Esther de Boe

Impact of Context on Community Interpreting Research, Practice & Training

Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies, Dec 13, 2021

Although the notion of context is omnipresent in research in interpreting studies (IS), especiall... more Although the notion of context is omnipresent in research in interpreting studies (IS), especially in community settings, and defines the ways in which interpreting is being practised, researched and trained, it has not yet been recognized or defined as a topic in its own right, at least not within IS. Starting from some theoretical notions on the concept of context, this article moves on to discuss different levels of context, namely, geographical, socio-institutional and interactional. By means of examples from a variety of settings in community interpreting (CI), it shows how the different levels of context interact, and, in these ways, have an impact on CI practice, research and training.

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About the need for micro-analytical investigations in remote dialogue interpreting

Routledge eBooks, Jul 14, 2023

Synchronization of interaction in healthcare interpreting by video link and telephone

Routledge eBooks, Jul 14, 2023

Interactional Dynamics in Remote Interpreting

Routledge eBooks, Jul 14, 2023

NG, Eva N. S. & CREZEE, Ineke H. M. Interpreting in Legal and Healthcare Settings: Perspectives on research and training. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins, 2020, 351 pp., ISBN 978-90-272-0504-9

Hikma, Dec 23, 2022

Eva Ng and Ineke Crezee provide a snapshot of current research in these prominent subdomains of c... more Eva Ng and Ineke Crezee provide a snapshot of current research in these prominent subdomains of community interpreting (CI), also known as public service interpreting. The papers present research from a variety of countries ranging from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Macedonia, to Spain, with a relatively strong representation from the latter country (five out of thirteen contributions). Since the 1990s, CI has emerged as a research domain within Interpreting Studies. Until that time, researchers had focused primarily on conference interpreting, particularly on the practice of simultaneous interpreting. Whereas early studies were experimental and conducted from a psychological perspective (e.g., Gerver, 1975), the foundations of empirical research on interpreting as a linguistic and cognitive communicative process were laid by Kade (1968), Chernov (1979/2002), Seleskovitch and Lederer (1989), and later consolidated by Gile (1995), Kurz (1996) and Moser-Mercer (1996), to name but a few researchers. As a result of the social turn (Pöchhacker, 2016) as well as of immigration flows in most western European countries, leading to a growing need for community interpreters, CI research gained importance. More recently, the groundbreaking works by Wadensjö (1998) and Mason (2001), both of whom understood interpreting as a timeand context-bound interactional process, determined the basis for current CI research. Today, research on CI still continues to expand, with settings under investigation becoming increasingly diverse, as demonstrated by the emergence of studies on non-professional interpreting (Antonini et al., 2017) such as child language brokering (Antonini, 2015), as well as highly specialised contexts, for example, faith-related interpreting and interpreting in war and conflict zones (Tipton & Furmanek, 2016). In spite of this growing fragmentation of contexts (De Boe et al., 2021), there are just two main headings under which the varied settings can be classified, as exemplified by this edited volume: legal interpreting and healthcare interpreting. The distinction between the two domains under investigation is maintained throughout the book, which is divided into two parts, each dedicated to either domain. Although this makes the work well organised and transparent, at the same time, it seems a missed opportunity for looking into possible overlaps

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Chapter 3. Remote interpreting in dialogic settings

Benjamins translation library, Jan 15, 2020

Working to the same end? Mapping the co-construction of clinical empathy in interpretermediated consultations on bad news delivery

Remote interpreting in dialogic settings: a methodological framework for investigating the impact of telephone and video interpreting on quality in healthcare interpreting

Remote Healthcare Interpreting: a methodology to investigate quality

Remote interpreting in healthcare settings : a comparative study on the influence of telephone and video link use on the quality of interpreter-mediated communication

NG, Eva N. S. & CREZEE, Ineke H. M. Interpreting in Legal and Healthcare Settings: Perspectives on research and training. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins, 2020, 351 pp., ISBN 978-90-272-0504-9

