Swedish interpreter professions – How legislation and public institutions contribute to creation and disruption of work, remuneration and education

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the interpreter professions in Sweden have been forged through different types of legislation and public actions. The study covers the period from 1971 to 2018 and investigates different public documents such as laws, bills, and special investigations in order to trace the development of the three interpreter professions, public service interpreting, sign language interpreting and conference interpreting. Document analysis and content analysis are used to frame how the term interpreter is conceptualised and used. Newspaper corpora and archives are used to explore how different types of interpreters are covered in media. Furthermore, the use, provision, remuneration, and education of interpreters in Sweden are investigated through the same documents. The study concludes that in a number of cases direct links can be found between the development of the profession and special investigations and legislation.

KEYWORDS:

• Public service interpreting
• sign language interpreting
• conference interpreting
• professionalisation
• Sweden

Introduction

The interpreter profession in Sweden is dominated by public service interpreters, many of whom have received training and some have passed a national certification test. Furthermore, there is also a not unimportant community of signed language interpreters trained and state-certified in many cases. Finally, there is a small community of conference interpreters. The Swedish conference interpreters were the last to get access to specific training in Sweden and establish themselves as a community.

Students aspiring to become Swedish spoken or signed language interpreters have had access to different types of training both at, and outside, university since the late 1970s. Yet, regular conference interpreter training was not introduced until the mid-1990s. Although interpreter is not a licenced or protected profession in Sweden, a Swedish state authorisation protocol established in 1976 has vouched for standards of interpreters. The right to interpreter services for those needing it was also established legally relatively early, compared to other European countries, both for immigrants and the Swedish deaf population. Consequently, the interpreter training provided has had an overwhelming focus on public service interpreting, and thus on dialogue interpreting using short consecutive interpreting (for spoken language interpreting) and simultaneous interpreting (for signed language interpreting cf. Russell 2005) as main techniques. Furthermore, most interpreting courses have been placed under the so-called folk high school¹ system (Almqvist 2016).

Therefore, and as I shall explore further below, the budding interpreter profession in Sweden was not modelled on the interpreting modes or standards of international organisations or events, such as the establishment of the International Labour Organization and the United Nations, or organisation of the Nuremberg trials. Instead, the mechanisms behind the interpreter profession and education in Sweden can be traced back to the late 1960s and 1970s, with the deaf people’s battle for linguistic rights (Persson Bergvall and Sjöberg 2012; Lemhagen and Almqvist 2013), and the special investigations on immigration (SOU 1974:69 2021; SOU 1972:83; SOU 2021:51 2021). Special investigations (SOU, Statens Offentliga Utredning [Public State Inquiry]) are an instrument for the government to build its policy on the basis of expertise and scientific knowledge (Vedung 2017). Prior to a legislative proposal, it is common for the Swedish government to appoint a special investigator or a committee to investigate the issue in question. The committee produce their report based on research, previous legislation as well as interviews with stake-holders and focus groups. After publication, the report is referred to a wide variety of stakeholders who may submit an opinion on the report. Based on the report from the SOU and the opinions, the government can decide to propose a bill. The SOU as concept is close to the green papers and white papers published by the European Commission. This way of legislating also contribute to both understanding and impacting the public opinion on the topic.²

Since the 1970s, interpreter education has focused on public service interpreting for spoken and signed languages. It was not until Swedish EU membership in 1995 that a Swedish conference interpreter training (for spoken languages) was established. Thus, historically, most Swedish interpreter educations have been relatively short, not offered at the university level, and with various results regarding the ambition to raise the numbers of practising interpreters with interpreter education (Niska 2007).

This article explores Swedish official and public texts, newspaper articles and publications on interpreter training in Sweden to shed light on how legislation has shaped, professionalised, and perhaps disrupted interpreting in Sweden.

Interpreting in Sweden – historical background

As outlined above, the interpreting market in Sweden evolved slightly differently compared to continental Europe (Baigorri-Jalón, Fernández-Sánchez, and Payàs 2022; Seeber 2021; Andres 2013). The Swedish (conscious or unconscious) approach to participating in international collaborations in post-war Europe seems not to have been to employ interpreters, though, but rather to teach the corps of civil servants working in international organisations to speak foreign languages. There are no policy documents on this as far as I have established. However, personal communication with Serge Cavanna (founder of the interpreter provision unit at the Swedish Export Council) confirms that from the 1960s to the late 1980s, there was only one regular international conference with interpreting into Swedish, namely an annual conference held at the Swedish agricultural fair (Elmia). Cavanna also stated that as a general rule, the only international meetings where interpreting into Swedish would be offered were trade union meetings. These trade union meetings are also touched upon by Keiser (2004), who mentions both meetings with a ‘Scandinavian’ booth (i.e. interpreting into one of the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish) for the benefit of all Scandinavian participants (and from these languages into, e.g. English or French), and Swedish interpreters providing interpretation for Swedish delegations. Furthermore, working languages in other international organisations (e.g. UN and ILO), where Sweden traditionally has been an active participant, have not included Swedish as a working language, and Sweden also did not join the EU until 1995.

