This paper reports on participants’ experiences with a university-level course for teachers of interpreting, given three times at Stockholm University, Sweden. An important purpose of the course was to provide a collaborative learning environment and to support and promote a feeling of common ground between educators working within various branches of interpreting. Drawing primarily upon a focus group interview and on students’ written evaluations, we have indications that the course did promote a sense of similarity between students across traditional borders. Also, an interesting difference between spoken-language interpreting educators and sign-language interpreting educators emerged. Educators with experiences from the first category of courses seemed to be much oriented towards preparing the students for a final exam, similar to the national certification test (basically, a teacher assessed proficiency test), whereas those working in sign-language- interpreting courses seemed to be more oriented to more frequent and other types of assessments of student performance (self-, peer and teacher assessments). Finally, the course seems to have provided a network for informal collaboration between interpreter educators that stayed intact over time.
The lay perception of those who work with interpreters in their professional conversations (and sometimes of interpreters themselves) is that translation of what they and their patients/clients say should be as close as possible. The very idea of close translation may seem simple, but the practice of rendering spontaneous talk-in-interaction as close as possible is quite complex, and requires much more from the mediator than textually close renditions. In this paper, we discuss what is involved in the accomplishment of close rendering in talk. We focus on question-answer sequences with clinicians and patients, when details about the patients’ history and their symptoms are collected. We show that meaning is achieved and rendered through processes that may go rather beyond the single words and utterances and that involve the contribution of all the interlocutors. We show three types of sequences taken from a collection of authentic data audio-recorded in health care services in Italy and transcribed to allow for analysis. The sequences show three different forms of talk, found in the data, where participants pursue close, precise rendition of medical details. The analysis highlights that the Italian intercultural mediators (just like those trained and assigned as public service interpreters in other countries), even in these cases which are peculiarly focused on precise details, do need to take responsibility not only for translating the textual items but also for coordinating turns at talk. It is responsible turn-coordination which leads to rendering meaning closely.
The Routledge Handbook of Public Service Interpreting provides a comprehensive overview of research in public service, or community interpreting. It offers reflections and suggestions for improving public service communication in plurilingual settings and provides tools for dealing with public service communication in a global society. Written by leading and emerging scholars from across the world, this volume provides an editorial introduction setting the work of public service interpreting (PSI) in context and further reading suggestions. Divided into three parts, the first is dedicated to the main theoretical issues and debates which have shaped research on public service interpreting; the second discusses the characteristics of interpreting in the settings which have been most in need of public service interpreting services; the third provides reflections and suggestions on interpreter as well as provider training, with an aim to improve public service interpreting services. This Handbook is the essential guide for all students, researchers and practitioners of PSI within interpreting and translation studies, medicine and health studies, law, social services, multilingualism and multimodality.
This article examines the unfolding of interaction in a growing and, so far, scarcely examined social and cultural practice – interpreter-mediated public literary conversations. In this context, the activity of interpreters, although indispensable when authors and audiences do not share a common language, is sometimes regarded as a “necessary evil” that allegedly causes delays and information loss. Exploring an interpreter-mediated public literary conversation with Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich as a case in point, the focus of this article is rather on what the presence of an interpreter might add to the shared performance on stage. Attention is drawn to the temporal evolvement of the interlocutor’s communicative resources, evident within narrative sequences, drawing on prosody research (Auer, 1999; Couper-Kuhlen, 1999, 2007) and research on gestures (Kendon, e.g. 2000; Streek, 2007; McNeill 2008). The study suggests that, apart from keeping the non-Russian speaking audience updated on content, the interpreter’s rhythmically calibrated performance adds an energizing asset to the event as a whole. The notion of the “coupled turn”, internally hosting gestural and prosodic coherence across topical boundaries and language frame shifts, emerges as a usable unit for the analysis.
Vad är syntolkning? Varför är det viktigt med syntolkning? Vad görs för att utveckla syntolkning i Sverige idag? Vad betyder tillgång till syntolkning för personer med blindhet och synnedsättning? Vad kan forskning inom olika områden bidra med för att utveckla syntolkning? Vad kan syntolkning lära oss om mänskligt tänkande, varseblivning och berättande? Syntolkning är ett fenomen som har växt i omfattning de senaste åren och berör en stor del av landets befolkning, men är ändå ganska okänt för en bredare allmänhet. Bidragen i denna bok vill förändra detta. Här skriver forskare, utbildare, personer med synnedsättning och blindhet, praktiskt verksamma syntolkar och myndighetsrepresentanter om syntolkning utifrån sina olika perspektiv. Syntolkning är en fråga för kognitionsforskare: Kan människor som aldrig har sett, se saker för sitt inre öga, alltså skapa mentala bilder? Om ja, hur går detta till? Vilka samband finns mellan språk, tänkande och berättande? Syntolkning är en fråga för översättningsvetenskapen: Hur kan man med ord förmedla kommunikation som sker med bilder, gester, minspel, rörelse och ljus? Syntolkning är en fråga om kvalité: Hur tycker brukare av syntolkningstjänster att dessa kan förbättras? Vilken utbildning finns för den som vill utbilda sig i syntolkning? Vilka erfarenheter finns från andra länder?
