Telephone interpreting — seen from the interpreters’ perspective

Telephone interpreting has been used widely in various community interpreting settings, but it has received little attention as a distinct area of interpreting in the growing body of interpreting studies. As telephone interpreting is being promoted for its convenience and for the greater availability of interpreters, this paper examines the perspective of telephone interpreters on their professional activity. Based on telephone surveys with Korean interpreters working in Australia, this paper investigates the profiles of the telephone interpreters in terms of age, gender, years of working experience, and employment type, as well as their professional practice and their opinions about telephone interpreting and the role of telephone interpreters.