Court interpreting certifying bodies face a plethora of challenges in their quest to identify competent judicial interpreters so that speakers of all languages might be assured of due process under the law and equal access to justice. For the entities which develop and administer the oral certification exams which act as gateways to the profession of court interpreting, two such dilemmas are of particular interest: the first is high rates of exam failure, with a frustrating number of candidates not meeting minimum levels of qualification to practice in court. The second is an increasing need for qualified interpreters of languages of lesser diffusion. In the face of ubiquitous budget constraints, this article explores an abbreviated testing model as a mitigator of extreme exam failure at the same time as it reveals the results of a recent pilot project which focused on centralizing interpreting services protocols while prioritizing interpreter quality. ResumenLos organismos oficiales que certifican a los intérpretes jurídicos se enfrentan a un gran número de desafíos a la hora de identificar a intérpretes competentes. Para las entidades que desarrollan y administran los exámenes orales de certificación, dos de estos dilemas son de especial interés. Uno de esos dilemas es el alto número de fracasos en los exámenes, ya que muchos de los candidatos no cumplen los requisitos mínimos en los exámenes de certificación. El segundo es una necesidad creciente de identificar a intérpretes cualificados en lenguas de menor difusión. A la vista de las limitaciones presupuestarias actuales, el presente artículo explora un modelo abreviado

This article gathers research from three studies conducted by industry stakeholders in US court interpretingresearch which provides a blueprint for prioritising quality in courtroom language access and which concretely links court interpreter training to policy decisions in the areas of language access and interpreter certification testing. The first study examines training experiences of Spanish/English court interpreters in one US state (Wisconsin); the second surveys practising court interpreters in the same state to demarcate specific skill domains and content in which court interpreters wish to receive training; and the third study examines failure rates on the state-level oral court interpreting exams on a national level over a 15-year period, suggesting some key strategies to mitigate such failure. In light of the aforementioned studies, as well as in response to the National Center for State Court's recent publication entitled A National Call to Action, this article represents a further call to action, beseeching educators and policymakers to create meaningful training opportunities, to acknowledge the relationship between lack of training and widespread oral exam failure, and to reward and incentivise training and credentialing through proactive policy decisions.

This article aims to describe the current state of affairs as regards national registers of legal interpreters and translators (LITs) in the United States and the European Union. After a brief overview of what translation and interpreting studies researchers and EU project participants recommend about their construction and utilization, a case will be made for the use of national registers as essential tools in two important struggles: professionalizing legal translation and interpreting and building public trust. Based on current models and recommendations by researchers, a proposal will be put forth for minimum characteristics of a national register of LITs. Rather than an afterthought, the interpreter register merits scrutiny and careful elaboration precisely because of an ever more ubiquitous need for states and countries to implement measures which are fair, transparent, cost-effective, which guarantee due process, and which provide users with ways to make an objective value judgment regarding the competence of the interpreters they commission. ResumenEl presente artículo pretende describir el estado de la cuestión de los registros nacionales de intérpretes y traductores judiciales en los Estados Unidos y en la Unión Europea. Después de examinar brevemente las recomendaciones de investigadores y participantes en proyectos especializados a nivel europeo, se defenderá la importancia de utilizar los registros nacionales para dos fines importantes: profesionalizar la traducción y la interpretación judicial, así como fomentar la confianza pública. A continuación se planteará una propuesta, basada en modelos actuales y recomendaciones DOI: 10.6035/MonTI.2015.7.4 116 Wallace, Melissa 7 (2015: 115-140). ISSN 1889-4178 de investigadores que contempla las características mínimas de un registro nacional. Debido a la necesidad cada vez más presente de implementar medidas que sean justas, transparentes, sostenibles y que protejan los derechos procesales de los ciudadanos, el registro debe ser elaborado cuidadosamente y con el esmero apropiado. Así también se puede garantizar que los usuarios de dichos registros dispongan de información objetiva sobre la competencia de los intérpretes a quienes contratan. MonTI

How disciplines approach their objects of inquiry is a result of their epistemological traditions, which include decisions about what they choose to examine and what they decide to ignore. As an interdiscipline, Interpreting and Translation Studies (ITS) was born to overcome the limits of discipline-specific approaches to translation and interpreting, and when observing complex real-life phenomena, examining issues through an interdisciplinary lens can reveal things that approaches from single disciplines on their own would miss. This feature article reviews how ITS has shaped Public Service Interpreting and Translation (PSIT), focusing specifically on the advantages and vulnerabilities that its interdisciplinary nature yields as regards research methods. Three distinctive features and their impact on research methods are examined: (1) the complexity of the object of inquiry, (2) the novelty of the disciplinary field that aims to scrutinize and to explain PSIT, and (3) the changes that the social sciences in general have undergone and are currently undergoing, opening up new opportunities for research practices and methodological reflections. Contemplations of these features reveal issues identified and the efforts undertaken to tackle them in relation to the internal and external validity of research studies as well as unexplored strengths and roadblocks in the path towards achieving a critical mass of studies that can adequately represent the relevance of PSIT in contemporary societies.Resumen: La forma en que las disciplinas abordan sus objetos de investigación es el resultado de sus tradiciones epistemológicas, que incluyen elecciones sobre lo que se estudia y lo que se ignora. Como interdisciplina, los Estudios de Traducción e Interpretación (ETI) nacieron para superar los límites de los enfoques disciplinarios que se aproximaron a la traducción y a la interpretación. Al examinar fenómenos complejos de la vida real, las miradas interdisciplinarias pueden observar lo que las disciplinas por sí mismas pasarían por alto. Este artículo revisa la forma en que los ETI han moldeado la Traducción y la Interpretación en los Servicios Públicos (TISP) centrándose específicamente en las ventajas y vulnerabilidades que su naturaleza interdisciplinaria produce en lo que respecta a los métodos de investigación. Se examinan tres características distintivas y su impacto en los métodos de investigación: 1) la complejidad del objeto de estudio, 2) la novedad del campo disciplinario que pretende estudiar y explicar la TISP, y 3) los cambios que las ciencias sociales en general han experimentado y están experimentando actualmente, y que abren nuevas oportunidades para las prácticas investigadoras y las reflexiones metodológicas. Reflexionar sobre esas características revela algunos problemas en relación con la validez interna y externa de las investigaciones y los esfuerzos realizados para abordarlos, así como los puntos fuertes y los obstáculos inexplorados en el camino hacia una masa crítica de estudios que puedan representar adecuadamente la pertinencia de la TISP en las sociedades contemporáneas.

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