A Preliminary Study On The Quality Of Telephone Interpreting

Interpreting services are more common in today's communities,especially in those immigrant countries where government policies guarantee all citizens an equal access to social rights.Community-based interpreting plays a significant role in helping new immigrants overcome the language barrier and thus making their lives easier.As communities expand each day,the demand for community interpreting(CI) also increases.For those reasons amongst others,telephone interpreting(TI) came about and is widely used.TI can help people communicate wherever they are and whenever they want,because of its various advantages,such as being convenient,instant access and cost effectiveness.In China,TI has not been fully recognized by the majority of people.This paper depicts an overall picture of this new profession of interpreting,in hopes of arousing more interests and attracting potential users.Despite those advantages,the application of TI still encounters obstacles.Some traditional interpreting service users need time to accept this new form of interpreting. In addition,some users and even professionals are concerned about the quality of TI since the interpreter is not physically present.They wonder whether the message can be delivered completely and accurately.They also doubt if the communication process will be the same as with on-site interpreting.The Introduction part defines the theme of this thesis and explains the purpose and framework of the paper.There are all together four chapters.Chapter one provides background knowledge of TI.The interpreting studies(IS) world once focused on conference interpreting.Now it has shifted its attention to CI.The first part of this chapter illustrates the definition of CI,its scope,the causes behind its development,its professionalization,and the current status as well as an overview of the academic research.It also introduces two new trends that are worth noticing,one of which is the wider use of TI.The following part centers on what TI is and how it is developed.It provides an all-round introduction to its professional status and lists the problems of this new industry.There is also an overview of the previous studies on this subject.Chapter two discusses the communicative features of TI.It first introduces the basic concepts of communication theory.Then it lists the features of TI and analyzes its difficulties.Chapter three outlines the quality evaluation in TI.The concept of quality evaluation is explained in terms of its definition,perspectives,standards and methodologies.This chapter goes on to introduce the quality-related controversies on the use of TI.Based on these arguments,standards in TI are introduced to examine how the quality is affected and to what extent it is being affected.Finally,it proposes a preliminary study on the quality of TI.Chapter four attempts to evaluate the quality of TI by comparing it with on-site interpreting.An experiment is conducted in a medical setting where the first interpreting task was performed over the phone and the second on site.The results were analyzed according to the proposed standards.Also the limitations of the research were concluded.