Public Service Interpreting Research Articles

Language background and language self-assessment of Spanish-Swedish public service interpreters in Sweden

Advanced language proficiency is a requirement for public service interpreting, and yet, research has not described this construct holistically in interpreting studies. Previous studies have suggested that public service interpreters primarily have a migration background, and asymmetrical language proficiency. The present study reports findings of these aspects from a questionnaire that was conducted to investigate the linguistic background of Spanish-Swedish public service interpreters in Sweden. A total of 118 Spanish-Swedish interpreters answered the questionnaire. Results show that the interpreters have asymmetrical language proficiency but do not primarily have a migration background. Moreover, it is indicated that asymmetrical language proficiency and migration background have an impact on the likelihood of public service interpreters being state authorized. However, there is a need for further research on these aspects to better understand details regarding both public service interpreters in Sweden and public service interpreters internationally.

Making a difference: how does an interpreting course contribute to public service interpreters’ professional identity

In Norway, the Interpretation Act (2022) requires that interpreters are qualified before taking on assignments. One way of qualifying is to take a 30 ECTS course in interpreting. This article will explore how such a course contributes to developing the interpreters’ professional identity. Two cohorts of former students who attended such a course at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences in Norway were invited to participate in an electronic questionnaire and individual follow-up interviews. Data was analysed using reflexive thematical analysis, and the results show that the former students describe themselves as more independent and self-confident, and more aware of the importance and the boundaries of their role after completing the course. They also felt the course contributed to improving their interpreting technique. Meeting other public service interpreters also made them feel that they were part of a professional community. This indicates that even short interpreting training courses play a significant part in developing the interpreters’ professional identity.

How can I help? An archetype-based approach to community interpreters’ solidarity

Considering different archetypes —i.e., collective identity representations—helps to discern the multiple ways in which community and public service interpreters are compelled to be of help. I argue that archetypes are a useful analytical tool for interpreters: It allows them to name competing rationales for solidarity; it helps them identify underlying personal motivations that might otherwise remain unconscious; and it permits a conscious decision-making process for the search of ethical courses of action when faced with dilemmas. Conscious decision-making warrants coherent practice that aligns with high professional standards supporting the communicative autonomy of the parties to an interaction. In this article, I present both the model for this archetype-based approach to interpreters’ professional role as well as the analysis of three interpreters’ narrative accounts of their perceptions of role, solidarity, and the model proposed. This input from the field yields rich insights, illustrates the analytical power of the archetypes proposed, and suggests that an expansion of their list might be in order.

Public Service Interpreting and Translation and Employment in Spain

Public Service Interpreting and Translation and Employment in Spain

Introduction: Emotions, stress and related phenomena in public service interpreter and translator training

Introduction: Emotions, stress and related phenomena in public service interpreter and translator training

Emotions, stress and related phenomena in public service interpreter and translator education and training

Emotions, stress and related phenomena in public service interpreter and translator education and training

Exploring ethical dilemmas encountered by public service interpreters and their effect on job satisfaction

Abstract In this paper, we investigate the stressors that affect interpreters working in public service interpreting (PSI) in Finland and the ethical dilemmas these stressors indicate. Our data derives from a survey carried out among public service interpreters in Finland in 2018. We identified three categories of stressors: content-related stressors, interactional stressors, and stressors related to the organisation of the work. Through these, we identified six ethical dilemmas. Our analysis indicates that, to solve ethical dilemmas in a sound manner, interpreters have to exercise agency in addition to being familiar with professional codes of conduct. Furthermore, many ethical dilemmas interpreters face are emotionally challenging and therefore also require affective labour. Unfortunately, interpreters often seem to be left to their own devices in dealing with emotionally challenging situations. This study calls for increased professional support for interpreters and further research on the link between ethical dilemmas and job satisfaction.

Configuring Public Service Interpreting in Finland as a Sentient Professional Practice and Affirmative Social Service Work: Emotion in the Work of Public Service Interpreters

Please refer to the URL that includes this article for the abstract.

“You are a woman, so you understand what I mean”

Abstract This article analyses public service interpreters’ self-perceptions of the role played by their gender in their professional practice, a matter unexplored until now in interpreting studies. Through a thematic analysis of 95 responses to a qualitative online survey in Finland, the United Kingdom and Spain, this study identified (1) whether interpreters perceive their gender as significant in interpreter-mediated encounters; (2) in which situations interpreters believe their gender to be relevant; (3) the reasons why gender becomes significant in interpreter-mediated encounters, and (4) whether the interpreter’s gender has an impact on their credibility and trust-building. The results suggest that the interpreter’s gender plays a significant role in their interactions, having an impact on both the interpreter’s and the client’s experience. The participants highlight the significance of the interpreter’s gender, especially in healthcare situations, and discuss it in connection with the client’s level of comfort and preference; relatability based on shared experiences, gender biases and expectations; sexism; intersectionality, and the interpreter’s visibility. These results are examined with respect to the literature on gender in interpreting studies and paths for future research are suggested.