The Swedish interpreter profession would thus be shaped by workforce immigration (for spoken languages) and deaf people’s fight for linguistic rights (for sign languages). In the 1950s and 60s, Sweden’s booming industry lacked blue-collar workers to man the machines and production lines. Sweden actively recruited workers from Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italy, leading to almost unregulated workforce immigration. The number of immigrants needing to learn Swedish and also needing linguistic access to public services grew rapidly, interpreters were lacking and the organisation of interpreter services was practically inexistent (Byström and Frohnert 2017). By 1968, the Swedish government called for the first Swedish public SOU on the immigrant situation. The results were published in 1971 (immigrants’ level of education), 1972 (interpreter services), 1974 (proposal for new immigration legislation).

In 1968, after much lobbying, sign language interpreter services were made free of charge for deaf people. As a consequence, in 1969, the first sign language interpreter training started as a six-week course (Persson Bergvall and Sjöberg 2012).

The next political action which had an impact on the interpreter profession is Swedish EU membership. On 1 July 1991, the Swedish government applied for membership in the then European Community. At that time, there was no conference interpreter education in Sweden, and AIIC,³ which was established in Sweden in the mid-1980s, counted five members. The discussion of EU membership had become more serious since the 1980s, but the language issues had not been prominent. When the application was submitted, it was not clear whether Sweden would demand Swedish to be an official language of the EU, and the negotiations were held in English without Swedish interpretation (Lemhagen and Almqvist 2013). Yet, when Sweden joined Swedish became a working language in the EU.

Aim

The work leading up to legislation on the right to interpreters is reflected in documents authored or commissioned by different government bodies. In the study reported here, document analysis (Gross 2018) combined with content analysis (Krippendorff 2018) was used to investigate how different SOUs on immigration, disability rights, and EU membership have shaped and possibly also disrupted the Swedish interpreter profession. More specifically, I explore whether certain indicators of professionalisation or disruption, such as education, remuneration, provision of interpreters, or other interpreter-related provisions can be traced to institutional documents. In the next section, I introduce the texts studied and the methodology used.

Method

The Swedish repositories for SOUs,⁴ legislation and public documents⁵ were searched for documents and legislation on interpreters and interpreter services. Document analysis (Gross 2018; Bowen 2009) was used to determine the relevance of the documents. Relevant official documents referred to in other publications (e.g. SOU 2018:83 2021; Almqvist 2016; Lemhagen and Almqvist 2013) were also identified and added to the list. The period was limited from 1971 (the publication of the first SOU on interpreting) to 2018 (the latest SOU on the topic).

The documents that were found and chosen for further examination are presented in Table 1. The documents included in the analysis are all primary documents and public records about interpreting in Sweden, and thus deemed relevant to the research problem and purpose (Bowen 2009, 33). An important delimitation was to not include the Swedish Public Procurement Act (SFS 2016:1145). The act has a potential impact on interpreters who provide services to the public sector. Yet, as it is not directly aimed at interpreters, and as its scope is very wide, I decided to exclude the act.

Table 1. Names and labels of official texts included for analysis.

Name	Document label
Codes
The Swedish Code of Judicial Procedure	SFS 1942:740; SFS 1984:131
The Swedish Code of Professional Secrecy for certain interpreters and translators	SFS1975:689
The Swedish Code of Public Administration	SFS 1971:290; SFS 1986:223; SFS 2017:900
The Swedish Language Act	SFS 2009600
Government bills
The best language – a joint Swedish language policy	RP 2005/06:2
Government proposal on support and service to certain disabled individuals	RP 1992/93:159
Government proposal for high school education for deaf and hard of hearing	RP 1980/81:123
Parliamentary decision
High school education for deaf and hard of hearing	1980/81:27
Special investigations
Interpreting Services, Nordic Language Convention	SOU 1972:83
Responsible Authority for the Special Education School	SOU 1979:50
Swedish in the EU – How do we promote the quality of the Swedish EU-texts	SOU 1998:114
Speak out – a proposal for an action plan for the Swedish Language	SOU 2002:27
Interpreter agencies – quality, registration, supervision	SOU 2004:15
Sign Language and Signers – an inventory of the status of Swedish Sign Language	SOU. 2004:64
Interpreter education – new forms for new demands	SOU 2005:37
Protect the Languages – Proposal for a Language Act	SOU 2008:26
A joint interpreter service – coordination and development of an interpreter service for childhood deaf, late-deafened, hard of hearing and individuals with deafblindness	SOU 2011:83
Interpreting and translation in criminal court proceedings: Implementing the EU directive of interpreting and translation	SOU 2012:49
Understanding and be understood – The Special investigation on Reforming Rules and Regulations for Interpreters of Spoken languages	SOU 2018:83
Other official documents
The Swedish Language Policy, Circular 6	UD 1996:6

I used content analysis (Krippendorff 2018) to investigate how the concept of tolk (interpreter) found in the different documents is understood or described. In the texts in Table 1, I searched for the term interpreter or any derivatives on that word (see also Table 2). For the term interpreter, I checked what definitions were given for that word, e.g. a person with interpreter education or other requirements or experiences mentioned. The terms found designating interpreters of any type were saved and used in the cross-reference step. In a second step of the content analysis, I searched the documents in Table 1 for mentions of education of interpreters, the use of interpreters, the remuneration of interpreters, and legislation relating to interpreters.

Table 2. Search terms and concepts in alphabetical order.

Swedish	English
dövtolk	deaf interpreter
invandrartolk	immigrant interpreter
kongresstolk	congress interpreter
kontakttolk	contact interpreter
konferenstolk	conference interpreter
rättstolk	court interpreter
simultantolk	simultaneous interpreter
sjukvårdstolk	healthcare interpreter
teckenspråkstolk	sign language interpreter
tolk	interpreter

The terms and concepts found in the content analysis (presented in Table 2) were then cross-referenced with the corpora of the Swedish language bank⁶ and the Swedish Royal Library’s corpus of Swedish daily newspapers.⁷ I examined when, in chronological relation to a publication of a SOU, these particular terms showed up in the corpora.

The two corpora contain a wide variety of Swedish texts, although newspaper articles are in the majority, from the 17th century until today. They were used as evidence of how interpreting was conceptualised in Swedish media and other types of printed matter as a possible consequence of the publication of the documents in Table 1.

When doing the cross-referencing, I searched for the terms and concepts in Table 2, in order to establish when they start to appear, to what extent they are used, in which contexts they appear, and if they changed over time. This qualitative analysis was done to find evidence of how different SOUs and legislation may have impacted the interpreter profession. As an example, newspaper articles may describe working conditions for interpreters or the remuneration of an interpreter, which can be linked back to SOUs or legistlation. The terminological search was performed in the second half of 2020.

In a final step, I also studied publications about the training of interpreters in Sweden, and the Swedish interpreter profession (Lemhagen and Almqvist 2013; Hein 2009; Niska 2007; Bonnard-Sjögren 1993), in order to follow the different public documents’ impact on the training and the profession of Swedish interpreters. In the next section, I will report the results of these analyses.

Shaping interpreter policy in Sweden through special investigations

This section starts with the analysis of the concept interpreter, provision of interpreters and legislation on interpreters. The next part will look further into the impact and consequences these SOUs and the legislation may have had on the profession. Then follows an overview of the use of interpreters by public authorities and the remuneration of interpreters over the years. Finally, I report how education and training have evolved.

The concept interpreter, provision of interpreters and legislation

The report of the results is divided in the three most common interpreter professions in Sweden: Public Service Interpreters, Sign Language Interpreters and Conference Interpreters.

Public service interpreters

Interpreters existed and worked in Sweden well before they became the centre of attention of SOUs starting in the 1970s. The first mention of interpreters in the daily newspaper corpus is an epitaph of a person who served as a court interpreter and is dated in January 1881.⁸ The SOU Interpreting Services, Nordic Language Convention (SOU 1972:83) stresses the public authorities’ responsibility to provide services so that immigrants can access the authorities and public services before they have reached a language proficiency level where they can understand the information given to them. Interestingly, the SOU uses the term interpreter as the general term for both spoken and written translation (SOU 1972:83, 10). They also note that interpreters are often labelled following the setting where they work (police, hospital, etc.), but this label seems to refer more to the setting than any more specialised training type. The authors discuss different labels as indications for competence and conclude that they will use the term qualified interpreter for interpreters with advanced competencies and knowledge, and contact interpreter for an interpreter ‘performing in contexts where that type of [advanced] competencies are not required’⁹ (SOU 1972:83, 10). The contact interpreters are described further in the investigation as interpreters functioning in the workplace as a contact person between the immigrant and the Swedish speaking employees. They need not have special qualifications, but they should be interested in the task, have good language knowledge and long experience at the particular workplace.

