How COVID-19 changed telephone interpreting in Spain
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, telephone interpreters in Spain were used to communicating administrative issues,
medical instructions, and even humanitarian social assistance rendered by social workers and psychologists. However, since March
2020 these interactions have been heavily replaced by conversations mediated by telephone interpreters related to severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus infection. This contribution describes the provision of telephone interpreting during the
COVID-19 pandemic using the information reported by the interpreters of the company Dualia Teletraducciones as a case study. It
focuses on healthcare-related services and clients, offering data related to the frequency of use of telephone interpreting, the
most common languages used, and the evolution of clients and services (Emergency Rooms, tracers, pandemic hotels, etc.). This
article also describes the hiring, training and quality monitoring processes, including the main tools developed to facilitate
remote interpreting during the pandemic.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Telephone interpreting in healthcare settings
- 3.Telephone interpreting in Spanish healthcare settings
- 4.Signs of a paradigm shift
- 5.The tipping point of the State of Alarm
- 6.Conclusions
- Note
-
References
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Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
O’Hagan, Minako & Julie McDonough Dolmaya
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