Hikma

Eva Ng and Ineke Crezee provide a snapshot of current research in these prominent subdomains of c... more Eva Ng and Ineke Crezee provide a snapshot of current research in these prominent subdomains of community interpreting (CI), also known as public service interpreting. The papers present research from a variety of countries ranging from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Macedonia, to Spain, with a relatively strong representation from the latter country (five out of thirteen contributions). Since the 1990s, CI has emerged as a research domain within Interpreting Studies. Until that time, researchers had focused primarily on conference interpreting, particularly on the practice of simultaneous interpreting. Whereas early studies were experimental and conducted from a psychological perspective (e.g., Gerver, 1975), the foundations of empirical research on interpreting as a linguistic and cognitive communicative process were laid by Kade (1968), Chernov (1979/2002), Seleskovitch and Lederer (1989), and later consolidated by Gile (1995), Kurz (1996) and Moser-Mercer (1996), to name but a few researchers. As a result of the social turn (Pöchhacker, 2016) as well as of immigration flows in most western European countries, leading to a growing need for community interpreters, CI research gained importance. More recently, the groundbreaking works by Wadensjö (1998) and Mason (2001), both of whom understood interpreting as a timeand context-bound interactional process, determined the basis for current CI research. Today, research on CI still continues to expand, with settings under investigation becoming increasingly diverse, as demonstrated by the emergence of studies on non-professional interpreting (Antonini et al., 2017) such as child language brokering (Antonini, 2015), as well as highly specialised contexts, for example, faith-related interpreting and interpreting in war and conflict zones (Tipton & Furmanek, 2016). In spite of this growing fragmentation of contexts (De Boe et al., 2021), there are just two main headings under which the varied settings can be classified, as exemplified by this edited volume: legal interpreting and healthcare interpreting. The distinction between the two domains under investigation is maintained throughout the book, which is divided into two parts, each dedicated to either domain. Although this makes the work well organised and transparent, at the same time, it seems a missed opportunity for looking into possible overlaps

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Interview with sign language interpreter and trainer Maya de Witt

PhD Thesis_REMOTE INTERPRETING IN HEALTHCARE SETTINGS: A comparative study on the influence of telephone and video link use on the quality of interpreter-mediated communication

(Video) Remote Interpreting in medical healthcare. A comparative study on the influence of the use of telephone and videolink on interpreting quality

Interpreting : a methodology to investigate quality

In consonance with our digital era, healthcare interpreting services are increasingly embracing t... more In consonance with our digital era, healthcare interpreting services are increasingly embracing technology. Research on remote public service interpreting indicates that the use of technology adds up to the already complex character of interpreter-mediated communication. Yet, in healthcare settings, little is known about the exact impact of the remote conditions on communication quality. The present explorative study provides a methodological framework to compare two types of remote interpreting (telephone interpreting and video interpreting) with face-to-to face interpreting. Its preliminary findings suggest that there were few differences at the level of message equivalence across the three conditions. However, changes in the interactional dynamics, partly resulting from the remote conditions, did impact on the effectiveness of the communication.

Investigating dialogue interpreting : current advances and research methods

3rd International Conference on Translation, Interpreting and Cognition (ICTIC 3), Abstracts, 2021

Ever since Wadensjö's (1998) landmark study, there has been a growing interest in the interac... more Ever since Wadensjö's (1998) landmark study, there has been a growing interest in the interactive nature of dialogue interpreting as a joint activity embedded in a specific communicative situation. Detailed analyses and observations of actual interpreter-mediated exchanges have shown that interpreters in dialogic settings are faced not only with the cognitively demanding task of listening, processing and translating the ongoing talk, but also with the added negotiation of role, turn management and general monitoring of the unfolding of the exchange (Mason 1999:i). More recently, research on dialogue interpreting has witnessed a 'multimodal turn', showing that dialogue interpreting does not just consist of verbal communication, but is conducted through an interplay of diverse multimodal resources (speech, gesture, gaze, etc.) (Davitti 2018). However, multimodal approaches to dialogue interpreting have been hampered by problems in data collection, issues of obtrusiveness and problems in capturing details of the visual behavior (such as gaze direction) from all participants. In contrast to the domain of conference interpreting, which has attracted considerable interest of neighbouring disciplines, such as (psycho)linguistics, cognitive sciences and neuropsychology, research on dialogue interpreting has known less methodological innovation. However, recent studies (e.g. Englund Dimitrova & Tiselius 2016; Davitti 2018; Vranjes et al. 2018; De Boe 2020; Tiselius & Sneed 2020) illustrate the potential of experimental approaches and novel research methods (such as eye-tracking) in the investigation of dialogue interpreting. In this panel we want to gather researchers focusing on the following two aspects of dialogue interpreting research: (i) Understanding embodiment in dialogue interpreting Empirical research has shown that dialogue interpreting is a complex, multimodal activity conducted through both verbal and embodied behavior. Which visual resources do interpreters resort to in dialogue interpreting? What is the relationship between different multimodal resources? What can a multimodal approach teach us about the interactive and cognitive processes involved in dialogue interpreting? (ii) Advancing multimodal methods Collecting multimodal data, analysing and interpreting embodied behaviour is a (technological) challenge, especially in interactional settings. Can state-of-the art data capturing tools (such as unobtrusive mobile eye-tracking) and mixed-methods approaches help to make sense of the complex nature of dialogue interpreting as a socio-cognitive process? What are the possibilities, challenges and restrictions of those developments