In this chapter, by analysing brokering as a set of interactional practices, we demonstrate how participants – residents and caregivers – who do not share a language are brokered into mutual interaction. Three different settings: a ‘how-are-you’ sequence, a singing and dancing activity, and a recreational activity with the use of a photo are analysed. The excerpts illustrate the challenges as well as the potentials of caregivers’ brokering practices. As our analyses attest, in a linguistically and culturally complex care context involving persons who do not share a common language, brokering can be organised not in a single way, but variously and with different interactional outcomes.
Using the methodology of conversation analysis to examine audio-recorded multi-party conversations between a Swedish-/Farsi-speaking resident and multilingual staff in a Swedish residential home, this article describes a practice for establishing shared understanding by one caregiver enacting the role of language broker. The focus is on caregiving settings where caregivers assist an elderly person with her personal hygiene. We demonstrate how brokering is used to (1) maintain the conversational flow in a small talk sequence and (2) address the contents in the resident’s complaints. The article thus advances our understanding of language brokering as an activity that multilingual staff in a linguistically asymmetrical workplace setting take on to assist a colleague in performing client-oriented activities.
Troubles-telling and complaints are common in contexts of care for older people and need to be managed by care staff in a respectful manner. This paper examines the handling of an older person’s complaints in multilingual care encounters that involve participants who do not share a common language. The data consist of video-recordings and ethnographic fieldwork in a residential home for older people in Sweden that is characterised by a variety of languages and backgrounds. The findings are based on analyses of multi-party interactions involving an Arabic-speaking resident and caregivers with different levels of knowledge in different languages. We focus on complaint sequences when the resident expresses a negative stance (displeasure, anger, etc.) towards some difficult circumstance. Using the methodology of conversation analysis, we analyse the affect-regulating work through which the caregivers attempt to turn a pressing situation into a moment of cheerfulness and intimacy. The analyses bring to light the multilingual practices that the caregivers draw upon in pursuing this work, such as translating and giving voice to the resident’s complaining.
In this paper, we conduct a critical discourse analytical study of asylum interviews in order to contribute to knowledge and awareness of (a) how asymmetrical power relations are discursively (re)produced as well as manoeuvred and negotiated during the interaction and (b) what this means in terms of positioning of the participants. Focusing on a number of metacommunicative sequences characterised by a notably high degree of interpersonal complexity, we examine how participants are positioned and how positioning is discursively realised. We draw on eight observed and recorded asylum interviews conducted in Sweden 2018–2021. Metacommunicative positioning is analysed mainly with a focus on speech functions and modality. We show that metacommunication is used by all participants largely as a means of constructing an asylum narrative within the framework of an institutional discourse. The participants can position each other in (dis)advantageous ways in their attempts to deny, or sometimes claim, responsibility for miscommunication. The applicants generally obey the metacommunicative instructions given by other, more powerful participants. However, we also show an example of an applicant who makes resistance to the institutional discourse. Furthermore, all participants use metacommunication as a tool to guide each other in the conversation, thereby positioning themselves as responsible for the co-construction of the asylum narrative. Finally, we underline the benefits of conducting critical discourse analysis in the study of asylum interviews, although such studies can barely change the fact that the asylum determination process is unequal and asymmetrical in its core.
This paper tells the story of obstacles and challenges to fieldwork in a research project exploring migrants’ narratives in the asylum process in Sweden, where, rather than facilitating data collection, the Swedish Migration Authority appeared to create barriers. This had implications both for the project and for individual case workers and interpreters; in the praxis of informed consent, our own strict interpretation became an unnecessary drawback; and in our attempt to overcome the obstacles, we actively involved the national press. The discussion is framed within an overall concern for the role of research in society, and its benefits and risks in relatively closed sectors, raising issues of personal privacy, security and trust.
The overall aim of the Qualitas project is to achieve quality communication in legal systems that are in need of interpreter services. In addition to accommodating the relevant context for interpreting, this entails engaging interpreters with documented interpreting skills. The activity of interpreting rests on a multitude of sub-skills, each of which is quite complex. Accordingly, the testing of such skills may present the test administrators with reliability and validity issues. Are the tests equal to all candidates? Are they testing the skills they are supposed to test? The aim of this section is to draw attention to some general and specific challenges associated with the testing of interpreting skills, i.e. in short, the ability to coordinate and render in another language other persons’ talk (Wadensjö 1998).
