The Interpreters' Newsletter, n. 23/2018

Issue 23 of The Interpreters’ Newsletter contains seven papers covering various topics on mainly Dialogue Interpreting and encompass telephone interpreting; the use of comparable corpora in research or training; and interpreter training. Telephone interpreting is the focus of Simo K. Määttä’s contribution. Using authentic telephone-interpreting data, he analyses the accuracy of interpretation in an interview conducted by a Finnish law-enforcement officer and a migrant using French as a lingua franca. He explores choices made by the interpreter by merging critical discourse analysis, critical sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, and systemic-functional linguistics. A second paper on telephone interpreting (TI) is offered by Emilia Iglesias Fernández and Marc Ouellet. In their opinion, although TI is a long-established practice, official formal training in it is not at all homogeneous. Through an exploratory survey they have adopted a comparative approach to the acquisition of competences by TIs of varying levels of expertise (novices, advanced and seasoned interpreters), as well as the identification of cultural differences, by comparing TI practitioners from two different geographical backgrounds: Sweden and Spain. A paper related to the European Research Project: SHaping the Interpreters of the Future and of Today: SHIFT in Orality is presented by Nicoletta Spinolo, Michela Bertozzi and Mariachiara Russo. Through their involvement in remote interpreting, specifically telephone interpreting and videoconferencing they outline the main features of the project and offer some preliminary results of the analysis of turn management in telephone interpreting between Spanish-Italian in service/tourism and English-Spanish in legal/police settings. Interpretation in conflict zones is a growing necessity to which far less scholarly attention has been paid compared to other forms of interpreting. Anjad A. Mahasneh and Mohammed M. Obeidat discuss the need for a revised, less European-centred, training model for conflict zone interpreters, based on their findings after interviewing interpreters working for non-governmental organizations which provide humanitarian services for refugees in Jordan. Eugenia Dal Fovo’s contribution on “The use of dialogue interpreting corpora in healthcare interpreter training” presents a model for the teaching of dialogue interpreting (DI) in healthcare settings. The aim of the model is to help students to integrate within the dialogic interaction first observing real-life interpreters in action and then discussing the solutions adopted. The application of the model proved useful for understanding the multiple facets of real-life interpreter-mediated healthcare interaction. Data drawn from comparable and parallel interpreting corpora have led Bart Defrancq to question the concept of comparability in corpus-based Interpreting Studies. He argues that the fact that groups (discourse communities) generating the oral data share the same work environment could lead to the individuals involved linguistically influencing one another as is the case of the European Parliament (EP), where most of the interpreted corpus data come from. To investigate the potential linguistic convergence that is likely to result from this mutual influence, both a theoretical and an empirical approach were taken. The use of comparable corpora in interpreting practice and training is the topic presented by Claudio Fantinuoli, who discusses how it can be used to assist terminology research and knowledge acquisition during advance preparation for both professional and trainee interpreters. Information is provided on software tools and on-line resources available highlighting their advantages and disadvantages.