Status and profession(alization) of conference interpreters

The aim of this chapter is twofold: first, it seeks to provide an overview of the conceptualizations of status and professional identity in the conference interpreting profession. Second, it will illustrate the way in which conference interpreters’ self-perception of status has changed over the years and the main challenges the profession will have to face in the future to achieve full professionalization. A review of the existing literature on status and professional identity has revealed that a large and growing body of literature in T&I studies has focused mostly on the status of translators (Katan, 2011; Pym, Sfreddo, Chan, & Grin, 2013; Koskinen & Dam, 2016) and on community interpreters’ role and identity (Angelelli, 2004; Rudvin, 2015). However, little attention has been paid to the status of conference interpreters, who have often been said to enjoy higher prestige. On the contrary, the research by Dam and Zethsen (2013) comparing Danish EU staff interpreters’ and translators’ self-perception of status, showed that conference interpreters did not appear to have a high consideration of their profession and that did not believe to enjoy a high social prestige. The doctoral study by Gentile (2016) who compared the self-perceived status of conference and community interpreters worldwide, confirmed the result obtained by Dam and Zethsen. The results of the 805 responses given by conference interpreters showed that the profession today is still fraught with contradictions: fierce competition, the dumping of fees, rapid technological changes, the increasing use of English as a lingua franca and a complex labour market have influenced the way in which interpreters perceive their professional status. Conference interpreters not only have the impression that their status has decreased over the years, but that their professional identity is becoming increasingly varied and blurred, as they carry out several tasks that go beyond the mere act of interpreting. The first part of this chapter will analyse the concepts of status, identity and profession in relation to the results obtained from the studies on conference interpreters’ perception of status and professional identity (Dam and Zethsen 2013; Gentile 2016). The second section will scrutinise some of the external changes and challenges of the profession discussed by interpreters in the questionnaire answers: AIIC’s loss of professional monopoly, the ever-growing presence of ELF and the rapid technological developments of the 21st century.