The difficult task of gathering information on PSI&T

This increasingly more plural and changing society demands resources that allow communication between those arriving and those who are already there. Such a situation has been occurring since time immemorial, but since the last decades of the twentieth century it has accelerated and reached other countries where until now this phenomenon was unknown, such as the southern and eastern countries members of the EU.<p>In the article some research about those needs and solutions within the specific field of public service interpreting and translating (PSIT) and from three different perspectives (the scholar and researcher’s; the intermediary’s; and the service provider’s) are presented. These three perspectives are complementary, but for the sake of clarity and given the difficulty and lack of information and resources available in some language combinations, as well as the intricacies of the role played by the translator and interpreter (Tr&In) in these environments, I will structure the article in this way. The main focus will be on Spain, one of the EU countries where the phenomenon of migration has reached the highest level.