Interpreters and interpreting: shifting the balance?

ABSTRACT

The role of interpreters has been shaped by changing social contexts throughout the millennial history of this occupation, but demographic, educational, legal and technological developments have accelerated since the late 20th century and given rise to new forms of interpreting with the potential of reshaping the way interpreting is conceived. This essay aims at providing a broad-based overview of major changes (‘shifts’) with regard to such features as social status and domain, mode and modality as well as process-related characteristics like human agency, immediacy and the nature of the language(s) involved. In particular, the looming transformations engendered by technological progress will be analysed with regard to the interplay between humans and machines. Under the headings of immediacy, linguality and agency, new forms of technology-based interpreting will be discussed and seen to challenge deeply rooted assumptions about interpreting as a task, with far-reaching consequences for the role of the human agent.

KEYWORDS:

• Context
• agency
• immediacy
• technology
• modality

Disclosure statement

My conflict of interest is of a personal and political nature. This essay, based on a plenary conference talk, found its way into print in this journal exactly 20 years after the academic boycott which Mona Baker, the founding editor of this journal, launched in 2002 against scholars affiliated with Israeli institutions. Miriam Shlesinger, a member of the editorial board, was forced to step down for these political reasons. Several colleagues, including myself, resigned in protest from their roles in this journal. Publishing once again in this journal must therefore come with the explicit affirmation that the boycott action is not forgotten nor forgiven. On the contrary, I trust that Taylor & Francis as a professional publisher will continue to make sure that divisive political action has no place ever again in a scholarly journal of translation and interpreting studies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Franz Pöchhacker

Franz Pöchhacker is Professor of Interpreting Studies in the Centre for Translation Studies at the University of Vienna. With professional training and experience in conference interpreting, his interests have expanded over the years to include issues of interpreting studies as a discipline, media interpreting and community interpreting in healthcare, social service and asylum settings. His more recent work involves such technology-based forms of interpreting as video remote and speech-to-text interpreting. He has lectured and published widely, his English books including The Interpreting Studies Reader (2002), Introducing Interpreting Studies (2004/32022) and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Interpreting Studies (2015). He is co-editor, with Minhua Liu, of Interpreting: International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting.