Part of
Reembedding Translation Process ResearchEdited by Ricardo Muñoz Martín
[Benjamins Translation Library 128] 2016
► pp. 195–214
Edited by Ricardo Muñoz Martín
[Benjamins Translation Library 128] 2016
► pp. 195–214
Cognitive aspects of community interpreting. Toward a process model
This article discusses cognitive aspects of professional community interpreting. We give an overview of earlier research into community interpreting, arguing that cognitive aspects have largely been neglected. We propose that in building a model of the mental processes of the community interpreter, different kinds of monitoring are a crucial and pervasive component. Monitoring contributes to and enables the double function of the interpreter: translating and managing the interaction of the interpreted encounter. We furthermore stress the importance of the notion of professional self-concept for explaining the interpreter’s decision-making and exemplify this by analyzing turn-taking in two Swedish-Spanish interpreted encounters.
References
Andres, Dörte
2011 “Ein integrativ konzipiertes Dolmetschprozessmodell.” Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai: Philologia 1: 81–103.
Angelelli, Claudia
2004a Medical Interpreting and Cross-cultural Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
2004b Revisiting the Interpreter’s Role: A Study of Conference, Court, and Medical Interpreters in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
2011 “Can You Ask Her about Chronic Illnesses, Diabetes and All That?” In Methods and Strategies of Process Research , ed. by C. Alvstad, A. Hild, and E. Tiselius, 231–246. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Antonini, Rachele
2010 “The Study of Child Language Brokering: Past, Current and Emerging Research.” In Child Language Brokering: Trends and Patterns in Current Research, ed. by R. Antonini, special issue, mediAzioni 10. Accessed February 12, 2013. [URL].
Berk-Seligson, Susan
1990 The Bilingual Courtroom: Court Interpreters in the Judicial Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bolden, Galina
2000 “Toward Understanding Practices of Medical Interpreting: Interpreters’ Involvement in History Taking.” Discourse Studies 2: 387–419.
Braun, Sabine
2013 “Keep Your Distance? Remote Interpreting in Legal Proceedings: A Critical Assessment of a Growing Practice.” Interpreting 15 (2): 199–227.
Corsellis, Ann
2008 Public Service Interpreting: The First Steps. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dubslaff, Friedel, and Bodil Martinsen
2007 “Exploring Untrained Interpreters’ Use of Direct versus Indirect Speech.” In Healthcare Interpreting: Discourse and Interaction, ed. by F. Pöchhacker and M. Shlesinger, 53–76. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Edmondson, Willis J
1986 “Cognition, Conversing and Interpreting.” In Interlingual and Intercultural Communication, ed. by J. House and S. Blum-Kulka, 129–138. Tübingen: Narr.
Englund Dimitrova, Birgitta
1991 När två samtalar genom en tredje: Interaktion och icke-verbal kommunikation i medicinska möten med tolk [When two people talk through the medium of a third party. Interaction and non-verbal communication in interpreted medical encounters]. Stockholm: Centrum för tvåspråkighetsforskning.
1997 “Degree of Interpreter Responsibility in the Interaction Process in Community Interpreting.” In The Critical Link: Interpreters in the Community, ed. by S.E. Carr, R.P. Roberts, A. Dufour, and D. Steyn, 147–164. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Frishberg, Nancy
1990 Interpreting: An Introduction. Silver Spring, MD: Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf.
Gavioli, Laura, and Claudio Baraldi
2011 “Interpreter-mediated Interaction in Healthcare and Legal Settings.” Interpreting 13 (2): 205–233.
Gerver, David
1975 “A Psychological Approach to Simultaneous Interpretation.” Meta: Translators’ Journal 20 (2): 119–128. Accessed March 16, 2016. [URL]. DOI:
1976 “Empirical Studies of Simultaneous Interpretation: A Review and a Model.” In Translation: Applications and Research, ed. by R.W. Brislin, 165–202. New York: Gardner Press.
