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Part of
Pragmatics and Translation
Edited by Miriam A. Locher, Daria Dayter and Thomas C. Messerli
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 337] 2023
► pp. 30–50

Chapter 2
Exploring the potential of implicatures for assessing interpreting quality in the Swiss asylum procedure

| University of Fribourg | ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences

Devoting more attention to a cognitive approach in Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS) may not only be useful for exploring translation and interpreting processes per se but also when facing real-life challenges such as hiring qualified interpreters. This chapter first introduces how communicative principles found in pragmatics can help define a common theoretical framework in TIS and how this would benefit the quality of Public Service Interpreting (PSI) more globally. It goes on to map PSI in the Swiss context and present preliminary findings from an exploratory study analyzing the assessment of aspiring interpreters for the Swiss asylum system. First results show how communicative principles as found e.g. in Relevance Theory appear to inform evaluators when judging interpreting quality.

Keywords: assessing interpreting quality, public service interpreting, implicatures, cognitive pragmatics
Article outline
  • 1.Pragmatics in public service translation & interpreting
    • 1.1Introduction
    • 1.2From word equivalence to a cognitive approach
    • 1.3Pragmatic models and interpreting quality
    • 1.4The added value of a shared model for public service interpreting testing
  • 2.Public service interpreting in the Swiss asylum procedure
    • 2.1PSI and Switzerland’s multilingual tradition
    • 2.2Challenges for PSI in the asylum context
  • 3.Pragmatics and assessing interpreting quality in the Swiss asylum procedure
    • 3.1The SEM interpreter test
    • 3.2Exploring the arguments that determine interpreting quality
      • Cognitive effect
      • Propositional content
      • Context-independency
      • Explicature
      • Intention
  • 4.Discussion and outlook
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 September 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.337.02bug
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