Chapter published in:
Technology Mediated Service Encounters
Edited by Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Lucía Fernández-Amaya and María de la O Hernández-López
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 300] 2019
► pp. 45–68

Chapter 2
Context and pragmatic meaning in telephone interpreting

Remote and telephone interpreting involve a number of skills that must be acquired. For instance, telephone interpreters cannot take into account their first impression of the situation before starting work as, because of reasons of practicality, briefing is rarely possible. Thus, it is typically quite challenging to select the appropriate context and, in turn, grasp the pragmatic meaning of the discourse being interpreted. Professional telephone interpreters have developed a set of strategies to cope with this difficulty – mostly based on their own skills and experience. This chapter presents the analysis of a case study consisting of a mediated telephone conversation between doctors/patient and interpreter in Spanish and Italian within the context of Hospital Emergency Department. Our main aim is to illustrate, with examples, the difficulties interpreters encounter and the strategic solutions they adopt in order to cope.

Keywords: telephone interpreting, pragmatic meaning, context, discourse, community interpreting
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Context and the pragmatic construction of meaning
  • 3.Community interpreting
    • 3.1Interpreting over the phone and remote interpreting
    • 3.2Training
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Object of study and data compilation
    • 4.2Case study and focus groups
      • 4.2.1Building a context and managing expectations
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 10 January 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.300.02laz
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