The Routledge Handbook of Conference Interpreting is designed as a comprehensive reference work for researchers and practitioners as well as trainers and students. Why a handbook on conference interpreting readers may ask, when the trend in research has been to bring settings together (Mikkelson & Jourdenais 2015; Pöchhacker 2015), to cross modes and stress their hybridity and to accentuate the unifying elements of interpreting and translation (Baker & Saldhana 2020). Conference interpreting still has a certain ring to it and is associated with the rise of international organisations and multinational enterprises, having assumed an instrumental role as the twentieth century took shape. Moreover, despite having always been and still being a major focus from a research perspective, to date conference interpreting has not been addressed in its own dedicated volume. Works focusing solely on conference interpreting tend to be textbooks (see Gillies 2013, 2019; Jones 2002; Setton & Dawrant 2016a; 2016b), although the recent proceedings of the conference celebrating 100 years of conference interpreting and its “collection of scholarly articles and opinion pieces illustrating what different stakeholders make of this profession” (Seeber 2021: xiii) covers more ground. Thus, our aim has been to produce a state-of-the-art compilation on the body of conference interpreting knowledge, with a systematised approach to all the different facets of its foundations, its different geographical bases, its professional issues, its applied research, and its current developments.

Providing comprehensive coverage of both current research and practice in conference interpreting, The Routledge Handbook of Conference Interpreting covers core areas and cutting-edge developments, which have sprung up due to the spread of modern technologies and global English.

Consisting of 40 chapters divided into seven parts—Fundamentals, Settings, Regions, Professional issues, Training and education, Research perspectives and Recent developments—the Handbook focuses on the key areas of conference interpreting. This volume is unique in its approach to the field of conference interpreting as it covers not only research and teaching practice but also practical issues of the profession on all continents.

Bringing together over 70 researchers in the field from all over the world and with an introduction by the editors, this is essential reading for all researchers, ​trainers, students and professionals of conference interpreting.

Retrospective verbal process tracing is a popular research method in Interpreting Studies, employed by a growing number of scholars, particularly in studies of conference interpreting, but, to date, it has not been widely employed in studies of dialogue interpreting. This paper begins by introducing process-tracing methodologies, defining types of verbal process tracing, and presenting a brief critical review of publications employing this research methodology. The bulk of the article provides concrete, practical information and guidance for scholars of dialogue interpreting who are interested in employing retrospective process tracing in their research. We discuss the theoretical underpinnings of the method, methodological considerations that must be taken into account in the design and procedure of such studies, data analysis and reporting on the basis of retrospective process tracing, and recommendations for best practices.

This article discusses cognitive aspects of professional community interpreting. We give an overview of earlier research into community interpreting, arguing that cognitive aspects have largely been neglected. We propose that in building a model of the mental processes of the community interpreter, different kinds of monitoring are a crucial and pervasive component. Monitoring contributes to and enables the double function of the interpreter: translating and managing the interaction of the interpreted encounter. We furthermore stress the importance of the notion of professional self-concept for explaining the interpreter’s decision-making and exemplify this by analyzing turn-taking in two Swedish-Spanish interpreted encounters.

For studying the processes involved in translation and in interpreting, retrospection is one of the few research methods equally suitable for both areas. At the first workshop on research methods in process-oriented research, in Graz in 2009, we presented the results of a pilot study of retrospection as a research method, published as Englund Dimitrova and Tiselius (2009). The study involved data from two groups (15 years of professional experience vs. no professional experience), each with 3+3 subjects (interpreter subjects vs. translator subjects, all with Swedish as their L1). The source text was a 10-minute plenary speech in English from the European Parliament, interpreted simultaneously into Swedish. For the translation data, the translator subjects translated the original European Parliament transcript of the speech, 1,093 words, writing in Translog. After the task, subjects did immediate retrospection. The first analysis of the data indicated that a challenge when using retrospection is that subjects tend to report having forgotten about some of their processes.

In this paper we report an analysis of the process data in relation to the retrospective protocols. Our focus is on reported problems and the occurrences of problem indicators in the process. It was found that most reported problems are confirmed by the presence of problem indicators in the process. However, the majority of problem indicators found in the process do not correspond to any reported problem. Hence, the subjects’ problem reports can only explain a limited number of the potential problems in the process. The need for further research into retrospection as a research method in Translation Studies is pointed out.

