Study 3 - Practitioners’ views on the accreditation of conference interpreters working with International Sign
In my third study of my PhD I collect and analyze the perspectives of practitioners on the accreditation and training of conference interpreters working with International Sign. At the WASLI online conference on 10 July 2021, I presented the preliminary findings of the study. On 28 February 2023 the results were published in a journal article.
Wit, M. de, Crasborn, O. & Napier, J. (2023). Quality assurance in international sign conference interpreting at international organisations. The International Journal of Translation and Interpreting Research. Vol. 15(1), pp. 74-97
> Open access article
Abstract
Quality assurance (QA) in conference interpreting is considered essential among international organisations1 and interpreting practitioners (Pöchhacker, 1994). The need for QA resulted in the establishment of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) and the development of university degree programmes in conference interpreting in spoken languages worldwide (Seeber, 2021). International organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union (EU) work closely with universities worldwide to ensure that interpreters are trained and assessed in line with their requirements. Sign language conference interpreters working with International Sign (IS) do not have equivalent opportunities to be trained and assessed as their spoken language colleagues, with whom they work for international organisations. Therefore, to assure that those who deliver IS conference interpretation services are up to quality standards, the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) and the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI) established an accreditation system for IS interpreters in 2015. As of June 2021, thirty IS interpreters had obtained the corresponding accreditation. In this article we examine the 2021 QA system for IS conference interpreters and present findings from our 2019 global survey of the perspectives of IS conference interpreters (de Wit et al., 2021) in combination with a follow-up study on practitioners’ training and accreditation needs. The results indicate that there is a demand for formal professional training programmes that focus on interpreting IS in conference settings and a need to enhance the current accreditation system.
Abstract presentation WASLI online conference
10 July 2021
In my third study of my PhD I collect and analyze the perspectives of practitioners on the accreditation and training of conference interpreters working with International Sign. At the WASLI online conference on 10 July 2021, I presented the preliminary findings of the study.
Practitioners’ views on the accreditation of conference interpreters working with International Sign
The past decade has seen a growing demand for International Sign (IS) conference interpreters (EUD, 2013; SCIC, 2021; Wit et al., 2021; Wit & Sluis, 2016). To help meet this demand while assuring that those who deliver IS conference interpretation services are up to standard, WFD and WASLI established an accreditation system for IS interpreters in 2015. Since then, thirty IS interpreters have obtained the corresponding accreditation. There are, however, many more interpreters working with IS. In a first global study carried out in 2019, a total of ninety interpreters reported that they sometimes or regularly work with IS at conferences (Wit et al., 2021). The same study found that practitioners experience that the number of demands for their services varies widely, depending, for instance, on the region they are based in and their language combination. The survey results show that practitioners are mostly aware of the accreditation system and suggest the need for corresponding training.
This talk presents a follow-up study in which eleven IS conference interpreters, accredited and non-accredited, were interviewed about their views on the accreditation and training of conference interpreters working with IS. The interviews were recorded and annotated with the use of the ELAN software and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The interviewees provide suggestions regarding the WFD-WASLI accreditation system, such as defining which settings require the use of accredited interpreters and raising awareness of the relevance of accreditation. This presentation will also share some practitioners’ thoughts on what they experience as contradicting views on IS interpretation services and accreditation.
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PhD research by Maya de Wit