It is noteworthy that the term contact interpreter, which appeared in the daily newspaper corpus for the first time in March 1972, became the mainstream term for interpreters providing services in the public sector. Indeed, the SOU dedicated to interpreter training (SOU 2005:37), use contact interpreter throughout the text for the trained and qualified interpreters used by the public services. Interpreters in the workplace are referred to as workplace interpreters.

The term contact interpreter is discussed in the most recent SOU as well (2018:85) and the authors conclude that the term is archaic, but often used for lack of a better term. Furthermore, the authors suggest to use the more general term interpreter.

The 1972 SOU maps how often professional interpreters are used (as compared to family members or friends) by the two big immigrant populations investigated (Finnish and Yugoslav). Professional interpreters were used in less than 10% of situations in contacts with different Swedish authorities (SOU 1972:83, 17). The most recent SOU from 2018 (2018:83) does not give figures about how often professional interpreters are used or not. However, in a report from the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen 2018), the authors found that interpreter services lacked in approximately 25% of the consultations, and that immediate family members had acted in a majority of these cases as interpreters. Figures have thus greatly improved compared to 1972, but there are still gaps to fill.

In the Swedish Code of Public Administration (SFS 1971:290), an addition entered into force in 1972, stating that a public authority was allowed to use an interpreter if needed. However, as pointed out by the SOU, the preparatory work for the legislation specifically states the public authority is not under obligation to call upon an interpreter (SOU 1972:83, 19). Since then, the Swedish Code of Public Administration has been updated twice, in 1986 (SFS 1986:223) and 2017 (SFS 2017:900), each time further strengthening the formulations on the right to interpreters, and in the 2017 edition, the right to an interpreter is reformulated into the duty of providing an interpreter for a person who does not ‘master Swedish’, namely, the authority ‘must use an interpreter and provide translation of documents if needed to give an individual the possibility to exercise their rights when an authority is in contact with someone who does not master Swedish’¹⁰ (SFS 2017:900 §13).

In 1975, the Code on Professional Secrecy (SFS1975:689) for certain interpreters and translators was passed. A year later, in 1976, a programme for state authorisation of interpreters (both general and with further specialisation in medicine and law) was introduced. This programme is described in (SOU 1972:83, 63–64). It includes testing interpreters in written and oral tests and interpreted simulations. The SOU further state that provisions for the obligations for an authorised interpreter will be needed. These provisions were first published in the late 1970s in the form of the Good interpreter practice (Kammarkollegiet 2017). The document consists of several provisions that state authorised interpreters are obliged to follow. The provisions are issued by the public authority responsible for the authorisation test. State authorised interpreters not following the Good Interpreter Practice are subject to investigation and risk losing their authorisation.

Another important area addressed in the SOU is the provision of interpreters. The provision often happens through the municipal immigrant bureaus, but as the authors point out, a system for efficient interpreters will also be crucial for a system to function well. No immediate action regarding the provision of interpreters was taken in 1972, but interpreter agencies were to grow in the coming years and would also be the focus of other SOUs (SOU 2011:83; SOU 2004:15).

In conclusion, for public service interpreters, the SOU Interpreting Services, Nordic Language Convention (SOU 1972:83) contributed to establishing the term contact interpreter. Furthermore, it seems to have put the issue of using qualified professional interpreters on the agenda, and finally, changes were made in the legislation regulating the use of court interpreters, interpreters’ professional secrecy and state authorisation.

Sign language interpreters

Sign language interpreting was mentioned in passing in SOUs on deaf people, and did not become the focus of a SOU until 2004 when an inventory was done about the status of Swedish Sign Language (STS). According to the daily newspaper corpus, different terminology describing sign language interpreters has been used since 1969, when access to interpreters was made free of charge and the first course for sign language interpreters was established. Terms employed for sign language interpreters were sign interpreters and deaf interpreters. The corpus shows that these terms are still used interchangeably (although both deaf people and the profession prefer the term sign language interpreter) and that none of the terms was used before 1969. The Swedish Association for Sign Language Interpreters (STTF) was also founded that year (Persson Bergvall and Sjöberg 2012). The term deaf interpreter is used in a more appropriate way in 2009 when Juli af Klintberg, who is both deaf and works as an interpreter, is featured in a newspaper article (Kalmteg 2009). The terms sign interpreter and deaf interpreter peak in the mid-1970s at the time of the SOU on school integration (1979:50) while, the term sign language interpreting is being more used from 1991, and onwards, that is during the work and implementation of the disability reform (1992/93:159).

The SOU on integration for disabled children (1997:50) had a section on the special schools in Sweden. The report suggested that providing STS education implied acknowledging STS as deaf people’s first language (1979:50, p. 9). This part of the SOU does not particularly mention sign language interpreting but led to the parliamentary decision of May 14th, 1981 (RP 1980/81:27) to permanently fund high school education in STS. This decision is counted as the official acknowledgement of STS as deaf people’s first language and was further implemented through the budget proposal of 1981(1980/81:100), which provided funding for the STS high school and funding for STS interpreter education.

