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Abstract
Abstract The article reports on a survey of Spanish-based interpreters’ perceptions of ELF in simultaneous interpreting settings. The findings of the survey were then further explored through interviews with eight professional conference interpreters in order to provide a more accurate overview of the current situation of the Spanish conference interpreting market. Our research revealed the growing prevalence of ELF at international conferences held in Spain, and that this new reality is perceived as a threat to the interpreting profession. Participants were asked about the quality and accessibility of non-native English source speeches, about their approach to interpreting into English for a non-native English audience, and about whether or not they had to seek alternative employment in other parallel language services, such as translation or teaching in order to make a living.
Highlights
The widespread use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) by both native and nonnative speakers in professional contexts has brought about substantial changes in conference interpreting, a transformation the exploration of which Albl-Mikasa has defined as “the emerging subdiscipline of ITELF” (Albl-Mikasa 2017: 369)
The clearest result from our survey was that a significant majority of the participants (71%) believed that the increasingly widespread use of ELF at international meetings represented a threat to their livelihood as Spanish-based professional conference interpreters, and more than half of them (59%) recognized that this linguistic phenomenon had led to a decrease in their professional activity over the last 10 years
Even though our sample was admittedly not very large, following the same approach adopted by Albl-Mikasa in her pioneering 2010 study of the phenomenon, our objective was to gain reliable, qualitative data and back this up with indepth interviews to provide an overview of the current effect of ELF on Spanishbased conference interpreters
Summary
The widespread use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) by both native and nonnative speakers in professional contexts has brought about substantial changes in conference interpreting, a transformation the exploration of which Albl-Mikasa has defined as “the emerging subdiscipline of ITELF (interpreting, translation and English as lingua franca)” (Albl-Mikasa 2017: 369). According to House, ELF “is a useful default tool for communication, which does not, at the moment, present a threat to multilingualism and translation” (House 2013: 294). This author argues that this is a complex issue and more research is needed. In the particular case of conference interpreting, the increase of the use of ELF at international meetings has inevitably transformed and complicated the nature of the work of professional conference interpreters and, this tendency towards ELF practice clearly poses new challenges for professional interpreters, there have currently been very few studies conducted into this issue. In terms of what little has been published, we can highlight the studies of the phenomenon by Albl-Mikasa (2017) and Gentile and Albl-Mikasa (2017)
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