Background: Healthcare personnel are responsible for providing patient-centered care regardless of their patients' language skills, but language barriers is identified as the main hindrances providing effective, equitable and safe care to patients with limited proficiency in a country's majority language. This study is a national multisite cross-sectional survey aiming to investigate communication over language barriers in pediatric oncology care. Material and Methods: A survey using the Communication over Language Barriers questionnaire (CoLB-q) distributed to medical doctors, registered nurses and nursing assistants at six pediatric oncology centers in Sweden (response rate 90%) using descriptive statistical analyses. Results: Professional interpreters on site were the most common solution when using an interpreter, although relatives or even children were used. The use of professional interpreters on site differed among the professions and in different clinical situations, such as medical encounter, education or procedure preparation. All professions reported that the use of professional interpreters greatly increased care relationships, patient safety and patient involvement in care. Conclusions: Healthcare personnel seem to believe that professional interpreters are crucial when caring for patients and family members who do not speak the majority language, but there is an obvious discrepancy between this belief and their use of professional interpreters.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to explore interpreters' perceived strategies in the interaction in interpreter-mediated consultations between healthcare personnel and patients/families with limited Swedish proficiency in pediatric oncology care. Methods: This study had an inductive approach using an exploratory qualitative design. A total of eleven semi-structured interviews were performed with interpreters who had experience interpreting in pediatric oncology care. Results: The interpreters' perceived strategies were divided into four generic categories; strategies for maintaining a professional role, strategies for facilitating communication, strategies for promoting collaboration, and strategies for improving the framework of interpreting provision. These four generic categories were then merged into the single main category of carrying the bilingual conversation. Conclusions: The interpreters stretch their discretionary power in order to carry the bilingual conversation by using strategies clearly outside of their assignment. Practical implications: The study contributes to the understanding of the interpreter-mediated consultation in pediatric oncology care, and this can be used to improve the care of patients and families in pediatric oncology care with limited knowledge of a country's majority language.

PURPOSE: Children and families with a foreign background and limited Swedish proficiency have to communicate through interpreters in childhood cancer care centers in Sweden. Interpreter-mediated events deal with many difficulties that potentially hinder the transfer of information. The purpose of our study was to explore interpreters' experiences of interpreting between health care staff and limited Swedish proficiency patients/families in childhood cancer care.

DESIGN: Using purposive samples, we interviewed 11 interpreters individually. The interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

FINDINGS: Analyses of the data resulted in the main theme of creating a meeting point of understanding, constructed from 3 subthemes: balancing between cultures, bridging the gaps of knowledge, and balancing between compassion and professionalism.

DISCUSSION: Our result shows that in order to create a sustainable meeting point of understanding, it is necessary to explain both the context and cultural differences. These results suggest that the responsibility for information transfer lies with both the health care profession and the interpreters. Tools have to be developed for both parties to contribute to creating the meeting point of understanding.

Objective: To investigate the reasons for not using interpreters to secure patient-safe communication.

Methods: Healthcare personnel at six paediatric oncology centres in Sweden responded to the Communication over Language Barriers questionnaire. Descriptive and comparative analyses were performed.

Results: The participants (n = 267) often cared for patients with limited Swedish proficiency, although they were not trained in using interpreters. A lack of time was perceived as a barrier in emergency care situations, but also in planned care situations. Another barrier was the interpreter’s ability to correctly interpret medical/care terminology. There were significant differences in evaluating the interpreters’ abilities between those with/without education in using interpreters, and between Medical Doctors and Nursing Assistants. Participants were unsure whether the patient had received the correct information and thought that it was difficult to control the family/patient’s understanding of the given information. The vast majority did not perceive financial constraints as a barrier for using interpreters.

Conclusions: Economic resources and legislation are not enough to increase the use of interpreters. Reasons for not using interpreters are found in limitations of time, training, and interpreters’ skills and knowledge.

Practice Implications: There is a need for a greater focus on training, interpreters’ skills, and booking procedures in paediatric healthcare.