The next step for sign language interpreters in Sweden came in 1994 with the parliamentary decision on the disability reform (1992/93:159), which codified deaf people’s right to interpreters free of charge in all situations in life. The actual provision of interpreter services and the monitoring of interpreters were not approached until the SOU in 2011 (SOU 2011:83) about a joint interpreter service for sign language interpreting. In this text, the legislator investigates the possibility of organising the provision of sign language interpreters in one single nationwide service, a proposal which has not been launched yet.

To sum up, the terminology used by Swedish media is still today unclear for sign language interpreters. Both the provision of interpreters and interpreting legislation has been granted through the disability reform and budget proposals.

Conference interpreters

The first conference interpreting course was held at Stockholm University in 1993 due to the possible EU membership. The EU secretariat at the Swedish Foreign Ministry published a Swedish language policy in 1996 (Utrikesdepartementet 1996), stating that elected representatives and high-level civil servants must have the right to use Swedish in the EU. Their eligibility should not depend on their language knowledge, but on their expertise on the topic at hand. It also stated that Swedish representatives would always require interpreting at a level similar to other comparable languages, such as Finnish, Greek or Portuguese (SOU 1998:114, annex 14).

Conference interpreting has not had a dedicated SOU, but several SOUs have discussed it. The SOU on the Swedish language in the EU (SOU 1998:114) voices a certain reluctance towards the many possible interpreting combinations in the EU, especially to relay interpreting, which it describes as a sort of slow-motion interpreting with ample possibilities for misunderstandings (SOU 1998:114, 66). It also stresses that interpreting should be adapted to the actual needs of the representatives.

The two SOUs focusing on the Swedish language (SOU 2002:27 and SOU 2008:26) laid down that Swedish must be a ‘complete language which can uphold the society’,¹¹ a wording that also confirmed the policy from the EU secretariat on when interpreting should be requested in EU-meetings.

In the SOUs pertaining to Swedish in the EU and Swedish interpreters, the term used for the conference interpreters is interpreter in an overwhelming number of cases. Conference interpreter is used in two occurrences in the (SOU 2002:27). There are also references to conference interpreter and simultaneous interpreter in (SOU 2005:37) on interpreter education. In the daily newspaper corpus another term for interpreter also surfaced, namely, congress interpreter. It is the first more specialised term designating interpreters in the corpus. It appears in 1929, in a piece about a congress on forests. The term is found in the archives until 1980. Conference interpreter started to be used in 1949, and simultaneous interpreter was first used in 1951 in a report from a medical congress. Both terms are also in use today, and the term conference interpreter was most frequently used between 1993 and 1996 during the EU-memberhisp process, and when the institute for Interpreting and Translation Studies (TÖI) started recruiting conference interpreter students.

For conference interpreters, the terms designating them appear much earlier than those referring other types of interpreters (except for the very first reference to a court interpreter in 1881). On the other hand, the provision of conference interpreters and legislation with reference to them came considerably later than the two other interpreter professions.

Institutions’ use of interpreters and interpreters’ remuneration

Different public authorities’ use of interpreters is discussed in the SOU of 1972. The investigation notes that it is difficult to get a general picture as the practice varies from entity to entity. Interpreter services are not part of public statistics nor specifically measured in the public authorities’ own statistics or bookkeeping. In the 1960s and 1970s, municipal immigration offices were opened in municipalities with immigrant populations. These immigration offices also provided interpreter services for the population.

An overview of the immigration offices’ access to freelance interpreters in 1971 shows 937 persons (mixed languages), and ‘a few’ with a permanent position (SOU 1972:83, 32). The daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet mentions in March 1975 (SvD 03.03.1975) that there are approximately 5000 interpreters in Sweden, without stating how many are active. As described in the previous paragraph, estimations were difficult to make. Calculations made by the most recent SOU on interpreting (SOU 2018:83) about the number of active interpreters in Sweden as a whole estimate the figure to be between 4500 and 5000 (SOU 2018: 83, 117–118). Of these, about 20% are estimated to be able to work as interpreters full time (i.e. approximately 900 interpreters). There are no national statistics on the number of active interpreters based on employment or assignments in the 1970s, nor in the 2010s. As a consequence, it is almost impossible to compare. However, the levels seem to have been the same despite an increasing arrival of immigrants and an increased number of occasions where an individual has the right to an interpreter.

