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Tous droits réservés © Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2001 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ Document généré le 2 juin 2021 07:45 Meta Journal des traducteurs Translators' Journal Quality Assessment in Conference and Community Interpreting Franz Pöchhacker Évaluation : paramètres, méthodes, aspects pédagogiques / Evaluation: Parameters, Methods, Pedagogical Aspects Volume 46, numéro 2, juin 2001 URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/003847ar DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/003847ar Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal ISSN 0026-0452 (imprimé) 1492-1421 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer cet article Pöchhacker, F. (2001). Quality Assessment in Conference and Community Interpreting. Meta, 46(2), 410–425. https://doi.org/10.7202/003847ar Résumé de l'article L'interprétation peut et devrait être placée dans un champ conceptuel qui comprend des sphères d'interaction allant de l'international à l'intrasocial. La bonne qualité du travail de l'interprète doit être garantie dans tous les domaines professionnels. Partant de ces hypothèses, cet article résume le panorama de la recherche actuelle en interprétation ciblée sur les instruments conceptuels et méthodologiques pour évaluer et étudier de façon empirique la qualité d'une prestation. Se fondant sur un compte rendu sélectif des approches d'investigation et des résultats concernant les différentes composantes de la qualité et les types d'interprétation, l'auteur constate qu'il existe une base commune assez solide pour encourager un dialogue enrichissant entre les recherches sur l'évaluation de la qualité réalisées dans les différents domaines de la gamme typologique de l'activité d'interprétation. 410 Meta, XLVI, 2, 2001 Quality Assessment in Conference and Community Interpreting franz pöchhacker University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria RÉSUMÉ L’interprétation peut et devrait être placée dans un champ conceptuel qui comprend des sphères d’interaction allant de l’international à l’intrasocial. La bonne qualité du travail de l’interprète doit être garantie dans tous les domaines professionnels. Partant de ces hypothèses, cet article résume le panorama de la recherche actuelle en interprétation ciblée sur les instruments conceptuels et méthodologiques pour évaluer et étudier de façon empirique la qualité d’une prestation. Se fondant sur un compte rendu sélectif des approches d’investigation et des résultats concernant les différentes composantes de la qualité et les types d’interprétation, l’auteur constate qu’il existe une base commune assez solide pour encourager un dialogue enrichissant entre les recherches sur l’évalua- tion de la qualité réalisées dans les différents domaines de la gamme typologique de l’activité d’interprétation. ABSTRACT On the assumption that interpreting can and should be viewed within a conceptual spec- trum from international to intra-social spheres of interaction, and that high standards of quality need to be ensured in any of its professional domains, the paper surveys the state of the art in interpreting studies in search of conceptual and methodological tools for the empirical study and assessment of quality. Based on a selective review of research ap- proaches and findings for various aspects of quality and types of interpreting, it is argued that there is enough common ground to hope for some cross-fertilization between re- search on quality assessment in different areas along the typological spectrum of inter- preting activity. MOTS-CLÉS/KEYWORDS quality assessment, conference interpreting, community interpreting, empirical studies, quality standards 1. INTRODUCTION In the closing session of the First BABELEA Conference on Community Interpreting, held in Vienna in early November 1999, Rocco Tanzilli, the head of the European Commission’s Joint Interpreting and Conference Service, addressed the concerns of community interpreting professionals and researchers by demanding high quality standards for any type of interpreting activity, in short: “quality across the board.” Since quality assurance implies some form of quality assessment, and the latter in turn requires a sound conceptual and methodological foundation, the present paper is intended as a survey of the state of the art in interpreting studies with regard to the issue of quality and its assessment. Preparing the ground for this undertaking, I will first discuss the notion of ‘qual- ity’ as well as the criteria and standards by which quality is to be assessed. The main Meta, XLVI, 2, 2001 part of this paper will then be devoted to a review of research approaches and findings for various aspects of quality and types of interpreting. Rather than give a comprehen- sive review of all and any quality-related research, the scope of the paper is limited to an overview of various methodological approaches with reference to some exem- plary studies. On that basis, I will attempt to show whether and to what extent qual- ity-related research on interpreting might benefit from cross-typological links so as to both strengthen the common ground of research on interpreting quality and highlight the specific quality features of particular domains of the profession. 