descriptive Translation Studies – and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ; Vandepitte 2013Vandepitte, Sonia 2013 “Research Competences in Translation Studies.” Babel 59 (2): 125–148. ). Within the subcategory of observational studies, the case study method stood out as a distinctive feature of research on translator training, which supports that case study was a common research method applied in TS (Neubert 2004Neubert, Albrecht 2004 “Case Studies in Translation: The Study of Translation Cases.” Across Languages and Cultures 5 (1): 5–21. ; Susam-Sarajeva 2009Susam-Sarajeva, Şebnem 2009 “The Case Study Research Method in Translation Studies.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 3 (1): 37–56. ).

4.4Translator training vs. interpreter training: Active authors, institutions & countries/areas

According to the study, the most active authors in translator training and interpreter training were basically two different groups of people, a phenomenon similar to the top-cited authors in Gile (2005)Gile, Daniel 2005 “Citation Patterns in the T&I Didactics Literature.” Forum 3 (2): 85–103. . The present study also found that only 6 authors published in both translator training and interpreter training and some published on training in general. These findings may lend support to the following statement made by Gile (2004Gile, Daniel 2004 “Translation Research versus Interpreting Research: Kinship, Differences and Prospects for Partnership.” In Schäffner 2004b, 10–34., 31):

Under the circumstances, TR and IR are natural partners, which do not threaten each other, and can cooperate with each other. Many interpreting researchers (such as Kalina, Pöchhacker, Schjoldager, Shlesinger, Stenzl to quote just a few), have found interesting ideas and methods in TR which they have used in IR. If TR scholars keep their minds open to ideas and methods found in the IR literature, they may well find them productive in TR as well.

Likewise, the top productive institutions and countries/areas in translator training look very different from those in interpreter training. There were a few (3) shared institution names in the top productive lists of both translator training and interpreter training but their rankings differ. The lists of top productive countries/areas of research on translator training and interpreter training, though featuring more overlapping names, showed different positioning of the countries/areas, suggesting a certain regional research priority (cf. Gile 2005Gile, Daniel 2005 “Citation Patterns in the T&I Didactics Literature.” Forum 3 (2): 85–103. ).

Nevertheless, the findings of the current study only account for the differences between research on translator training and interpreter training in the distribution of active authors, institutions and countries/areas, not for differences in their impacts. The latter may serve an intriguing future direction for in-depth study of this subtopic.

4.5Sign language interpreter training

Given the significance of the differences between spoken and sign language interpreting, the present study, however, did not separate these two for a number of reasons. First, this is a choice made as a result of the growing integration between the practice, training and research of the two types of interpreting. Napier (2015Napier, Jemina 2015 “Comparing Signed and Spoken Language Interpreting.” In The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting, ed. by Holly Mikkelson and Renée Jourdenais, 129–143. New York: Routledge., 129) provided a summary of the relationship between these two:

There is growing recognition that signed language should be included among all the languages to be considered in terms of interpreting practice … the shift is further evidenced through increasing cross-linguistic and cross-modality collaboration in the education of interpreters, in research on interpreting, and in the number of publications that feature discussions of spoken and signed language interpreting issues across genres of interpreting practice.

Second, the breaking-down of the partition between sign and spoken language interpreting may be more pragmatic in a review study such as the present one when the former has just “moved from primary a community-based interpreting industry with little academic foundation, to one that is increasingly embracing higher standards in training” (Bontempo 2015Bontempo, Karen 2015 “Signed Language Interpreting.” In The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting, ed. by Holly Mikkelson and Renée Jourdenais, 112–128. New York: Routledge., 118).

As a matter of fact, the database in the present study (with a total of 350 entries) included only 8 entries that discussed in particular the training of sign language interpreting, none of which feature a new research theme or method. In addition, half of the 8 entries addressed participants or training programmes of both sign and spoken language interpreting; the other half, although involving participants or training programmes of only sign language interpreting, mostly indicated their generalizability or implications to the training of spoken language interpreting or interpreter training in general.

Nevertheless, there appear to be some specific features of the 8 articles on the training of sign language interpreting as compared to the other articles in the database. For example, the research themes seem to be more focused on learning, in particular learner factors (6 entries), while empirical research methods were favored (7 entries). Also, there tend to be some dedicated authors that do not appear in the rest of the database, e.g., 3 entries were (co-)authored by Jemina Napier, 3 were (co-)authored by Sherry Shaw, while the rest of the authors appeared only once. Due to the small number of article entries (i.e., 8), the present database may not be able to show idiosyncrasies that could help separate sign language interpreter training from spoken language interpreter training. Along with its “rapid evaluation and growth” (Bontempo 2015Bontempo, Karen 2015 “Signed Language Interpreting.” In The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting, ed. by Holly Mikkelson and Renée Jourdenais, 112–128. New York: Routledge., 124), this field of research on sign language interpreting, however, is expected to show distinctiveness that may be observed from an expanded version of the database.

To conclude, the present study provides important empirical evidence of the convergences and divergences between research on translator training and interpreter training. Findings of the study indicate that a shared framework of research themes and methods is feasible for research on translator training and interpreter training, and perhaps TS and IS at large (cf. Schäffner 2004bSchäffner, Christina ed. 2004b Translation Research and Interpreting Research: Traditions, Gaps and Synergies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. ; Vandepitte 2008Vandepitte, Sonia 2008 “Remapping Translation Studies: Towards a Translation Studies Ontology.” Meta 53 (3): 569–588. ; Gambier and van Doorslaer 2009Gambier, Yves, and Luc van Doorslaer eds. 2009 The Metalanguage of Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). The study also suggests that research on these two sub-disciplines will certainly inform and benefit from each other. Nevertheless, the study also shows that research on translator training and on interpreter training have different focuses of research themes and methods (cf. Gile 2005Gile, Daniel 2005 “Citation Patterns in the T&I Didactics Literature.” Forum 3 (2): 85–103. ; Kelly and Martin 2009Kelly, Dorothy, and Anne Martin 2009 “Training and Education.” In Baker and Saldanha 2009, Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, 294–300.). Scholars and institutions of T&I research may still be positioned in a tug-of-war between departmentalization and unification (cf. Gile 2005Gile, Daniel 2005 “Citation Patterns in the T&I Didactics Literature.” Forum 3 (2): 85–103. ). The study, however, suggests a possible growth in the number of scholars and institutions that excel in both T&I research. Therefore, more synergies between translator training and interpreter training can be expected in the future.

By all means, the present study has limitations, given the type and language constraints of data included in the database. Nevertheless, the database, with its certain representativeness, gives a very important snapshot of the differences and similarities in two important “applied” extensions in T&I research (Toury 2012Toury, Gideon 2012 Descriptive Translation Studies – and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 12), at least by presenting some “construction that represents some aspect of reality,” which “does not mean ‘ideal’” (Williams and Chesterman 2002Williams, Jenny, and Andrew Chesterman 2002 The Map: A Beginner‘s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome., 48; italics in the original). Some concerted effort in the extension and consolidation of such databases in width and in depth will certainly fill more voids in our knowledge of T&I research and benefit a wider range of trainers, researchers and practitioners at large.