I denna artikel beskriver vi våra erfarenheter av antagningsprov på Tolk- och översättarinstitutet under de senaste åren, d.v.s. från institutets tid som fullt integrerad del av Stockholms universitet. För den svenska högskolan generellt och även för varje högskola separat, gäller särskilda bestämmelser om antagningsprov. Artikeln redogör för hur det nuvarande antagningsprovet är utformat, vilka förmågor det avser att testa och på vilka sätt. Antagningsprov till tolkutbildningar är vanligt förekommande, men eftersom tolkning är en komplex praktik, som kan bedömas på olika sätt och som alltid involverar minst två språk, är frågor om bedömningskriterier och betygsnivåer ofta föremål för diskussion. En viktig lärdom som vi dragit hittills är att diskussioner av detta slag bör främjas. För att etablera samsyn mellan bedömare i antagningsprov är det viktigt att skapa forum för diskussioner.
This article sheds light on some theoretical and analytical implications of defining interpreting as interaction – i.e., a specific form for human communication involving translation. Approaching interpreter-mediated encounters as interaction implies considering interlocutors’ (primary participants and interpreters) situated sense making and the complex nature of spontaneous spoken interpreter-mediated interaction. Exploring interpreting not just as a type of translation of source-language utterances into renditions but also as a specific kind of communicative situation opens up new research avenues such as exploring and explaining the interdependence between interpreters’ and monolingual participants’ verbal and non-verbal communicative behaviours. Moreover, this article highlights some practical implications of approaching interpreting as interaction in the education of interpreters and those they assist and in the professionalization process of public service interpreting.
By examining audio-recorded and transcribed, naturally occurring discourse data, this article shows how participants communicate involvement in two interpreter-mediated healthcare encounters. The article demonstrates how the relational exchange in these encounters, each involving a Swedish-speaking care provider, a young mother (one Spanish-speaking and one Russian-speaking) and a professionally trained interpreter, is affected by the way single participants orient to one another as conversational partners. The analysis also shows how primary participants’ orientation towards the interpreter as a conversational partner may have unexpected consequences for the interpreter’s degree of involvement and the participants’ control of conversational topics. Adding to previous studies of interpreter-mediated medical encounters explored as interaction (Wadensjö 1998), this article demonstrates the significance of shared and mutual focus between physicians and patients when it comes to building rapport and mutual trust across language barriers.
This article offers a comparative analysis of sequences drawn from two interpreter-mediated (Swedish-Russian) court trials, documented in Sweden. In single-language trials, defendants’ ability to gain conversational space to expand a minimal answer heavily depends on the immediate sanction of the legal questioners. In interpreter-mediated court proceedings, however, the analysis suggests that the ability of foreign-language speaking defendants to expand a narrative is relatively independent of the direct sanctions of the questioners. Overall, the analysis indicates that, similarly to the strategies used by defendants to produce answers, questioning strategies used by legal questioners tend to function somewhat differently in face-to-face interpreter-mediated court trials, compared to single-language trials. This, it is assumed, must be explained by a range of linguistic and pragmatic factors. Those explored in this paper include the potentially increased multifunctionality of conversational units in interpreter-mediated encounters, the various means by which foreign-language defendants attempt to project further talk, the restricted immediate access of the legal questioners to these means, and the various ways in which interpreters may deal with the ambiguity of spontaneous spoken discourse.
This article focuses on the use of simulated interpreter-mediated interaction for the purpose of training interpreter trainers to assess candidate interpreters’ performances. It is based on documentation from a project initiated in 2011, which was designed to use audio recordings combined with conversation analytical principles and practices, for the training of examination panel members. The objective of the project was to make examiners reflect on the function and the functionality of role play as an assessment instrument by looking at the turn-by-turn unfolding of talk in high-stake role play examination sessions. The project, which can be described as ‘interventionist conversation analysis’, modelled upon the ‘conversation-analytic role play method’, will eventually develop into a recurrent training feature in the training of interpreter teachers and assessors.
The Critical Link är namnet på en serie internationella konferenser, ägnade specifikt åt frågor om tolkning i institutionella sammanhang som hälsovården, socialvården, rättsväsendet, med flera, det som på svenska ofta kallas kontakttolkning. Konferenserna äger rum vart tredje år och sommaren 2010 var det dags för Critical Link nummer 6, förlagt till Birmingham i Storbritannien. Där föddes idén om att starta ett nordiskt forum för ett något tätare och mer småskaligt utbyte av erfarenheter om tolkutbildning – om de lösningar som finns liksom om pågående forskning och utveckling på området. De nordiska länderna har vart och ett sina respektive unika erfarenheter, men det finns en hel del gemensamma förutsättningar och intressen.