Gile, Daniel
1985 “Le modèle d’efforts et l’équilibre d’interprétation en interprétation simultanée.” Meta: Translators’ Journal 30 (1): 44–48. Accessed March 16, 2016. [URL]. DOI:
Hale, Sandra B
2004 The Discourse of Court Interpreting: Discourse Practices of the Law, the Witness and the Interpreter. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hale, Sandra
2007 Community Interpreting. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hoffman, Robert R
1997 “The Cognitive Psychology of Expertise and the Domain of Interpreting.” Interpreting 2 (1–2): 189–230.
Holler, Judith, Kobin H. Kendrick, Marisa Casillas, and Stephen C. Levinson
2015 “Editorial: Turn-Taking in Human Communicative Interaction.” Frontiers in Psychology, December 2015 DOI:
Ivanova, Adelina
1999 Discourse Processing during Simultaneous Interpreting: An Expertise Approach. PhD diss., University of Cambridge.
Jacobson, Holly E
2009 “Moving Beyond Words in Assessing Mediated Interaction: Measuring Interactional Competence in Healthcare Settings.” In Testing and Assessment in Translation and Interpreting Studies: A Call for Dialogue between Research and Practice, ed. by C.V. Angelelli and H.E. Jacobson, 49–70. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Lederer, Marianne
1978 “Simultaneous Interpretation: Units of Meaning and Other Features.” In Language Communication and Interpretation, ed. by D. Gerver and H.W. Sinaiko, 323–333. New York: Plenum Press.
Moser, Barbara
1978 “Simultaneous Interpretation: A Hypothetical Model and Its Practical Application.” In Language Communication and Interpretation, ed. by D. Gerver and H.W. Sinaiko, 353–368. New York: Plenum Press.
Muñoz Martín, Ricardo
2014 “Situating Translation Expertise: A Review with a Sketch of a Construct.” In The Development of Translation Competence: Theories and Methodologies from Psycholinguistics and Cognitive Science, ed. by J. Schwieter and A. Ferreira, 2–54. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Nilsen, Anne Birgitta
2005 “Flerspråklig kommunikasjon i rettssalen: En kasusstudie av en flerspråklig rettsforhandling” [Multilingual communication in the court room: A case study of a multilingual court proceeding]. PhD diss., University of Oslo.
Norström, Eva, Kristina Gustafsson, and Ingrid Fioretos
2011 The Interpreter: A Cultural Intermediary behind Closed Doors. The Importance of Interpreting for the Rule of Law and for Integration, with Special Focus on Separated Minors. Lund: Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, Lund University, and Medborgarskolan Syd. Accessed October 28, 2014. [URL].
Pöchhacker, Franz
1992 “The Role of Theory in Simultaneous Interpreting.” In Teaching Translation and Interpreting: Training, Talent and Experience, ed. by C. Dollerup and A. Loddegaard, 211–220. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
2004 Introducing Interpreting Studies. New York: Routledge.
Pöchhacker, Franz, and Waltraud Kolb
2009 “Interpreting for the Record: A Case Study of Asylum Review Hearings.” In The Critical Link 5: Quality in Interpreting. A Shared Responsibility, ed. by S.B. Hale, U. Ozolins, and L. Stern, 119–134. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Roy, Cynthia B
1993 “A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Interpreter’s Role in Simultaneous Talk in Interpreted Interaction.” Multilingua 12 (4): 341–363.
Seeber, Kilian G
2011 “Cognitive Load in Simultaneous Interpreting: Existing Theories—New Models.” Interpreting 13 (2): 176–204.
2013 “Cognitive Load in Simultaneous Interpreting: Measures and Methods.” In Interdisciplinarity in Translation and Interpreting Process Research, ed. by M. Ehrensberger-Dow, S. Göpferich, and S. O’Brien, special issue, Target 25 (1): 18–33.
Setton, Robin
Shlesinger, Miriam
1999 “Norms, Strategies and Constraints: How Do We Tell Them Apart?” In Anovar/Anosar: Estudios de Traducción e Interpretación, ed. by A. Álvarez, and A. Fernández, 65–77. Vigo: Universidade de Vigo.
