Community Interpreting Comes of Age

Holly Mikkelson

Community interpreting is rapidly maturing, as evidenced by the third conference of Critical Link (http://www.criticallink.org/), an international organization founded to promote the profession. The conferences are held every three years, attracting interpreters, interpreter coordinators, policy makers and scholars from all over the world. This year's event was held May 22-26 in Montreal, a beautiful and historic city known for its concern for language rights. The theme was "Interpreting in the Community: The Complexity of the Profession," and the logo depicted an acrobat or dancer flexing her body.

This year's conference featured a different keynote speaker on each of four days, in addition to several pre-conference workshops that were more practical in nature. The topics of the keynote addresses give an idea of the scope of the conference: 1) "Interpreting Indigenous Languages: Practices and Principles" by Marco Fiola, a Canadian interpreter working on a PhD at the Sorbonne; 2) "Dialogue Interpreting and Ethics: On the Impact of Communicative Genres" by Cecilia Wadensjö, a Swedish scholar who specializes in the linguistics of interpreting; 3) "Sign-Language Interpreting: An Integrating Factor for the Deaf; Related Issues and Training" by Philippe Séro-Guillaume, a French sign-language interpreter who teaches at the Sorbonne; and 4) "Community Interpreting Comes of Age: Growing Pains and Triumphs," which I presented. This conference, like the first two Critical Link events and unlike many other such gatherings, brought together sign- and spoken-language interpreters and scholars for fruitful discussions, a welcome development that injects new energy into all of our work.

Many thorny issues in community interpreting were aired openly and debated vigorously both at educational sessions and informal social gatherings. These include telephone interpreting, certification programs, standard-setting efforts, working conditions, payment of interpreters, and the interpreter as cultural broker. Interpreter trainers presented their curricula and discussed the difficulties of providing quality training to multilingual student bodies with limited administrative support and budgets. Those who train judges, doctors and other professionals in working with interpreters also shared their ideas.

One of the most interesting presentations was a round table discussion called "The Evidence for Health Care Interpreting," in which researchers described studies they and other scholars are carrying out to examine the consequences of poor quality interpreting in the medical setting: costs are higher in the long run when patients are not provided with professional interpreting services, because patient dissatisfaction and misunderstanding lead to poor compliance and follow-up. The hypothesis is that it costs more later to treat these patients when they ultimately develop more serious conditions. Documenting these higher costs will bolster efforts to ensure that health care facilities provide trained, professional interpreters for their patients. (Similar studies in the legal sphere might achieve similar results.)

In the area of judiciary interpreting, Erik Hertog and colleagues involved in the Grotius Programme reported on efforts to set standards for interpreters throughout the European Union. Sarah de Mas shared the work she is doing in the Fair Trials Abroad project to educate the legal profession in Europe about the importance of quality interpretation. Court interpreters in Malaysia, Japan, Australia, Canada, the United States (Yrma Villarreal of Chicago), Denmark, and Israel reported on trends in their countries. And several interpreters from international courts gave presentations on the work they do; Dr. Christiane Driesen, chair of the AIIC Court Interpreting Committee, presented a paper on the similarities and differences of interpreters' work in national and international courts and tribunals.

The proceedings of this conference will be published by John Benjamins. The next Critical Link conference will be held in Stockholm in 2004. Mark your calendars, and start saving--it should be a good one.