Starting in 1976, the job announcements for sign language interpreters in the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter clearly show a change in approach to access through interpreters at the regional level. The regional authorities call for on-site interpreters with permanent positions. In 1984, in the same newspaper, an article underlined the lack of sign language interpreters (Andersson 1984). The Swedish sign language interpreting market today comprises both staff and freelance interpreters. Staff interpreters are either employed directly by an institution using interpreters (e.g. a university) or an interpreter agency. Freelance interpreters work for interpreter agencies as a general rule, not for direct clients (Tesfazion et al., forthc.)

There have never been any organisations in Sweden who have employed staff conference interpreters. In Europe, the Nordic Council and the European institutions employ conference interpreters. Currently, and also historically, freelance conference interpreters living in Sweden work both in Sweden for direct clients or institutions in Sweden and internationally, often combining their work with other occupations (Cavanna, p.c.). Swedish EU membership changed the demand for Swedish conference interpreters, Lemhagen and Almqvist (2013) mention that there was an awareness of this prior to the referendum in the autumn of 1994.

One political action contributed to the disruption of the conference interpreter market, though. In 2004, the European Commission launched the request-and-pay regime for interpreting, initiated by Sweden among others. The regime implied that each country had a fund for interpreting and that meetings with interpreting in the Council and the Commission were decided according to a list of importance. If a country used more interpreting than the fund covered, it would have to pay for the surplus themselves. On the other hand, if a country used less interpreting than the fund covered, they would receive a refund for up to 50% of the funds, to be used on travel expenses for experts. The request for Swedish interpreting in meetings in the Council and the Commission fell drastically. Furthermore, a year later, in the government bill 2005/06:2, it is still claimed that interpreting to and from Swedish have not been provided to the extent required due to lack of interpreters. The bill also stresses that precision, nuance and intonation is often lost in interpreting and that the quality of the interpreting has been low (due to relay interpreting, according to the bill).

The bill claims that as a consequence meeting participants have preferred to use English in certain meetings. A couple of years later, the proposal for the language act (SOU 2008:26) states that Sweden used 10% of its guaranteed interpreting funds. It also found that while comparable countries such as Greece or Portugal had interpreting covered in 60% of the European Council and Commission meetings, Sweden had 25% coverage, quite contrary to the request of the SOU about Swedish in the EU (SOU 1998:114, annex 14) for interpreting to always be at the same level as comparable countries. Reasons are surely multiple, but the request-and-pay system seems to have disrupted demand for Swedish conference interpreting and thus the market for interpreters.

The responsibility for remunerating public service interpreters for spoken language is not clear until 1 January 1972, when it was legislated that the public authorities should carry that cost. The remuneration that year varied from 15 SEK/hour for interpreters without any special interpreter education to 35 SEK/hour, equivalent to 135–235 SEK/hour in today’s currency value (approximately € 12–22). In 1974, it was reported in Dagens Nyheter (Vantanen 1974) that an agreement on interpreter remuneration had been set to 40 SEK per/hour, equal to 246 SEK/hour in current currency value (€ 23). The change in the Code of Judicial procedure in 1984 (SFS 1983:131) adds that an interpreter assigned to the court has the right to reasonable remuneration.

In 2021, not all interpreters were paid per hour in the public sector in Sweden in fact, some telephone interpreters were paid per 15 minutes. The interpreters with the lowest qualifications were paid just over 200 SEK/hour (€ 18), while authorised court interpreters were paid 642 SEK (€ 60) the first hour (decreasing rate). This indicates that despite the interpreter market changing considerably over time, for the interpreters with the lowest qualification remuneration have only followed inflation.

Sign language interpreter remuneration is touched upon in an article in Dagens Nyheter from 1971, i.e. before the legislation and decisions about linguistic rights for deaf people. In this article, a sign language interpreter present at a conference gets 50 SEK for a four-hour conference, approximately 350 SEK (€ 32.50) in today’s currency value (Norén 1971). In April 1978, a call for applicants for a job as a sign language interpreter stated the salary to be between 4 502 SEK and 5 063 SEK per month, equivalent to 18 709 SEK (€ 1 737) and 21 040 SEK (€ 1 987) per month (which should be compared to current salaries starting at 21 000 SEK /€ 1 950 to 23 000 SEK/€ 2 135). Sign language interpreters were hired on permanent positions already in 1978, reflecting the strong lobby for linguistic rights and inclusion for deaf people.

There are no mentions of remuneration for conference interpreters in the corpus, but conference interpreter remuneration in Sweden has to a large extent followed international remuneration and AIIC policies (Cavanna, p.c.). As a comparison, the current daily remuneration for conference interpreter in the EU is € 620/day.