Exploring the acceptance of supporting tools in public service interpreting: a questionnaire study

In the past two decades, the fast development of both communication and digital technologies has led to profound changes in how interpreting services are performed. Several studies have reported on how interpreters perceive and experience these technological changes and on interpreters' attitudes towards specific types of technologies in different interpreting sectors, such as public service interpreting or PSI. In this study, we focus on technologies which can support the interpreter' s preparation, performance and workflow of onsite interpreting assignments, in particular: machine translation tools, digital glossaries for manual term look-up, automatic terminology recognition tools based on speech recognition, note-taking apps and voice-recording tools. Our contribution aims to present the results of a survey into public service interpreters' use and acceptance of these types of technologies in the PSI sector.

Interpreters as cultural experts? Asylum practices in Slovakia

Cultural expertise can be a meaningful part of judicial proceedings, including asylum appeals. In countries where it is not yet common, the need to address questions of cultural identity might be communicated indirectly through interpreters. As a result, interpreters implicitly and explicitly respond to co-producing the Other. This paper uses empirical data from long-term ethnographic research on interpreting asylum hearings to trace their institutional conditions in Slovakia and the actors’ approaches to the culturally sensitive aspects of interpretation in these proceedings. The perspectives of asylum applicants, their legal representatives, interpreters and decision-making authorities are analysed through the concepts of sayability and interpretability—the relationship between representations of legal, cultural, and linguistic identities. This article discusses how the research participants’ norms of interpreting, awareness of positionality, and procedural neutrality influence the spoken and written file narrative. Legal terms and administrative jargon are often not translated into plain language, accessible to laypeople. The often unacknowledged misinterpretation also affects the flow of the proceedings. Thus, systemic training of interpreters is essential, particularly public service interpreters who actively shape their informal role as cultural experts. At a time of increased demand for cross-cultural understanding, this article provides new perspectives on exploring the challenges for interpreters as well as other public service professions in relation to the notions ascribed to cultural identities.

“If we’re lucky, we recognise potential.” A study of admission criteria and entrance screening practices in public service interpreter training

ABSTRACT The growing demand for language mediation across different domains of public service interpreting (PSI) poses a challenge for policymakers, stakeholders (institutional representatives, clients), and traditional interpreter education institutions. Alongside university-based interpreter education, different training formats have emerged internationally to meet the increased need for training. Based on a systematic review of extra-university training formats in Austria, this contribution presents the results of a qualitative follow-up study drawing upon data from semi-structured interviews with providers. The aim was to investigate whether entrance assessment procedures are employed by course providers when selecting course participants, and, if so, which they are and what motives lie behind providers’ decisions for particular admission procedures. Our study shows that while there is considerable commitment to offering customer-tailored courses to heterogeneous groups of trainees, the training formats differ and there seems to be little communication among providers regarding the establishment and adequacy of different formats for student selection.

Intercomprehension in public service interpreting and translation

In recent decades, Western societies have become increasingly multilingual. However, the traditional strategies for communication between institutions and multilingual populations used in Public Service Interpreting and Translation (PSIT) have come under question, and alternative approaches are now being considered. One such alternative is intercomprehension (IC). The main objective of this research is two-fold: firstly, to explore the frequency and extent of IC in the study area; and secondly, to analyze the extent to which IC may help to eliminate barriers in PSIT when compared with traditional approaches to translation and interpreting. Data were collected over the course of 2015–2016 in central Spain (Madrid and the Henares Corridor) from surveys and discussions with ad hoc translators and interpreters. The research methodology integrates qualitative and quantitate analysis. The results show that IC is a means of communication in public services in Spain that deserves more consideration in both research and training contexts within the area of Translation and Interpreting Studies.

Social workers as targets for integration

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to write against normative discourses and interpretations of ‘integration’ by nominating social workers and social work as the main subject of ‘integration’ and find ways to overcome exclusionary and discriminating social work practices. To do that, we use material collected when observing public service interpreters giving lectures to social workers about their experiences from encounters in social work settings. In a critical analysis, we found two ‘integration’ problems, that is, certain problems that social workers have in making themselves accessible and where they risk reinforcing exclusion and discrimination. One problem is ‘the failure of handling perceptions that social services take children’. The other is ‘the failures of (re)producing bureaucratically driven social assistance’. These problems might lead to exclusionary practices towards migrant families, often with disastrous outcomes. The analysis shows that these problems appear due to social workers’ lack of institutional self-awareness, language competencies, and emphatic ability. To overcome these shortcomings, the interpreters emphasized the impact of encounters that social workers were already involved in during their everyday work. The interpreters recognize that social services are unknown to most families who are newly arrived in Sweden and point out the importance of making more efforts to be clear, rephrasing questions, explaining, avoiding abbreviations, and becoming proactive in dialogue outside of the offices, i.e. recognizing that social work is language work.