2. CONCEPTUAL ISSUES On the assumption, shared by a growing number of scholars in the interpreting studies community, that there is something to gain by taking a comprehensive, unifying view on interpreting before focusing on a particular domain for specific investigations, I will define ‘interpreting’ as a conceptual spectrum of different (proto)types of activ- ity. Notwithstanding the use of established terms in the title and the rest of this paper, it is important to stress that ‘conference interpreting’ and ‘community inter- preting’ are understood not in terms of a dichotomy but as different areas along a spectrum which ranges from interpreting in an international sphere of interaction, among representatives of entities based in different ‘national’ or multi-national envi- ronments, to interpreting within an institution of a particular society or social com- munity, between individuals and representatives of that institution. A bird’s-eye view of the interpreting profession today—and of research on quality- related issues—yields a very uneven picture. While a considerable amount of work has been done on quality in conference or simultaneous interpreting, interpreting quality in intra-social settings has received only sporadic scholarly attention. I will therefore take advantage mainly of the literature on quality in conference interpret- ing (e.g. Gile 1991, Moser-Mercer 1996, Shlesinger 1997, Kahane 2000) for a sketch of the basic assumptions and insights regarding assessment perspectives and quality criteria which can be applied along the entire spectrum of interpreting activity. 2.1. Perspectives on Quality When empirical research on quality criteria in conference interpreting came under way in the late 1980s, a distinction was made between quality assessment from the perspective of interpreters themselves as opposed to quality as ‘viewed’ by the listen- ers (‘users’). As reviewed by Kurz (in this volume), the study of user expectations developed into a very productive line of research which has pointed to some variabil- ity in the quality expectations of different user groups as well as to discrepancies in the attitudes of participants in the role of listener (target-text receiver) and speaker (source-text producer). Gile (1991) modeled the “communication configuration” as including not only the interpreter and the users in the roles of “Sender” and “Receiver” but also the position of the “Client” or employer who commissions and pays for the interpreter’s services. Other authors have added to the range of potential assessors of interpreting quality: the interpreter’s colleague(s), associates or representatives of the client or users as well as persons with an analytical or research interest (cf. Pöchhacker 1994: quality assessment in conference and community interpreting 411 412 Meta, XLVI, 2, 2001 123, Moser-Mercer 1996: 46). The last-mentioned category is used by Viezzi (1996: 12) for a more general distinction between the perspectives of the interpreters and the users (listeners, speakers) as discussed above, and the perspective of the ‘external observer’ who takes a research approach to interpreting and is interested in measur- ing ‘objective’ features of the textual product. Since it is equally possible, of course, to try and ‘measure’ subjective attitudes and judgements, it may be helpful to try and model the relationships between the various positions and perspectives as depicted in Figure 1: The core constellation of interactants directly involved in the communicative event of text production/reception is depicted (within a rectancle) as the triad made up of the interpreter (INT.), the speaker (ST-P) and the listener (TT-R). The roles of Client (employer) and Colleague (fellow interpreter/team member) appear as addi- tional positions from which the quality of interpreting can be assessed. Beyond summarizing the multiple perspectives on quality, Figure 1 is meant to highlight two important analytical distinctions underlying the study of quality in interpreting. Firstly, the ‘external observer’ may investigate the various actors’ atti- tudes, needs and views (‘norms’) either “off-site,” with regard to an abstract (hypo- thetical or previously experienced) interpreting event or with reference to a concrete communicative event in a given communication situation. The latter implies a more direct access by the researcher to the communicative event, which is represented in Figure 1 by the broken rather than continuous line separating the researcher from the constellation of interactants and also uploads/Philosophie/ quality-assessment-in-conference-and-community-interpreting-franz-poechhacker.pdf