Customer Analysis In Interpreting Quality Assessment

Under global market economy, interpreting is turning into a service sector, which calls for a new perspective for its quality assessment."Customers", as major quality judges, deserve ample attention and careful analysis. Interpreters have to adapt to the dynamic criteria of their customers in order to satisfy them and built mutual trust with them for future work opportunities.The thesis starts with an introduction of the framework and main ideas, followed by five chapters of elaboration.Chapter One reviews the history of interpreting quality assessment. The interest of quality assessment research shifts from a"lexico-semantic core"(faithful reproduction) to the social-pragmatic sphere of interaction (successful communication) as the orientation of interpretation moves towards a customer service. The early criteria of AIIC, functionalists and Nida reflect a static view of interpreting quality, while the major concerns of this thesis are dynamic assessment, customers'satisfaction and instrumental quality of interpreting.Chapter Two focuses on the need to satisfy customers in interpreting. The importance of customers is represented in their power to decide interpreting quality and interpreter's future work opportunities. In this chapter, game theory is employed to prove that"proactive"interpreters can bring higher payoffs to both customers and themselves than"self-serving"ones. The author views the interpreting quality assessment in a new perspective that it is necessary to give each participant a role to play in quality judgment.Chapter Three tries to categorize different types of customers. The argument that different types of customers have diversified criteria and special requirements is supported by two empirical studies carried by the author on October 2005 and February 2006 in an American company APC. Along with the data from Ingrid Kurz...