Community interpreting (CI) takes place to enable individuals or groups in society who do not speak the official or dominant language of the services provided by central or local government to access these services and to communicate with the service providers. Typical CI settings are social services such as e.g., welfare, housing, employment or schools; medical settings such as child care centres, hospitals, mental health clinics; or legal settings such as prisons, police stations or probation offices. According to the requirements of the interpreted event, the community interpreter will need to master the appropriate mode and strategy of interpreting. Short dialogue or ‘liaison’ interpreting in e.g., a housing application, a police interview or medical check up; consecutive interpreting – with note taking – for e.g., an asylum seeker’s narrative or a vulnerable witness in court; simultaneous interpreting, usually whispered (chuchotage) for a single or a limited number of clients e.g., during the closing arguments of the prosecution or the defense in court, during parents’ school meetings or the weekly sessions in a women’s safe house, though sometimes using portable sets or interpreting booths for larger audiences. Community interpreters are also often required to provide on-sight translation of all sorts of personal and official documents, and increasingly to do telephone or videoconferencing interpreting. In other words, it is not the modes or strategies that set the community interpreter apart from the conference interpreter but it is the institutional settings – usually sensitive, delicate and private, sometimes downright painful or antagonistic – and the working arrangements: the interpreting is bi-directional between the service provider and the client; moreover the proxemics, the participant parties, the level of formality and range of registers are completely different; and it is as yet on the whole a solitary profession with a very different social aura, professionalization and remuneration.
References
Angelelli, Claudia
2004aMedical Interpreting and Cross-cultural Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. BoP
Angelelli, Claudia
2004bRevisiting the Interpreter’s Role. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. BoP
Barsky, Robert. F
1994Constructing a Productive Other. Discourse Theory and the Convention Refugee Hearing. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Berk-Seligson, Susan
1990The Bilingual Courtroom: Interpreters in the Judicial Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hale, Sandra
2004The Discourse of Court Interpreting. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. BoP
(eds)2006Taking Stock: Research and Methodology in Community Interpreting. Linguistica Antverpiensia New Series 5. Antwerpen: Hoger Instituut voor Vertalers en Tolken. TSB
Mason, Ian
(ed.)1999Dialogue Interpreting. Special issue of The Translator 5. TSB
Mason, Ian
(ed.)2001Triadic Exchanges. Studies in Dialogue Interpreting. Manchester: St. Jerome Press. TSB
Metzger, Melanie
1999Sign Language Interpreting: Deconstructing the Myth of Neutrality. Washington: Gallaudet University Press. TSB
Pöllabauer, Sonja
2005“I don’t understand your English, Miss”. Dolmetschen bei Asylanhörungen. Tübingen: Stauffenberg.
Roy, Cynthia
2000Interpreting as a Discourse Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press. BoP
Wadensjö, Cecilia
1998“Community Interpreting”. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, Mona Baker & Kirsten Malmkjaer (eds). London & New York: Routledge. TSB
Further reading
Corsellis, Ann
2008Public Service Interpreting: The First Steps. London: Palgrave. TSB
Hale Sandra, Ozolins Uldis & Stern Ludmila
(eds)2009The Critical Link 5: Quality and Interpreting: a shared responsibility. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Pöchhacker, Franz
1999“‘Getting Organized’: The Evolution of Community Interpreting.”Interpreting 4: 125–140. TSB
Valero Garcés Carmen & Martin Anne
(eds)2008Building Bridges: The Controversial Role of the Community Interpreter. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
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