Objective: To develop a valid and reliable questionnaire addressing the experiences of healthcare personnel of communicating over language barriers and using interpreters in paediatric healthcare. Methods: A multiple- methods approach to develop and evaluate the questionnaire, including focus groups, cognitive interviews, a pilot test and test-retest. The methods were chosen in accordance with questionnaire development methodology to ensure validity and reliability. Results: The development procedure showed that the issues identified were highly relevant to paediatric healthcare personnel and resulted in a valid and reliable Communication over Language Barriers questionnaire (CoLB-q) with 27 questions. Conclusion: The CoLB-q is perceived as relevant, important and easy to respond to by respondents and has satisfactory validity and reliability.& nbsp; Practice implications: The CoLB-q can be used to map how healthcare personnel overcome language barriers through communication tools and to identify problems encountered in paediatric healthcare. Furthermore, the transparently described process could be used as a guide for developing similar questionnaires.

In this commentary, the authors explore “practice” in interpreter education. They outline differences in meaning and usage of the term, including the notions of “reflective practice” and “deliberate practice,” discuss the importance of high-quality skill development-focused practice (SDFP) in skill acquisition, and call for a systematic program of research into SDFP in interpreter education, particularly within the context of dialogue interpreting. 

The BA-programme in Swedish Sign Language and Interpreting, 180 ECTS. university level in Sweden. It is a three-year BA programme divided into six semesters of courses that are both practically and theoretically organized and it leads to a BA in Translation Studies with a focus on SSL interpreting. The first students enrolled in 2013 and graduated in 2016. There was a pause between the first and the second intake so, the second cohort will graduate in June 2018. Since 2015, intake has been regular every autumn, hence the third cohort are due to 2019 and the fourth one to 2020.

Intercultural healthcare refers to when people of different cultures and languages communicate and interact in the healthcare context. Intercultural competence is pivotal to provide congruent and meaningful care. The notion intercultural stresses that at least two cultures are involved; however, many use the term cultural. Cultural competence has been described as a process in healthcare interactions and systems, aiming to increase equity and reduce disparities in care. Cultural competence shares core components with patient centered care, but patient centered care is difficult when the values of patients are in conflict with the values of the healthcare professionals and systems. Cultural diversity can lead to conflicts of the most fundamental values and thus, intercultural healthcare requires that professionals have opportunities and skills to deal with value conflicts. We present a relational ethics approach for intercultural competence. The basic ideas of relational ethics, and of intercultural competence, are that they exist in relationships, the context is of importance and true dialogue is the core. The components of intercultural competence are explained and include intercultural dialogue, intercultural reflection and intercultural learning. Furthermore, intercultural communication, i.e. the act of communicating between distinct cultural groups, is pivotal to enable intercultural dialogue and should continuously be developed through intercultural learning in the process of understanding and adapting to the other. We will also discuss professional interpreters’ impact on cultural learning and mutual understanding in the intercultural healthcare context. We argue that healthcare professionals need to learn effective interpreting use as part of intercultural competence.

Integrated university programs for deaf and hearing sign language interpreting students are rare. In Finland, deaf interpreting students have been integrated in the only university program for sign language interpreting since its beginning in the early 1990s. This article investigates the experiences of the deaf interpreting students and deaf sign language interpreters (n=5) who attend and have attended the program. We analyzed interview responses using critical discourse analysis and the concept of identity construction, and found that deaf interpreting students, despite some disadvantages, benefitted from integrated programs. We also found three identity positions (competent deaf identity, student identity, and professional DI identity) and support for recognition (Honneth 1996) in both the solidarity and legal sphere developed through the program.

This paper investigates how conference interpreters with Swedish as A-language working in international institutions understand the concept of expertise. Ten interpreters with Swedish mother tongue and working in the Swedish booth at the European institutions were interviewed in two focus groups (n=5) about their opinion of professional identity. The result was then compared to the findings of a survey of the official discourse of conference interpreting at the European institutions and the International Association of Conference Interpreter (AIIC). Some possible norm-related activities were identified. This paper investigates how conference interpreters with Swedish as A-language1 working in international institutions understand the concept of expertise. Ten interpreters with Swedish mother tongue and working in the Swedish booth at the European institutions were interviewed in two focus groups (n=5) about their opinion of professional identity. The result was then compared to the findings of a survey of the official discourse of conference interpreting at the European institutions and the International Association of Conference Interpreter (AIIC). Some possible norm-related activities were identified.

