Telephone interpreting: Understanding practice and identifying research needs

• Published in: The international journal of translation and interpreting research Vol. 3; no. 2; pp. 33 - 47
• Main Author: Ozolins, Uldis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sydney Western Sydney University 01.01.2011; University of Western Sydney
• Subjects: Economic development; Internet telephony; Practice; Technology application; Telephone interpreting; Translating and interpreting; Translating services; Australia
• ISSN: 1836-9324; 1836-9324

This paper looks at the fast growing but vastly under-researched area of telephone interpreting (henceforth TI), within the context of the radical changes in telephony in recent decades. It examines what has been established in our knowledge of the TI field and where further research is needed, both for technological issues but perhaps even more pertinently for practice issues. The scattered research effort so far has given us a patchy picture of TI, with inconsistent or uncertain findings on basic questions such as how interpreters and other participants coordinate discourse via telephone, or the use of first or third person, as well as more technical issues of the extent of use of mobile vs. fixed-line phones, or which set-ups of TI are most effective. The research effort is hampered by abiding stereotypes of TI as an inferior form of interpreting, and by the lack of a theoretical basis for further exploration. Suggestions are made for starting points methodologically and theoretically to address such shortcomings. Few areas of interpreting have seen the radical impact of technology as much as has telephone interpreting. From a generally small and somewhat marginalised part in overall language service provision, albeit important in emergency situations, TI has been the basis for the growth of some of the largest companies in the interpreting field, has crossed national boundaries to reveal truly global markets, and has witnessed a multiplicity of providers where previously a single provider in any country was the norm. As yet, research on this phenomenon, or serious theoretical or pedagogical analysis, has not kept pace with business advances in TI. This paper sets out some of the needed areas of research to fully comprehend this now global phenomenon of TI growth. It will also show that technological issues of telephony are intimately connected to issues of interpreting technique, ethics, and interpreter role.