De-/Re-Contextualizing Conference Interpreting

Abstract

This groundbreaking study explores Simultaneous Conference Interpreting (SI) by focusing on interpreters as professionals working in socio-cultural contexts and on the interdependency between these contexts and actual SI behavior. While previous research on SI has been dominated by cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches, Diriker’s work explores SI in relation to the broader and more immediate socio-cultural contexts by investigating the representation of the profession(al) in the meta-discourse and by exploring the presence of interpreters and the nature of the interpreted utterance at an actual conference. Making use of participant observations, interviews and analysis of conference transcripts, Diriker challenges some of the widely held assumptions about SI. She suggests that the interpreter’s delivery represents not only the speaker but a multiplicity of speaker-positions, and that this multiplicity may well be a source of tension or vulnerability, as well as strength, for interpreters. Her analysis also highlights how interpreters negotiate meaning in SI, and underscores the need for more concerted efforts to explore SI in authentic contexts.

The Status of Professional Business Translators on the Danish Market: A Comparative Study of Company, Agency and Freelance Translators

“…Within the translation profession, conference interpreters and to a certain degree translators working for international organisations are often perceived as having the highest status due to their presumed glamorous working conditions and high salaries, whereas so-called commercial translators, community interpreters and other public-service translators and interpreters are generally considered to be at the lower end of the status continuum for the opposite reasons (e.g., Diriker 2004;Gile 2004: 12-14;see Fraser and Rogers comments, in Schäffner 2004b: 35-48;Sela-Sheffy and Shlesinger 2008: 81). As the continuum is subjective and context-dependent, the high salary of conference interpreters and staff translators in international organisations may of course not be seen by all as being as attractive and prestigious as earning a meagre living as an intellectually satisfied literary translator.…”

Simultaneous Conference Interpreting and a Supernorm That Governs It All

“…Les associations professionnelles telles que l'Association internationale des interprètes de conférence (AIIC), probablement l'autorité exerçant l'influence la plus grande sur les normes dans ce domaine, mais aussi des personnalités jouissant d'une certaine autorité, jouent un rôle clé dans la promotion de cette supernorme. Or, ces dernières années, cette supernorme qui demande aux interprètes de transmettre « passivement » un message et qui tente d'empêcher l'interprète de s'impliquer activement est contestée par la recherche empirique (Angelelli 2004 ;Diriker 2004 ;Zwischenberger 2013). La discussion sur les normes dans le domaine de l'interprétation de conférence simultanée sera enrichie par quelques résultats sélectionnés d'un sondage en ligne, réalisé parmi des membres de l'AIIC.…”

What Every Client Wants? (Re)mapping the Trajectory of Client Expectations Research

“…The work of Diriker (2004) and Eraslan (2008;2011) therefore reveals a much more nuanced picture of client expectations than was previously available. For a start, as previously mentioned, Diriker (2004: 136) points out that the capacity for the same key concepts to mean different things to different audience members means that even where clients appear to agree on what they want from interpreters at a specific conference, their understandings of what this entails may differ markedly.…”

“…More importantly, this paper suggests that there may be a difference between stereotypical views of interpreters and how clients actually expect them to behave. As will be argued in the examination of the work of Diriker (2004) and Eraslan (2008;2011), this division offers a useful starting point for future research.…”

“…The work of these two Turkish scholars, Ebru Diriker (2004) and Şeyda Eraslan (2008;2011), is a fundamental challenge to the prevailing interpretations of client expectations data by suggesting that the data hitherto available described only one level of a far more complex set of expectations shaped not only by the contextual variables at play in a given interpreting situation but also by the existence of a stereotypical view of interpreters. The paper will then conclude with a discussion of how the work of these two scholars may be applied to future work on client expectations.…”