This chapter discusses the commonalities and differences between spoken language conference and community interpreting. The aim is to describe the common core of these two fields of activity, often treated as two different professions. The chapter starts by describing what is argued are common core concepts of interpreting, namely, monologic/monologue vs dialogic/dialogue, setting, mode and modality. Then conference and community interpreting are compared from the perspectives of profile, skills, training, directionality, users, working conditions, professionalization, and research. Reasons for the two fields of activity being conceptualized as two different professions are discussed. Possible reasons identified include organization, setting and placement, remuneration, status of users, and levels of education. However, since the core concepts, competencies and knowledge are the same or very similar, and since a professional interpreter can be, and many are, active in both conference and community interpreting, it is argued that it may be more fruitful to consider them as fields of activity rather than different professions.

Deliberate practice, as described in expertise theory of cognitive psychology, stems, at least in part, from Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Römer’s seminal 1993 study of violin students from the Music Academy of West Berlin. In their article, Ericsson et al. take issue with the belief that truly exceptional performers are unique because they possess different types of innate giftedness. They say such reasoning is oversimplified and suggest that a truly scientific account of such skills would have to describe the development leading up to exceptional performance, as well as the “genetic and acquired characteristics that mediate it” (1993: 363, italics added). Furthermore, they argue that a scientific mapping of exceptional performance must identify critical differences between exceptional and ordinary performers. And, finally, they suggest that when researchers argue that there are genetic differences, those differences must be proven to be genetically heritable as being hereditary. Because it would be difficult for researchers to provide this evidence, Ericsson et al. recommend researchers investigate environmental factors that could “selectively promote and facilitate the achievement of such performance” instead (1993: 363). Based on their research, Ericsson et al. suggest one crucial environmental factor is deliberate practice.

Of course, the issue of deliberate practice is not without controversy. One of the main counterarguments to Ericsson et al.’s proposal is that even if practice is important, researchers cannot rule out the contribution of ability factors. Some have suggested it is unfair to less able individuals to claim that hard work is enough to achieve excellence (Detterman 2014). Furthermore, several studies have shown that deliberate practice is a weak explanation of the variance in performance in many areas (Macnamara, Hambrick and Oswald 2014; Menz and Hambrick, 2010). Ericsson counters these studies by stating that the structure of expert performance is so unique it “cannot be extrapolated from the performance–ability relations observed in the general adult population” (Ericsson 2014: 81).

Deliberate practice in interpreting poses another challenge for the researcher because the few studies done on the construct in this field have failed to show the mere occurrence (let alone the effect) of deliberate practice in interpreting (Tiselius 2013; Albl-Mikasa 2013). It is possible that interpreting researchers cannot find an effect for deliberate practice because they have incorrectly defined the construct. Alternatively, deliberate practice in interpreting may be a unicorn: a noble creature with the power to redeem novice interpreters be they only pure, which unfortunately exists only in fairy tales. With only two studies in the field, we do not have sufficient evidence to decide whether deliberate practice is an unproven fact or only a fiction.

This article describes the theoretical foundations of deliberate practice, differences between practice and deliberate practice, and how the construct has been studied in the fields of cognitive psychology broadly and interpreting specifically. It will also investigate criticisms of deliberate practice in the field.

This dissertation investigates the process and product of interpreters with different levels of experience and explores the expertise approach (cf. Ericsson, Charness and Hoffman 2007) as applied to interpreters. The expertise approach claims that highly skilled performers, regardless of their chosen field, use the same type of strategies in order to reach the top levels of their profession. An important feature of the expertise approach is deliberate practice, a specific type of practice that highly skilled performers engage in so as to improve their performance.

The dissertation is based on four different studies featuring two different sets of participants. Two data sets – a cross-sectional material with nine participants on three different levels of interpreting experience (none, short and long), and a long-term material with three interpreters recorded at two different points in time – were analysed in terms of both processing and product data. The interpreting process was studied by retrospectively analysing and categorizing processing problems, monitoring and strategies, while the interpreting product was analysed by using holistic rating scales for intelligibility and level of information transfer of the interpreting product. In-depth interviews were also conducted with the long-term participants in order to investigate their perception of deliberate practice and their own view of their skill development. An important and integral part of the dissertation, apart from the results, was the development of the holistic rating scales (adapted from Carroll 1966), and the development of an in-depth interview study.