In conclusion, SOUs and legislation have directly impacted the provision of public service interpreters and sign language interpreters. For conference interpreters, EU membership changed the map, as did changes in the Swedish language policy approach in the EU. When it comes to remuneration, no direct suggestions are given in any public documents for any of the professions investigated in the text. Yet, it seems fair to assume that the official approach to interpreters in Sweden has impacted the remuneration too.

Education and training

In the early 1970s, there was no dedicated interpreter training at university level. Some interpreter training was part of the language education at different university programmes, consisting mainly of shorter courses with practical exercises and only covering so-called traditional university languages (English, French, German, Russian). In 1968, there was an initiative to arrange short intensive courses aimed at active interpreters as a temporary arrangement awaiting a more permanent solution. The courses were organised at the folk high schools (SOU 1972:83, 45–46). In 1970, the then Swedish Immigrations Authority (Statens invandrarverk) started a trial programme for court interpreter tests. By 1972, 61 interpreters had been certified. The SOU notes, however, that most of the interpreters lack appropriate interpreter education. The SOU suggests two types of interpreter education, one organised at the university level, comprising three semesters and focusing on interpreting and background competencies. Students’ language competencies should be screened rather than assumed based on previous education. The SOU also suggests shorter interpreter courses organised at folk high schools for interpreters who, for some reason (not further specified), cannot take the longer training. These interpreters should be considered for less advanced interpreting tasks (SOU 1972:83, 60–61). Interpreter education has further been dealt with in the SOUs 2005:37 and 2018:83, and courses have become considerably longer. Today, public service interpreting courses exist both at folk high school (one term taught part-time over several terms) and at university (three terms, full time).

The first sign language interpreting course was six weeks long and started in 1969 to respond to the codified right to interpreters for deaf people (Persson Bergvall and Sjöberg 2012). By 1980, the course had developed into a year-long programme. Potential students had to show proof of language knowledge through a certificate from a local deaf club (Landström 2004). Hein (2009) describes how the Swedish National Association for the Deaf (SDR) and the STTF worked hard together to lengthen and strengthen sign language education. It was publicly funded and consolidated in 1981 following (SOU 1979:50), and the right to high school education for deaf. Since then, the courses have progressively become longer. Today there are a four-year-long programme in the folk high school system, and a 3-year BA-programme at university (Tesfazion et al. forthc.).

Conference interpreter education started when EU membership was imminent. The Institute for Interpreting and Translation Studies (TÖI)¹² was given funding to start it in 1993. As the institute had no experience of this type of training a study mission went to Paris and the École Supérieur d’Interprétation et Traduction (ESIT) (Bonnard-Sjögren 1993). A one-year training course was developed following a traditional European conference interpreting curriculum.¹³ TÖI ran the programme for five consecutive years and then another two on a bi-annual basis. After the graduation of the 2004–05 course, the consequences of the request-and-pay scheme (see above) were so extensive that TÖI paused its conference interpreting programme for six years, not launching it again until 2011.

In conclusion, similar to provision and remuneration, political action has impacted and shaped interpreter education.

Impact and consequences of special investigations, legislation, and political actions

The aim of this study has been to investigate how different SOUs on immigration, disability rights, and EU membership have shaped and possibly also disrupted the Swedish interpreter profession. I used a combination of document analysis and content analysis. I traced links between different themes (namely: the use of the term interpreter; the shaping of the three professions public service interpreter, sign language interpreter and conference interpreter; the remuneration of interpreters; the provisions of interpreters, and; education) and institutional documents. The links that I found and have reported in previous sections are listed with reference to the public documents.

There may be other types of impact where I have not established a clear link, and therefore, they are not listed here. As far as I can establish, the following tangible outcomes can be linked to public documents or action:

1. Right to interpreter services in Sweden: legislation on the right to public service interpreters and sign language interpreters (SFS 1984:131; SFS 1986:223; SFS 2009; SFS 2017:900). As SOUs are preparatory works for legislation, it is perhaps more surprising that some of the SOUs have not improved legislative rights to and for interpreters, such as the SOU on the monitoring of interpreter agencies (SOU 2004:15) or the SOU on a joint interpreter service for deaf people (SOU 2011:83).

2. Right to interpreter services in Swedish in the EU: SOU on the Swedish language policy and the use of interpreters in the EU (SOU 1998:114; SOU 2002:27; SOU 2008:26) have established Swedish as a working language in international contexts and the right for Swedish officials to use Swedish also at international meetings.

3. Professional secrecy: the legislation on the Professional Secrecy for certain interpreters and translators which was passed in 1975 (SFS 1975:689). Proposed in the SOU on interpreting services (SOU 1972:83).

