Tele-phone Interpreting: Untangling the complexities

The development of communication technologies such as telephony, videoconferencing and web-conferencing in interpreter-mediated communication has led to alternative ways of delivering interpreting services. Several uses of these technologies can be distinguished in connection with interpreting. 'Remote interpreting' in the narrow sense often refers to their use to gain access to an interpreter in another location, but similar methods of interpreting are required for interpreting in virtual meetings in which the primary participants themselves are distributed across different sites. In spite of their different underlying motivations, these methods of interpreting all share elements of remote working from the interpreter's point of view and will therefore be subsumed here under one heading. Although the practice of remote interpreting (in all its forms) is controversial among interpreters, the last two decades have seen an increase in this practice in all fields of interpreting. As such, it has also caught the attention of scholars, who have begun to investigate remote interpreting, for example, with a view to the quality of the interpreter's performance and a range of psychological and physiological factors. This chapter will begin by explaining the key terms and concepts associated with remote interpreting and then give an overview of the historical development and current trends of remote interpreting in supra-national institutions, legal, healthcare and other settings, referring to current and emerging practice and to insights from research. This will be followed by the presentations of recommendations for practice and an outlook at future directions of this practice and for research.

Handbook of Remote Interpreting, 2018

2018

In the last three to four decades the massive diffusion of information and communication technologies has made their price drop dramatically. Access to long-distance real-time audio and video communication which used to be limited to large and wealthy organizations - such as governments or multinationals - has become affordable for a large share of the world population. Advances in ICTs have made it possible to buy products, provide services, or even run a business from portable devices. Historically interpreting has been a communication “enabler”, allowing people with different languages and cultures to communicate. But, until recently, interpreters enabled communication in shared situations such as meetings and conferences or in a shared place such as an office, a hospital, a courtroom. As private citizens have increasingly gained access to ICTs, the demand for the provision of distance, fast and immediate services has boomed, and language services are no exception to the rule. Mo...

This paper aims to examine the field of remote interpretation in both signed and spoken languages in order to identify important topics to address when teaching interpreters how to work in this setting and thereby improve services that are provided. It can be seen that video interpreting is here to stay despite the obstacles that continue to pose as a challenge. Remote interpreting is used throughout a range of specializations including medical, mental health, education, conference, and legal environments. Undoubtedly, to fight technology is to go against the natural paradigm shift that our field will take. I propose that, rather than resisting the expansion of technology, we teach interpreters how to use it effectively. How can we expect new interpreters to make ethically wise decisions about working in this field if we do not teach them best practices for navigating it's constraints? After all, it is the new generation of interpreters who will feel most comfortable working with the technology used in this setting; they are the ones who are most likely to begin a career that includes video interpreting.

International Journal of Interpreter Education, 2013

This paper focuses on the use of telephony and video-link technology in interpreting and firstly presents data from relevant contemporary research studies, and secondly from two surveys conducted with practising interpreters and/or examiners, on their own experiences using these technologies and on their suitability as components of training and testing for certification. Technological advances in the means of audio and audio+visual communication are now being trialled in interpreted interactions, but most research findings reveal that an increased use of technology accompanies rather than forms a part of inter-lingual transfer. Responses from two groups of interpreters – practitioners and examiners – show that there is widespread support for telephone and video-link interpreting to form components of training and certification testing, as these two communication channels become more popular with mediators (interpreting agencies) and end-users of interpreting services. These responses are collated and recommendatory guidelines for training and testing are provided in this paper.

Istanbul University Journal of Translation Studies, 2024

Telephone interpreting (TI) has been a controversial topic in interpreting studies due to quality concerns that emerged due to the lack of visual information. This study focuses on the perceptions of interpreters about challenges in TI in Türkiye in which TI has been offered as a public service since 2011 and by private language service providers.With the objective of shedding light on the practices and problems experienced by telephone interpreters and their opinions on how to improve this practice, the study employed interview as the data collection method. The study recruited 12 telephone interpreters, whose opinions were then analyzed using thematic analysis. The participants highlighted that Turkish clients seem unaware of the interpreting process and aggravate TI problems. In addition, the participants proposed various measures for improving the quality of TI in Türkiye.

SKASE Journal of Translation and Interpretation 13(2):58, 2020

Remote interpretation technology is developing extremely fast, enabling affordable and instant access to interpreting services worldwide. This paper focuses on the subjective perceptions of public service interpreters about the psychological and physical impact of using remote interpreting, and the effects on their own performance. To this end, a survey study has been conducted by means of an on-line questionnaire. Both structured and unstructured questions have been used to tap into interpreters' view on technology, elicit information about perceived effects, and identify pitfalls and prospects.

This paper explores data from remote interpreting (RI), which was originally generated with the aim of investigating and comparing the quality of the interpreting performance in onsite interpreting and RI in legal contexts. One unexpected finding of this comparison was that the number of additions and expansions was significantly higher in RI, and that it increased further after a phase of familiarisation and training for participating interpreters, calling for a qualitative exploration of the motives and functions of the additions and expansions. This requires an appropriate methodology. Whilst introspective data give insights into interpreting processes and motivations guiding the interpreter’s choices, they tend to be unsystematic and incomplete. Micro-analytical approaches such as Conversation Analysis are more promising, especially when enriched with social macro-variables. In line with this, the present paper has a dual aim. The primary aim is to explore the nature of additions and expansions in RI, especially to what extent they are indicative of interpreting problems, to what degree they are specific to the videoconference situation, what they reveal about, and how they affect the interpreter’s participation in RI. The secondary aim is to evaluate the micro-analytical approach chosen for this exploration.

Experimental studies concerning remote interpreting (RI) have revealed that professional interpreters prefer the traditional on site interpreting (OSI), having a less positive attitude towards the most recent variant of interpreting.

2018

Telephone Interpreting (TI) is a long established professional practice, however there is a paucity of observational studies aimed at eliciting challenges and limitations as experienced by telephone interpreters, which could contribute to the development of effective interpreter education. There is a popular belief that training in dialogue interpreting can be applied to TI. The focus of this study is to gain an understanding of the specific features and situations that make TI trouble-free or challenging. We have elicited the various ways in which they have learned to grapple with difficult interactions over the years: from novices to advanced practitioners to seasoned interpreters. Responses from telephone interpreters from two different countries (Spain and Sweden) were also used to identify challenges that are culture-specific from the ones that seem to be universal. Our findings point to challenges that go far beyond the ones described in the TI literature, such as the lack of ...