The conclusions of the dissertation are that there are measurable differences of interpreting skill between performers with little or no interpreting experience and performers with long interpreting experience, but this finding could not be supported by the long-term (intra-individual) study. Differences between the groups in the cross-sectional material could also be observed from the process data. Experienced interpreters

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encountered fewer processing problems than less experienced interpreters and had more strategies at hand to solve problems. There were also clear differences in terms of instances of monitoring (i.e. controlling the interpreting process and output) between experienced interpreters and other subjects. Monitoring seemed to be a dividing line between experienced and inexperienced interpreters, and experienced interpreters had more processing capacity available to monitor themselves. This was also to a certain extent supported in the in-depth interviews, where the participants reported how they constantly evaluate themselves in terms of improving performance. A key assumption established in the beginning of the project – that experienced interpreters would claim, in the in-depth interviews, that they practise a great deal – was not supported, to our surprise. The interpreters recounted many practice-like activities but stated that they did not actually practise.

The dissertation concludes by calling for more studies on deliberate practice in interpreting, suggesting that the term “interpreter expert” should only be used with caution in scientific studies and that the particular features of expertise and deliberate practice in interpreting should be discussed. 

Deliberate practice (Ericsson 2007) is a type of focused, goal-oriented practice that is part of the process of developing expertise. A less explored area in interpreting research, deliberate practice is a construct that is not easily investigated using an experimental research design.

This article reports on in-depth interviews with three interpreters. By exploring their background, training, views on interpreting, and perceptions of core areas of deliberate practice (such as practice, setting clear goals and being open to feedback), an impression of their practice habits emerges. The article concludes that deliberate practice as defined by Ericsson is not consciously employed by these interpreters. Some of the implications of these findings for the application of expertise theory in interpreting are outlined in the discussion. 

Sign language interpreting of dialogues shares many features with the interpreting of dialogues between non-signed languages. We argue that from a cognitive perspective in dialogue interpreting, despite some differences between the two types of interpreting, sign language interpreters use many of the same processes and handle similar challenges as interpreters between non-signed languages. We report on a first exploration of process differences in sign language interpreting between three novice and three experienced Swedish Sign Language interpreters. The informants all interpreted the same dialogue and made a retrospection of their interpreting immediately after the task. Retrospections were analyzed using tools for identifying reported processing problems, instances of monitoring, and strategy use (see Ivanova 1999). Furthermore, the interpreting products (both into Swedish Sign Language and into Swedish) and their differences were qualitatively analyzed. The results indicate that there are differences between the two groups, both in terms of the retrospective reports and in terms of the interpreting product. As expected, monitoring seems to be a factor determined by experience. The experienced interpreters seemed to have more efficient ways of handling turn taking and the internalization of new vocabulary. The study also concludes that to use instruments devised for simultaneous conference interpreting (Ivanova 1999; Tiselius 2013), the instruments need to be adapted to the dialogue setting, even though in the case of sign language interpreting the simultaneous interpreting technique is used even in dialogue interpreting.

This paper is based on a study aiming at testing the practicability of two methods and their possible applicability for investigating expertise in simultaneous interpretation. The two methods being Ivanova’s (ref. 1) method for investigating processing problems and their corresponding strategies as well as monitoring, and Carroll’s (ref. 2) method for measuring the quality in machine translation as compared with human translation. The methods were adapted to the context of the study.