Configuring public service interpreting in Finland as a sentient professional practice and affirmative social service work: emotion in the work of public service interpreters

ABSTRACT In this article, we build on an understanding of multilingual social service work as an existing and permanent, yet under-researched, professional landscape and an everyday reality in the contemporary Finnish context. We explore this landscape by focusing on the critical case of public service interpreting and adopt a critical stance towards the idea of public service interpreters as neutral and invisible by examining the role of emotions in public service interpreting in social services. Drawing from reflective diaries produced by 16 public service interpreters during spring 2022, we analyse the presence and significance of emotions in interpreter-mediated service encounters. The results challenge the idea of the role of public service interpreters as mechanical and invisible and instead present public service interpreting as a sentient professional practice and affirmative social service work.

Global Insights into Public Service Interpreting: Theory, Practice and Training

Global Insights into Public Service Interpreting: Theory, Practice and Training

Ethical dilemmas in community interpreting: interpreters’ experiences and guidance from the code of ethics

ABSTRACT Community interpreters (or public service interpreters) work in a variety of contexts, including health, legal, and governmental service provision. Although the field is characterised by diversity, community interpreters may be unified by the relevant professional code of ethics. Previous studies have shown that case deliberation in educational settings can be valuable to practitioners in developing the skills to resolve ethical dilemmas in practice. This study explored ethical dilemmas experienced by community interpreters working in policing and other contexts. Transcripts of interviews with 20 Australian community interpreters were analysed to document the types of ethical dilemmas discussed and the salience of ethical principles in resolving them. Participants referred to all ethical principles from the Australian Code of Ethics. Four themes were identified in the types of dilemmas that participants reported: wanting to help one of the parties, not wanting to say what the parties said, pressure to take on another professional’s role, and disagreeing with another interpreter’s choices. Participants’ resolutions of ethical dilemmas mostly aligned with principles from the Code. The study highlights the significance of professional ethics to community interpreters and provides examples from practice that may be valuable in community interpreter education, training and professional development contexts.

A symbolic interactionist model of interpreter-facilitated communication—Key communication issues in face-to-face interpreting

Communication has been conceptualized and studied in a wide range of disciplines. However, very few communication theories or models have explicitly incorporated interpreting as an indispensable process to achieve communicative goals in intercultural and interlinguistic settings where communicative parties do not share a common language. By the same token, despite a strong emphasis of interpreting as “a communicative pas de trois”, there is much remaining to be explored in how existing communication theories and models could be drawn on and adapted to shed light on the key communication issues in interpreting studies. In view of such a distinct gap attributed to a striking lack of attention from both communication and interpreting scholars, as highlighted in this special issue, the author develops a symbolic interactionist model of interpreter-facilitated communication with a focus on exploring how an interpreter's identification with self-meanings and role management, which is key to their intrapersonal covert rehearsal process, impact on their interpreting decisions and behaviors. Through one-to-one interviews with three professional interpreters from the National Register of Public Service Interpreters, it is found that the interpreters' identification with particular self-meanings at the intrapersonal level, which gives rise to identity integration, identity accumulation and disidentification strategies, has impacted on how they managed various challenges at the interpersonal level, such as the impossibility of the neutrality expectation, dealing with inappropriate non-interpreting demands from communicative parties, and resolving identity conflicts linked to communicative contexts.

A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Interpreter’s Identity Management

A lacuna in interpreting studies pertains to what constitutes an interpreter’s identities in social and sociopsychological contexts and how they operate, influencing the interpreter’s decision-making and behaviours at interpreting-facilitated events. In this research, two key symbolic interactionism frameworks, structural symbolic interactionism (SSI) and perceptual control theory, are drawn on to formulate a symbolic interactionist model of interpreter’s identity management (SIMIIM) with a view to investigating higher socio-structural and individual psychological influence on an interpreter’s identity management. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of a professional public service interpreter’s perceptions of her lived experience of interpreting and the sense of self is undertaken to illustrate the key elements of the model. Issues regarding moral identity, professional identity, social and communicative factors challenging the interpreter’s identity management, and impacts of identity nonverification on the interpreter’s wellbeing are discussed. Introducing symbolic interactionism to interpreting studies for the first time, it is hoped that this research will encourage further efforts to explore an interpreter’s identity management at social and individual levels, which is key to an informed understanding of the interpreter’s behaviour and of the issues of interpreting ethics in public service interpreting.

Importance and Effects of Multimodal Communication on Interactional Behaviour and Outcome in Public Service Interpreting

This paper investigates how public service interpreting (PSI) purposes and interactions are affected by either overlooking, ignoring or concealing some communication modalities. Empirical data were collected from 28 interpreters via a questionnaire comprising closed and open questions. After a brief review of the PSI settings and the theoretical basis for understanding different communicative modalities, the paper uses thematic analysis to depict the importance and effects of multimodal communication on interactional behaviour and outcome in interpreter-mediated encounters. The findings reveal that there are many important signs, signals and their symbolic values that are not given necessary consideration. It concludes that the relevance of communication modalities, including silences and those associated with Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), and their effects on interactional behaviour depend on both PSI settings and the expected outcome of communication. It suggests some transformative approaches that can be used to maximise and manage the effectiveness of the interpreter-mediated communication modalities.