A Comparativa Outlook On Recruitment Conditions Of Community Interpreters in France, UK, and Turkey
Community interpreting is one of the most prevalent services offered to allophone individuals in transit or host countries with a considerable immigrant population. Offering professional services to these groups is essential for ensuring them a safe passage in a secure environment and/or a temporary or permanent stay as per humanitarian principles. The professionalism of community interpreting is closely linked to the interpreter’s status in a given setting. In this presentation, the status of community interpreters will be comparatively delved into from the point of view of recruitment conditions in three different countries, namely the United Kingdom, France, and Turkey, each representing a different understanding of service provision.
Since different community interpreting settings are governed by different institutions, this presentation will focus on the conditions in legal, healthcare, and educational settings in the abovementioned countries. The roles attributed by the regulating institutions and employers to interpreters were decisive in selecting the countries. For example, the interpreters are referred to as “intercultural mediators” in healthcare settings, while those working in legal settings are referred to as “legal interpreters” in France and the roles assumed by the interpreters change accordingly. While freelance interpreters make up the majority of legal interpreters, interpreters in healthcare and educational settings are employed as in-house interpreters in Turkey. Comparing and contrasting the status and recruitment conditions are expected to open new horizons in understanding professionalism in different interpreting settings and service-providing countries.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Duygu Çurum Duman DUMAN concentrated on teaching interpreting for her M.A. degree, testing the effect of the Method of Loci in supporting consecutive interpreting students’ performance. Her Ph.D. thesis, entitled “A Hermeneutic Approach to Community Interpreting in Turkey: Healthcare Interpreter and Subjectivity,” is the first doctoral research to focus on healthcare interpreting in Turkey. She is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Translation and Interpreting at Bilkent University. She pursues her research in collaboration with fellow researchers from other universities, public institutions, and NGOs.Her research interests include, but are not limited to, community interpreting, mental healthcare interpreting, memory, hermeneutics, and ethics.