Students of public service interpreting come from a variety of backgrounds. A typical groupof interpreting students includes a mix of students from different immigrant communitiesand from Norway’s majority population group, as well as students from varied educationalbackgrounds. Students have also had varying private and professional experiences withinterpreting. This heterogeneity represents a challenge for teachers attempting to create alevel playing field for all students, but it is also an asset for students, for instance because itcreates communities of learning (Bielaczyc and Collins 1999). Furthermore, in theinterpreter training field there is a lively methodological and didactic discussion, often withevidence-based pedagogical papers (Napier 2013). There are, however, fewer publicationson general pedagogical approaches to interpreter training (Sawyer 2004 and Gile 2009being important exceptions). This article looks at interpreter training in Norway anddiscusses the pedagogical approach it represents. The aim is to suggest how a level playingfield in interpreter training can be created from a pedagogical and methodologicalperspective using common higher education methodologies such as critical incidenttechnique (Chell 2004), constructive alignment (Biggs 2003) and experiential learning (Kolb1984), several of which are already in use in interpreter training in Norway.

This article discusses the concept of informed consent in interpreting studies. Informed consent implies that a person must be given enough information to be able to consent to participate voluntarily in a research project. The article first gives an overview and background of the origins of informed consent, and its place in ethical research. The article then points to different areas where informed consent in interpreting studies may be delicate, and what to think about in order to obtain truly informed consent; examples are given from different research studies. The article also discusses the research participants’ right to their data and what happens when informed consent is revoked. I argue in the article that research students should be taught and trained in truly informed consent, and that the informed consent process should be piloted before the initiation of a study.

The role of the interpreter is understood differently in the Nordic countries compared to, for instance, France. In the Nordic countries, the interpreter’s task is seen as bi-partial, that is, the interpreter should keep equal distance to the two parties present in the conversation (Skaaden, 2016). This article discusses the Swedish public service interpreter’s role, education, requirements and legislation. We start from Wadensjö’s (1998) principle that all participants, including the interpreter, co-construct the meaning of the message through interaction. The legislation surrounding interpreting services in Sweden is founded on the principle that the two parties present in the encounter must understand each other, the public servant and the immigrant have equal needs for an interpreter if they do not share the same language. The author also underlines that there is no contradiction between having access to interpreting services and language learning.

De fleste tolk-medierte samtaler in Norge foregår innenfor noen typ av institusjon f eks introduksjonssenter, skole, helsestasjon, sykehus, domstol, politi og så videre. De tolk-mediere samtalen er altså en institusjonell samtale. Tolking i institusjonelle samtaler er ikke bare et hjelpemiddel for gjensidig forståelse, oljen som smørjer låsen så at nøkkelen fungerer, det er også ytterligere et filter på kommunikasjonen. Det finnes flere utfordringer for deltakerne i et tolket samtal for å få samtalen å fungere. Det er ikke bare tolkens ansvar att kommunikasjonen i en tolk-mediert samtale fungerer, det er også tolkebrukernes.

I detta kapitel beskrivs ett antal modeller för att analysera, illustrera och förklara tolkning. I det här kapitlet vill jag skapa förståelse för vad modeller i tolkning beskriver samt för hur deras teoretiska utgångspunkter kan påverka den beskrivningen. Modellerna är valda för att de fått stort genomslag både inom tolkforskning och tolkutbildning. Några är testade empiriskt, andra är utvecklade ur ett empiriskt datamaterial och ytterligare andra är utvecklade ur observationer och erfarenheter från lärare och forskare. Förhoppningen att läsaren får olika instrument att se på och analysera sin egen tolkning.

This pilot study describes the assessment of interpreting with an application of the scales originally devised by Carroll (1966) for machine translation. Study participants (interpreters, n=6; non-interpreters, n=6) use Carroll’s scales to grade interpreted renditions (n=9) in simultaneous mode by conference interpreters with three different levels of experience. Grading was conducted using transcripts of the interpreted renditions. Although the numbers of graders and graded renditions were small, the data indicates that interpreters and laypeople agree on the grading of intelligibility and informativeness in interpreted renditions.

This article explores how the interpreter professions in Sweden have been forged through different types of legislation and public actions. The study covers the period from 1971 to 2018 and investigates different public documents such as laws, bills, and special investigations in order to trace the development of the three interpreter professions, public service interpreting, sign language interpreting and conference interpreting. Document analysis and content analysis are used to frame how the term interpreter is conceptualised and used. Newspaper corpora and archives are used to explore how different types of interpreters are covered in media. Furthermore, the use, provision, remuneration, and education of interpreters in Sweden are investigated through the same documents. The study concludes that in a number of cases direct links can be found between the development of the profession and special investigations and legislation.

