“It keeps me on my toes”: Interpreters’ perceptions of challenges in telephone interpreting and their coping strategies

Jihong Wang

The University of Queensland

This article reports on the findings of a questionnaire survey of 465 telephone interpreters in Australia, focusing on what they liked and disliked about telephone interpreting, their perceptions of challenges in telephone interpreting, and their coping strategies. Just over half of the respondents liked working as telephone interpreters. Results also show that interpreters identified many favourable and unfavourable aspects of telephone interpreting. A key finding is that interpreters perceived many comprehension-related challenges (e.g., poor sound quality, a lack of non-verbal information), communication-related challenges (e.g., overlapping speech), and other challenges in telephone interpreting (e.g., low remuneration, casual employment, work-related stress). Importantly, interpreters adopted various coping strategies, including using high-quality headphones and requesting briefing or clarification to deal with comprehension-related challenges, explaining the interpreter’s role and intervening with clients as necessary to address communication-related challenges, and reducing working hours and exercising self-care to manage work-related stress.

Keywords:

Publication history

Date received: 25 January 2017

Date accepted: 19 February 2018

Published online: 29 May 2018

Table of contents

Abstract
Keywords
1.Introduction
2.Overview
3.The study
4.Results and discussion
5.Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
Address for correspondence

Since its introduction in Australia in 1973, the use of telephone interpreting has rapidly grown in Australia and many other countries. Compared with on-site interpreting, telephone interpreting provides clients with greater and quicker access to professional interpreters. However, over the past two decades, there have been grave concerns among interpreters and scholars about the following issues: challenges for telephone interpreters, the quality of telephone interpreting, and telephone interpreting being used merely as a cost-saving substitute for face-to-face interpreting (see Gracia-García 2002; Kelly 2008a; Mikkelson 2003; NAJIT 2009; Rosenberg 2007; Wadensjö 1999). As expressed in quote 1 below, many organisations in Australia are quickly switching from using on-site interpreting services to using telephone interpreting services:

References

Cheng, Qianya

2015 Examining the Challenges for Telephone Interpreters in New Zealand. MA diss. Auckland University of Technology.

Gracia-García, Roberto A.

2002 “Telephone Interpreting: A Review of Pros and Cons.” In Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference, edited by Brennan Scott, 195–216. Alexandria, VA: American Translators Association.

Hale, Sandra

2011 “The Positive Side of Community Interpreting: An Australian Case Study.” Interpreting 13 (2): 234–248.

Hale, Sandra, and Jemina Napier

2016 “ ‘We’re Just Kind of There’: Working Conditions and Perceptions of Appreciation and Status in Court Interpreting.” Target 28 (3): 351–371.

Kelly, Nataly

2008a “A Medical Interpreter’s Guide to Telephone Interpreting.” Accessed January 10, 2018. http://0842-442-442.ch/files/content/Angebot/Infothek DE/Allg.Info/Medical_Interpreter’s_Guide.pdf

2008b Telephone Interpreting: A Comprehensive Guide to the Profession. Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing.

Lee, Jieun

2007 “Telephone Interpreting – Seen from the Interpreters’ Perspective.” Interpreting 9 (2): 231–252.

Lee, Robert Joe, and Jeffrey A. Newman

1997 Pilot Test of Telephone Court Interpreting in Atlantic/Cape May-Essex-Hudson: Final Report. Trenton, NJ: Administration Office of the Courts, CN-998, April 18 1997.

Mikkelson, Holly

2003 “Telephone Interpreting: Boon or Bane?” In Speaking in Tongues: Language across Contexts and Users, edited by Luis Pérez González, 251–269. Valencia: Universitat de València.

NAJIT (National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators)

2009 “Telephone Interpreting in Legal Settings.” Accessed January 10, 2018. https://najit.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Telephone-Interpreting-1.pdf

Oviatt, Sharon L., and Philip R. Cohen

1992 “Spoken Language in Interpreted Telephone Dialogues.” Computer Speech and Language 6 (3): 277–302.

Ozolins, Uldis

2011 “Telephone Interpreting: Understanding Practice and Identifying Research Needs.” Translation and Interpreting 3 (1): 33–47.

Rosenberg, Brett Allen

2007 “A Data Driven Analysis of Telephone Interpreting.” In The Critical Link 4: Professionalisation of Interpreting in the Community, edited by Cecilia Wadensjö, Birgitta Englund Dimitrova, and Anna-Lena Nilsson, 65–76. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Wadensjö, Cecilia

1999 “Telephone Interpreting and the Synchronization of Talk in Social Interaction.” The Translator 5 (2): 247–264.

Wang, Jihong

2018 “ ‘Telephone Interpreting Should Be Used Only as a Last Resort.’ Interpreters’ Perceptions of the Suitability, Remuneration and Quality of Telephone Interpreting.” Perspectives 26 (1): 100–116.

In press. “‘I Only Interpret the Content and Ask Practical Questions When Necessary.’ Interpreters’ Perceptions of Their Active Participation and Personal Pronoun Choice in Telephone Interpreting.” Perspectives.

Wang, Jihong, and Jing Fang

In press. “‘Sorry. Could You Please Repeat?’ A Comparative Study of Telephone Interpreting and On-site Interpreting in Terms of Accuracy.” Interpreting.