Interpreting Solo at An International Conferences—A Case Study
This aim of this case study was to investigate the issues related to the experience of interpreting simultaneously in English and Mandarin Chinese alone at an international conference in Taiwan. This study is significant because simultaneous interpreters usually work in pairs for each language due to the stressful nature of the job, but most interpreters have heard of, or seen, some individuals who had interpreted alone at a conference or have done it themselves, but hardly any research has investigated the implications of interpreting solo simultaneously. This existing case study is expected to bridge the gap. The major participants consisted of a translation agency owner, the organizer of the conference that I interpreted for, a student from a local graduate institute of translation and interpretation, a conference interpreter in Buenos Aires, and me; I served as a participant observer researcher. Qualitative research methods have been used to collect and analyze the data. The results of the study show that interpreting alone at an international conference is possible but extremely difficult. In addition, it may significantly reduce the interpretation quality due to fatigue, it may be extremely detrimental to the interpreters heath, and it has violated professional ethics, so it should be avoided. Contrarily, solo interpreters have to prepare for all the speakers, can become more familiar with the main threads of the conference, and can interpret better and better as the conference proceeds.
conference interpreting preparing to interpret at a conference summarizing simultaneous interpretation health risks interpreter training
Sheng-Jie Chen
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
国际会议
2009 International Conference on Applied Linguistics & Language Teaching(2009应用语言学暨语言教学国际研讨会)
台湾
英文
459-469
2009-04-01（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）