In this article, the performance of three simultaneous interpreters is studied. Excerpts of their performance at interpreting training and today are studied. Furthermore, their present day performance is compared with other experienced interpreters. It is assumed that the three interpreters may be possible experts according to the expertise theory (Ericsson, Charness & Hoffman 2007). However, the results in this study indicate that their development over time may not support the assumption that they are experts in the strictest sense of the theory.

This article discusses different aspects of research ethics, the researcher’s voice and discretionary power in interpreting studies. Research ethics is laid down in international conventions, which in turn are reflected in national regulations and ethical vetting. Discretionary power is understood as the leeway for making conscientious decisions within the rules and regulations governing a certain field. Although research ethics in interpreting has as yet received little scholarly attention, it is important that the field discusses aspects such as informed consent and the collection, analysis and reporting of data. This article uses three case studies to discuss how researchers can handle such ethical issues. Interpreting researchers often are or have been active interpreters, and this is yet another potential challenge for the field. Such duality potentially means that the researcher needs to navigate two ethical systems, that of the interpreter and that of the researcher – systems that may come into conflict with each other. It may also entail the risk of the researcher’s voice taking over the participants’ narrative.

This article discusses embodied cognition in dialogue interpreting. In the article, I adopt Muñoz Martín’s (2017) 4EA understanding of processes in interpreting as 1) embodied, 2) embedded, 3) enactive, 4) extended, and 5) affective. I argue that embodied cognition can be studied through the interpreter use of turn-taking and body language, among other things. I show through three examples how embodied cognition can be studied through gestures and gaze. The embodied cognition approach can be used as a tool to understand the co-construction of meaning (Wadensjö 1992) in an interpreter mediated talk. 

The volume includes contributions on the cognitive processes underlying translation and interpreting, which represent innovative research with a methodological and empirical orientation. The methodological section offers an assessment/validation of different time lag measures; discusses the challenges of interpreting keystroke and eye-tracking data in translation, and triangulating disfluency analysis and eye-tracking data in sight translation research. The remainder of the volume features empirical studies on such topics as: metaphor comprehension; audience perception in subtitling research; translation and meta-linguistic awareness; and effect of language-pair specific factors on interpreting quality. A special section is dedicated to expertise studies which look at the link between problem analysis and meta-knowledge in experienced translators; the effects of linguistic complexity on expert interpreting; and strategic processing and tacit knowledge in professional interpreting. The volume celebrates the work of Birgitta Englund Dimitrova and her contribution to the development of process-oriented research.

Language proficiency of dialogue interpreters, who typically work in the public service sector, is an under-researched area. Unlike as in the case of conference interpreters, there is no generally accepted definition of proficiency levels of working languages for dialogue interpreters. This article discusses language proficiency in dialogue interpreting. It presents a methodological problem, namely, how to define and determine a given interpreter’s stronger and weaker working languages. We discuss different methods for determining the individual interpreter’s stronger and weaker working languages, such as self-assessment, demographic, socio-linguistic questionnaire and test score (Dialang). We conclude that there is a need for more research in this area.

The chapter introduces the concept of monitoring in dialogue interpreting, and argues that it is central to understanding and learning dialogue interpreting. The chapter first outlines the epistemological and theoretical foundations of monitoring with a discussion of the distinctions between translation acts and translation events, proposed and discussed by Toury (2012), Chesterman (2015), and Muñoz (2016). Monitoring is then shortly discussed within the framework of distributed cognition. In the chapter, different theories of monitoring from Translation Studies, Speech Studies and theories of interaction, are explored, namely, Toury (1995/2012), Levelt (1983), Laver (1980), and Goodwin (1980). We discuss the monitoring concepts, exemplifying them with our own research data. We propose an understanding of monitoring as a cognitive process in dialogue interpreting, arguing that six different (sub)processes are monitored. We go through results from studies relating to monitoring in dialogue interpreting, and we also make the connection between monitoring and coordination clear. Finally, we argue that teaching students the concept of monitoring will contribute to developing their meta-cognitive awareness, which will be applied to the interpreting task. We end our chapter by giving examples of how monitoring can be taught in interpreting training.

