With the spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF), interpreting researchers have started to explore its effects on interpreting quality and on the conference interpreting profession as a whole. This study is based on interviews with ten professional conference interpreters working with Chinese A and English B in Taiwan. We focus on their experiences of interpreting ELF speakers, with particular reference to their three most recent international conferences, exploring how the interpreters cope with the challenges involved and how they perceive the effects of ELF on their profession. Overall, a total of 25 conferences were included in the analysis, involving 235 ELF speakers. The results provide a comprehensive picture of how Chinese–English conference interpreters in Taiwan have risen to the challenge presented by the ELF phenomenon, after years of experience in dealing with the difficulties this often involves.
Clarke, C.M. (2002). Perceptual adjustment to foreign-accented English with short term exposure. Paper presented at the
7th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing
, Denver, Colorado, USA.
Clarke, C.M. & Garrett, M.F. (2004). Rapid adaptation to foreign-accented English. Acoustical Society of America 116 (6), 3647–3658.
Donovan, C. (2006). “Where is interpreting heading and how can training courses keep up?” Paper presented at the
Future of Conference Interpreting: Training, Technology and Research
, University of Westminster, London.
Donovan, C. (2009). A study of changing patterns of language use in international conferences. In C. Laplace, M. Lederer & D. Gile (Eds.), La traduction et ses métiers: aspects théoriques et pratiques. Paris: Minard, 53–72.
Gass, S. & Varonis, E.M. (1984). The effect of familiarity on the comprehensibility of nonnative speech. Language Learning 34 (1), 65–87.
Jones, R. (2002). Conference interpreting explained. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Kachru, B.B. (1989). Teaching world Englishes. Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics 15 (1), 85–95.
Kodrnja, D. (2001). Akzent und Dolmetschen. Informationsverlust beim Dolmetschen eines non-native speaker’s. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Vienna.
Kuo, T.C. (2012). Perceived intelligibility and processing of foreign-accented English speech: Professional vs. trainee interpreters in Taiwan. Unpublished MA thesis,National Taiwan Normal University.
Kurz, I. (2001). Conference interpreting: Quality in the ears of the user. Meta 46 (2), 394–409.
Kurz, I. (2008). The impact of non-native English on students’ interpreting performance. In G. Hansen, A. Chesterman & H. Gerzymisch-Arbogast (Eds.), Efforts and models in interpreting and translation research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 179–192.
Mackintosh, J. (2002). The AIIC Workload Study - executive summary. [URL] (accessed 9 November 2012).
Mazzetti, A. (1999). The influence of segmental and prosodic deviations on source-text comprehension in simultaneous interpretation. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 91, 125–147.
Munro, M.J. & Derwing, T.M. (1995a). Foreign accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners. Language Learning 45 (1), 73–97.
Munro, M.J. & Derwing, T.M. (1995b). Processing time, accent, and comprehensibility in the perception of native and foreign-accented speech. Language and Speech 38 (3), 289–306.
Pöchhacker, F. (2004). Introducing interpreting studies. London/New York: Routledge.
Reithofer, K. (2010). English as a lingua franca vs. interpreting: Battleground or peaceful co-existence? The Interpreters’ Newsletter 151, 143–157.
Seidman, I.E. (1998). Interviewing as qualitative research: A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences. New York: Teachers College Press.
Varonis, E.M. & Gass, S. (1982). The comprehensibility of non-native speech. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 41, 114–136.
Cited by (11)
Cited by 11 other publications
Albl-Mikasa, Michaela, Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow, Anne Catherine Gieshoff & Andrea Hunziker Heeb
2024. English as a lingua franca in interpreting and translation: a survey of practitioners. Frontiers in Communication 9
Chen, Weiqi & Ping Gao
2023. The Effect of AI-Powered Autonomous Learning via Social Media on Familiarity with the Indian English Accent and on the Accuracy and Fluency of Simultaneous Interpreting. In Proceedings of the 2023 4th International Conference on Education, Knowledge and Information Management (ICEKIM 2023) [Atlantis Highlights in Computer Sciences, 13], ► pp. 1324 ff.
İŞİ, Nazan & Korkut İŞİSAĞ
2022. Implications of English as a Lingua Franca for Translation and Interpreting: Current and Future Directions. Çeviribilim ve Uygulamaları Dergisi 2022:32 ► pp. 121 ff.
Bendazzoli, Claudio
2020. Translators and interpreters’ voice on the spread of English as a lingua franca in Italy. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 9:2 ► pp. 239 ff.
2020. Intelligibility in English as a lingua franca – The interpreters’ perspective. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 9:2 ► pp. 173 ff.
Rodríguez Melchor, María Dolores & Andrew Samuel Walsh
2020. What does ELF mean for the simultaneous interpreter? An overview of the current situation of the Spanish interpreting market. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 9:2 ► pp. 265 ff.
ÖZTÜRK, Asiye
2020. The effect of directionality on performance and strategy use in simultaneous interpreting: A case of English-Turkish language pair. RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi :18 ► pp. 639 ff.
2018. Re-conceptualising interpreting strategies for teaching interpretation into a B language. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 12:2 ► pp. 188 ff.
허지운
2018. Attitudes of Korean College Students and Office Workers on World Englishes and World Englishes Interpreting. The Journal of Translation Studies 19:1 ► pp. 305 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 august 2024. 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.