Management of overlapping speech in remote healthcare interpreting

The Interpreter's Newsletter, 2021

Dialogue interpreting is a highly complex interactional process that requires close coordination ... more Dialogue interpreting is a highly complex interactional process that requires close coordination of linguistic content and embodied semiotic resources between the participants. Such coordination greatly depends on how participants relate to the “ecology of action” (Mondada 2016), i.e. their immediate environment. In remote interpreting (RI), the reduced visual access or lack hereof makes that not all participants share the same visual ecology. This compromises the efficiency of using embodied resources such as gaze and gesture in turn-taking. As a result, common interactional issues, such as overlapping speech, can disrupt the communication and may even lead to communication breakdown (De Boe 2020). Yet, the ways in which turn-taking is managed multimodally in RI remains underexplored. Therefore, this paper investigates the effect of overlapping speech on the progressivity of the communication in face-to-face interpreting, telephone interpreting and video interpreting in three simul...

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Interactional dynamics in remote dialogue interpreting

by Esther de Boe and Jelena Vranjes

17th International Pragmatics Conference, Abstracts, 2021

In a short time, technology has profoundly changed the ways in which we communicate. Especially s... more In a short time, technology has profoundly changed the ways in which we communicate. Especially since the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis, remote communication has seen a massive increase in all contexts. In dialogue interpreting settings, the use of remote interpreting (RI) by telephone and video link increases accessibility of public services to non-native speakers. Assessing its efficiency is therefore essential to ensure inclusion of all citizens. When communication is mediated by an interpreter by means of RI, this adds up to the already complex character of the communicative event. Since the interpreter takes a turn at talk after each primary participant’s turn, interactional issues, such as overlapping speech, are likely to have an even stronger disruptive effect on the communication than is the case in monolingual events. Evidence-based research on RI indicates that such disruptions are primarily related to the reduced possibility for synchronization of interaction (Wadensjö, 1999). Recent research focusing specifically on interaction management (Davitti, 2018; De Boe, 2020; Vranjes & Brône, 2020) suggests that in remote dialogue interpreting, smoothness of interaction is affected. This is mostly due to reduced visual access, which impinges on the use of nonverbal resources (such as gaze and gesture) to manage the conversational flow. These outcomes call for a more granular, micro-analytical investigation of the ways in which interaction management is accomplished in RI. Since smoothness is a decisive factor in participants’ satisfaction with communication, it is of vital importance to further investigate which factors contribute to realising fluent interaction management, as well as the role of visual access in these dynamics. Therefore, this panel invites evidence-based research contributions aimed at examining interaction management (turn transitions, negotiation of meaning, repair, backchannelling behaviour, a.o.) in RI by telephone and video link. We strongly encourage micro-analytical approaches, based on data derived from authentic as well as experimental settings (including simulations and eye-tracking experiments), in various contexts of spoken language remote dialogue interpreting. In sum, empirically grounded insights from these studies will make a contribution to the burgeoning research on the complex conversational dynamics of remote dialogue interpreting. References: Davitti, E. (2018). Methodological explorations of interpreter-mediated interaction: novel insights from multimodal analysis. SAGE Publications Qualitative Research. Special Issue: Multimodality: Methodological Explorations. De Boe, E. (2020). Remote interpreting in healthcare settings: A comparative study on the influence of telephone and video link use on the quality of interpreter-mediated communication. Unpublished PhD thesis. Antwerp: University of Antwerp. Retrieved from https://repository.uantwerpen.be/docstore/d:irua:535 Vranjes, J., & Brône, G (2020). Eye-tracking in interpreter-mediated talk: From research to practice in H. Salaets & Brône, G. (eds.), Linking up with video: Perspectives on interpreting practice and research (pp. 203–233). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wadensjö, C. (1999). Telephone interpreting and the synchronization of talk in social interaction. The Translator, 5(2), 247–264

Interview with sign language interpreter andtrainer Maya de Wit

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Impact of Context on Community Interpreting Research, Practice & Training

Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies, 2021

Although the notion of context is omnipresent in research in interpreting studies (IS), especiall... more Although the notion of context is omnipresent in research in interpreting studies (IS), especially in community settings, and defines the ways in which interpreting is being practised, researched and trained, it has not yet been recognized or defined as a topic in its own right, at least not within IS. Starting from some theoretical notions on the concept of context, this article moves on to discuss different levels of context, namely, geographical, socio-institutional and interactional. By means of examples from a variety of settings in community interpreting (CI), it shows how the different levels of context interact, and, in these ways, have an impact on CI practice, research and training.

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Papers by Esther de Boe

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