4. State authorisation for interpreters: both general authorisation and further specialisation in medicine and law were introduced in 1976, and in 2004 it was extended to sign language interpreters. The state authorisation is not open for conference interpreters. Authorisation was proposed in the SOU on interpreting services (SOU 1972: 83). The SOU also proposed an examination for interpreters with basic skills. To date, the legislator has not retained this proposal.

5. Ethical guidelines: the so-called Good Interpreter Practice (God Tolksed) was published for the first time in 1976 (Kammarkollegiet 2017). Proposed in the SOU on interpreting services (SOU 1972:83).

6. Education for public service interpreters: Despite the proposal of public service interpreting at the university level, education has mainly been done at folk high schools. After the first university course, it was only offered occasionally and with few languages until 2013, when a public service interpreting programme was again introduced on a regular yearly basis. Proposed in the SOU on interpreting services (SOU 1972: 83).

7. Education for sign language interpreters: interpreter education for sign language interpreters became publicly funded in 1981 (SOU 1979:50). It has gradually grown and comprises, since 2013, also a 3-year university BA-programme.

8. Education for conference interpreters: starting in 1993 at the university level as result of the Swedish EU membership. Funded through the state budget of 1992/1993 (Lemhagen and Almqvist 2013).

9. Dramatic decrease in demand of conference interpreters: in 2004, the request-and-pay system led to a drop in the demand for conference interpreters, which can be traced in the documents on the Swedish language policy (RP 2005/06:2; SOU 2008:26 2021).

• (10) Establishment and use of the term contact interpreter: in the SOU of 1972 this term was proposed for the first time, as a term for interpreters performing less advanced tasks. However, the term caught on and was used to designate public service interpreter in general. The term is still in use in 2021, but the authors of the 2018 SOU advice against it and prefer the more general interpreter.

To sum up, Ozolins (2010) states in his overview of factors that determine public service provision of interpreting that institutional initiatives, funding, a coalition of interested organisations, and infrastructure for training and certification are necessary for the successful provision of interpreters. As can be seen both in my survey and in the summarising list in the previous paragraph, Swedish public bodies have contributed both with institutional initiatives, funding, lobbying organisations. and infrastructure for training and certification. Yet, I argue that although these actions have contributed to both the professionalisation of interpreters and the provision of interpreters to the society, and that although the issue on salaries cannot fully be evaluated without taking the Public Procurement Act into consideration, public actions have also contributed to stagnation of salaries and market disruption for interpreters in Sweden. The reason for public action contributing to stagnation, I would argue can be found in the reluctance to link education to the qualification of interpreters in SOUs and legislation. As long as education is not required for an individual to take an interpreting assignment, it is difficult to argue for the need for education. In terms of market disruption, this issue revolves trusting interpreters as qualified professionals. If the service of interpreters is not valued by the bodies using them e.g. by indicating in public documents that only one party (the foreign language speaker) needs the interpreter, or by focusing on potential losses in interpreting, then the market is easily disrupted as the will to create stability in the provision of the service lacks. Yet, in order to fully investigate the situation, statistics on the number of active interpreters as well as statistics on remuneration over time would be needed.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

Elisabet Tiselius

Elisabet Tiselius is Associate Professor in Interpreting Studies and teaches at the public service, conference and signed language interpreting programmes at Stockholm University. She supervises student theses at all levels. She is an active interpreter for spoken French, English and Danish into Swedish and a Swedish state authorised public service interpreter. She is also accredited by the EU and is a member of AIIC. Her research interests include cognitive processes of interpreting, interpreting in healthcare, and training of (deaf) interpreters. Her twitter handle is @tulkur

Notes

1. The folk high schools are a post-secondary education common in countries in northern Europe such as Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is a publicly funded system with a pedagogical philosophy based on the Danish theologist Grundtvig’s ideas on education as universal and common (Frímannsson 2006). Folk high schools may teach academic topics, but do not grant academic degrees. They are based on the principle of universal and common education and depending on the programme they are open to students both with and without secondary education.

2. Swedish SOU:s are publicly available at https://www.sou.gov.se/

3. International Association for Conference Interpreters www.aiic.org

4. https://www.sou.gov.se/

5. https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/

6. https://spraakbanken.gu.se/

7. https://tidningar.kb.se/

8. https://tidningar.kb.se/?q = r%C3%A4ttstolk&from = 1881–01-01&to = 1881–12-31

9. All translations of quotes from the sources are made by the author of this paper.

10. En myndighet ska använda tolk och se till att översätta handlingar om det behövs för att den enskilde ska kunna ta till vara sin rätt när myndigheten har kontakt med någon som inte behärskar svenska

11. Komplett och samhällsbärande språk (SOU 2002:27, 411)

12. Up until 2013, the official English name of TÖI was the Institute for Interpretation and Translation Studies.

13. https://www.emcinterpreting.org/emci/core-curriculum