Straniero Sergio, Francesco
1999 “The Interpreter on the (Talk) Show: Interaction and Participation Frameworks.” The Translator 5 (2): 303–326.
Tebble, Helen
2009 “What Can Interpreters Learn from Discourse Studies?” In The Critical Link 5: Quality in Interpreting. A Shared Responsibility, ed. by S.B. Hale, U. Ozolins, and L. Stern, 201–219. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
2012 “Interpreting or Interfering?” In Coordinating Participation in Dialogue Interpreting, ed. by C. Baraldi and L. Gavioli, 23–44. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Timarová, Šárka
2012 Working Memory in Conference Simultaneous Interpreting. PhD diss., University of Leuven/Charles University.
Tiselius, Elisabet
2013 Experience and Expertise in Conference Interpreting: An Investigation of Swedish Conference Interpreters. PhD diss., University of Bergen.
Valero Garcés, Carmen
2007 “Doctor-patient Consultations in Dyadic and Triadic Exchanges.” In Healthcare Interpreting: Discourse and Interaction, ed. by Franz Pöchhacker and Miriam Shlesinger, 35–52. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Vik-Tuovinen, Gun-Viol
2006 Tolkning på olika nivåer av professionalitet [Interpreting at different competence levels] PhD diss., University of Vaasa.
Wadensjö, Cecilia
1992 Interpreting as Interaction. On Dialogue Interpreting in Immigration Hearings and Medical Encounters. PhD diss., University of Linköping.
1998 Interpreting as Interaction. London: Longmans.
2004 “Dialogue Interpreting: A Monologising Practice in a Dialogically Organised World.” Target 16 (1): 105–124.
Wilcox, Sherman, and Barbara Shaffer
2005 “Towards a Cognitive Model of Interpreting.” In Topics in Signed Language Interpreting: Theory and Practice, ed. by T. Janzen. 27–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Cited by
Cited by 14 other publications
Albl-Mikasa, Michaela
2021. Acting upon background of understanding rather than role. Translation, Cognition & Behavior ► pp. 241 ff. 
Bóna, Judit & Mária Bakti
2020. The effect of cognitive load on temporal and disfluency patterns of speech. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 32:3 ► pp. 482 ff.
Delizée, Anne & Christine Michaux
2019. The negotiation of meaning in dialogue interpreting. Translation, Cognition & Behavior 2:2 ► pp. 263 ff.
Englund Dimitrova, Birgitta
2019. Changing Footings on ‘Jacob's ladder’: dealing with sensitive issues in dual-role mediation on a Swedish TV show. Perspectives 27:5 ► pp. 718 ff.
Gumul, Ewa & Rachel E. Herring
2022. Employing retrospective process tracing in an international exploratory study. Translation, Cognition & Behavior 5:2 ► pp. 221 ff.
Herring, Rachel E.
Krasnopeeva, Ekaterina S. & Svetlana S. Kraeva
2022. Interpreter adaptation in hybrid ecology: the case of video-mediated commissioning of equipment. Tyumen State University Herald. Humanities Research. Humanitates 8:2 ► pp. 6 ff.
Martínez-Gómez, Aída
2020. Language brokering experience among interpreting students: pedagogical implications for the development of interpreting competence. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 14:3 ► pp. 303 ff.
Muñoz Martín, Ricardo
Rodríguez Hernández, Laura G.
2022. Cross-cultural aspects of Russian and Latin American idioms. Tyumen State University Herald. Humanities Research. Humanitates 8:2 ► pp. 24 ff.
Tiselius, Elisabet & Michaela Albl-Mikasa
Tiselius, Elisabet & Birgitta Englund Dimitrova
Tiselius, Elisabet & Kayle Sneed
2020. Gaze and eye movement in dialogue interpreting: An eye-tracking study. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23:4 ► pp. 780 ff.
Vranjes, Jelena & Bert Oben
2022. Anticipation and timing of turn-taking in dialogue interpreting. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 34:4 ► pp. 627 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 may 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.