Translation Courses in Monash—A Basic Introducti...

6.Translation Courses in Monash—A Basic Introduction

There are four subjects in the undergraduate translation major，with three core subjects and one elective subject.Each subject is divided into first and second semester teaching units.Of all the eight units，except the elective subject—Business Translation，all other units are offered within an academic year sequence so that students start from the entry level and can move on to the higher levels of translation study^[4].

The main structure of the Chinese translation major in Monash is as follows(see Fig.14.1)^[5]:

Fig.14.1　Main structure of chinese translation major in Monash

Since Business Translation units are popular among students for their relevance and practical values，in the statistics in the following part of this paper，student enrolment number in these two units is also included in the surveys and questionnaires.

Fig.14.2 indicates the change in enrolment from 2005 to 2012.The drastic increase in enrolment in the seven years nearly equals to that of the mainstream Chinese language major which has a much longer history of over several decades.Together with another highly successful summer semester program — Chinese Incountry Program — Chinese Translation major has become an indispensable component in the Chinese Studies Program.The growth also shows that student demand as displayed in the surveys conducted at the preparation stage is genuine and strong.

Fig.14.2　Enrolment in Chinese translation units(2005-2012)