Våren 2011 hölls ett första möte i Oslo. Tolkutbildare från Danmark, Finland, Norge och Sverige möttes på ett 2-dagars seminarium där temat var utbildning och testning – Interpreter Training and Testing. Presentationer av föredrag och workshops som hölls på detta möte finns dokumenterade i en rapport från Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus (Skaaden et al, 2012). Året därpå träffades representanter för nordiska tolkutbildningar till ett nytt, arbetsinriktat nätverksmöte i Stockholm.
Temat för 2012 år seminariedagar var utbildning av utbildare – Training the trainers. Föreliggande rapport sammanfattar de teman som behandlades på Stockholmsmötet. Bidragen beskriver både aktuella och tidigare erfarenheter av tolklärarutbildning. Alla bidrag utom Nilsens, som är författat på norska, är skrivna på engelska, som kommit att bli nätverkets gemensamma arbetsspråk. Kontaktinformation till författarna finns i anslutning till varje artikel. Här presenteras innehållet kort på svenska.
I denna artikel redogör vi för några utmaningar som parterna ställs inför i kartläggningssamtal med nyanlända elever där flerspråkig skolpersonal fått i uppdrag att tolka. Analyser av transkriberade och översatta sekvenser ur fem videoinspelade samtal visar att den flerspråkiga skolpersonalens pedagogiska kompetens i mycket liten utsträckning utnyttjas under samtalen och att deras avsaknad av tolkkompetens kan begränsa elevens möjligheter att visa sina kunskaper. Det får konsekvenser inte enbart i form av att elevens svar kan komma att återges på ett missvisande sätt utan även genom att kartläggarens samspel med eleven påverkas.
I ett protokoll fört under en asylintervju återfanns en obegriplig mening som den asylsökande inte kände igen. I denna artikel undersöker vi vad som ledde fram till denna mening. Med samtalsanalys som teoretisk och metodisk ansats går vi igenom en 3,5 minuter lång sekvens hämtad från den ljudinspelade, tolkade asylintervju där den obegripliga meningen fördes till protokollet. Språken som talades var svenska och ryska. Protokollet skrevs på svenska. Undersökningen visar hur flera faktorer och samtliga deltagare i asylintervjun, på olika sätt, styr och formar framväxten av den asylberättelse som manifesteras i protokollet.
Generellt för tolkade samtal gäller att tolkens återgivningar av det som sagts på det andra språket möjliggör parternas delade förståelse – samtidigt som de skapar ett icke-konventionellt turtagningsmönster. Specifikt för asylintervjuer är att ett detaljerat protokoll av det som sägs förs, samtidigt som intervjun pågår. Hur det samtidiga protokollskrivandet påverkar turtagningsmönstret har inte undersökts i någon större utsträckning i tidigare forskning.
Artikeln visar på svårigheter som kan uppstå när en institutionell berättelse samkonstrueras när den parallellt dokumenteras i ett protokoll. Kunskap om detta är av vikt för såväl praktiker inom asylprocessen, som för vidare studier av tolkning i offentlig sektor.
The aim of this study is to demonstrate how the presence of an emerging written record may affect the content of an asylum narrative, based on which a decision concerning the asylum claimant’s right to receive protection eventually is taken. The lion’s share of studies on interpreter-mediated asylum interviews to date focus on risks involved with assigning non-professionals to perform the interpreting. This study draws specifically on a 3.5 min-long sequence taken from an asylum interview involving a professional interpreter, working between Russian and Swedish, and the corresponding paragraph of the Swedish-language written minutes, produced in parallel by the caseworker at a Migration Agency office. The study demonstrates something that hasn’t been highlighted much in the literature on asylum interviews, namely the mutual impact of the interpreter-mediated communicative format—the specific turn taking order and the restricted linguistic transparency—and the parallel record keeping; the intricate passage from two spoken languages to an asylum narrative in the form of a text written in one of these languages.
Syftet med denna artikel är att visa på möjligheter att identifiera och diskutera kvalité i tolkning, under och efter muntliga rollspelsprov, av det slag som genomförs inom grundutbildningen till tolk vid svenska folkhögskolor och studieförbund. Artikeln bygger i stor utsträckning på dokumentation från ett seminarium, där aktiva bedömare inom denna utbildning deltog. Denna dokumentation användes sedan som underlag för den workshop om bedömning av tolkning som författarna höll i vid det nordiska mötet i Oslo i maj 2011. Artikeln uppmärksammar särskilt sambandet mellan tolkarnas möjlighet att prestera och bedömarnas förberedelser. Vidare påpekas vikten av metaspråklig kompetens vid bedömning av tolkning, samt relevansen av reflektion kring skillnader mellan spontana och rollspelade, manusbundna samtal. Ett sätt att öka bedömarkårens kompetens på dessa områden, menar författarna, är att använda inspelning och transkription av autentiska rollspelsprov som underlag för fortbildning.