This study addresses cognitive aspects of turn-taking and the role of experience in dialogue interpreting, by investigating the temporal and textual properties of the coupled turn (i.e. the original utterance and its interpretation). A comparison was made using a video-recorded scripted role-play between eight interpreters, with Swedish-French or Swedish-Spanish as working languages and with different levels of experience. Cognitively challenging long stretches of talk were introduced in both directions of the working languages and analyzed with a multi-modal approach. We identified a number of quantitative measures, such as the number of coupled turns and the time used. Furthermore, we qualitatively analyzed the types of renditions. The findings suggest that the mean length of time of the coupled turn, which we label processing span, is a measure that is not primarily related to interpreting experience but rather reflects the constraints of the interpreter’s working memory. A further finding is that the inexperienced interpreters have a higher percentage of reduced renditions than the experienced interpreters, and this difference is statistically significant.

This chapter will outline the main perspectives of the empirical study of competence and expertise in both translation and interpreting. We will cover such core issues as definitions and models of competence and expertise, the relationship between professionalism and expertise, and the multivariate nature of translation/interpreting expertise (cognitive vs. social), as well as the structure of deliberate practice in the field, the stages of competence/expertise acquisition, and how these stages can relate to training and professional experience. The chapter considers both exclusive and inclusive models of competence and seeks to critically link them to expertise. Furthermore, the chapter provides a survey of the methods employed to study the specific skills and knowledge included in these models. It will also consider areas that have received little attention to date in translation process research, namely, the role of selfregulation (motivation, metacognition, emotion regulation) in performance and in supporting deliberate practice. We conclude by outlining outstanding issues for further research as well as the implications of current research for the interpreting and translation professions.

This chapter describes situations of distress and the working climate of healthcare interpreters in Sweden. A questionnaire focused on distressful situations was administered to interpreters with experience in healthcare interpreting. The results indicated that distress in healthcare interpreting could be traced back to ethically and emotionally challenging interpreting situations and working conditions, and a lack of respect for the interpreters’ work. An interview study using Grounded Theory showed that interpreters’ main concern was the threat to professional and private integrity. Despite the fact that in general the interpreting profession in Sweden may seem professionalized, interpreters struggle with dilemmas connected to less professionalized activities. Our study was conducted in Sweden, but we argue that the results can be generalized to other countries. Although differently organized in different countries, health care interpreters experience similar dilemmas. Equal access to equitable care can be effectively hindered by language barriers.

The expertise approach (Ericsson 2008) has been used to explore the competence of translators and interpreters since the mid-1990s, and is now a well established sub-field in translation and interpreting process research (Jääskeläinen 2010). In the area of interpreting, Ivanova (1999), Liu (2001) and others have explored the expertise approach. The studies reported in this article follow up on this work, but go one step further and investigate both process and product. The aim of the two studies was to explore the differences in performance between interpreters with shorter and longer experience (possible experts). Participants (n = 9) with no, short or long experience interpreted the same speech and performed retrospection immediately after. The first study, dedicated to process, used Ivanova’s (1999) method for investigating the process. The second study, on product, let two groups, non-interpreters (n = 6) and interpreters (n = 6), rate the interpreting performances using Carroll’s (1966) scales for intelligibility and informativeness. It was found that the degree of experience influences the processing strategies used by interpreters and the types of problems they report. Experience also has an impact on how the product of experienced interpreters and that of less experienced interpreters is rated, both when rated by interpreters and by non-interpreters.

Previous studies have investigated the cognitive processes of simultaneous interpreting and translation using eye-tracking. No study has yet utilized eye-tracking to investigate cognitive load and cognitive effort in dialogue interpreting. An eye-tracking study was conducted on two groups of interpreters (experienced and inexperienced) with varying language backgrounds during a staged dialogue interpreting session. The aim of the study was to explore gaze patterns in dialogue interpreting in relation to the interpreters' action and translation direction. The results indicated there were differences in gaze patterns depending on the action and the language used. Participants averted gaze more when interpreting into the allophone language (the L2 for a majority of the participants in this study). This may indicate that interpreting into L2 in a dialogue may involve more cognitive effort than interpreting into L1. Finally, gaze patterns did not differ significantly between inexperienced and experienced dialogue interpreters.

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.