Translation and Interpreting Studies. The Journal of the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association - Profession, Identity and Status: Translators and Interpreters as an Occupational Group, January 2009

The aim of this article is twofold. First, I will outline a theoretical framework that synthesizes some concepts from both the sociology of professions and Bourdieu’s economy of practice. Within this framework, distinction and legitimation will be highlighted as two major strategies employed by occupational groups to advance their interests within the labor market. In the second part of the article, I will discuss two particular conflicts, both of which involve Spanish certified (or “sworn” in European Spanish) translators and interpreters (TIs). The first is a jurisdictional struggle between certified TIs and notaries public (a legal occupation) and the other, a struggle between certified TIs and court TIs. These struggles illustrate how the jurisdiction, the segment of the labor market formerly occupied by certified TIs, has been progressively claimed by notaries public and court TIs through various strategies and processes, and how certified TIs have in turn reacted by pursuing strategies of their own. These examples show how and why a particular group may lose ground to other groups using diverse strategies and investing different types of capital (in Bourdieu’s sense of the term). Moreover, these cases exemplify how some professionalization processes and projects have worked in the Spanish context and how certain occupational groups are developing professionalization strategies of their own.

In recent years, the issue of translator certification has attracted a great deal of attention among professional translators and translation studies scholars. Using the economic theory of signaling as a framework and an experiment involving the use of fictitious resumes, this study entailed interviews with eight translator recruiters in Hong Kong. The ranking of the resumes and the critical textual analysis of the eight transcribed interviews show the importance of formal educational qualifications and relevant work experience in the screening of resumes. Most interviewees viewed translator certification as an “add-on” and preferred an academic degree to translator certification. To some extent, this is due to inadequate knowledge and misconceptions about the process of translator certification. Hence, it is suggested that translation companies and translator training institutions/professional translator associations should engage in coordinated efforts to develop multilateral signaling mechanisms.

This paper offers a review of survey research among conference interpreters as a way of gaining knowledge about the profession, including the role perception of individual practitioners. A corpus of 40 survey research studies is examined with regard to such research design issues as sampling and question type, and categorized by topic. The conference interpreter’s role emerges as one of the dominant concerns in recent survey research, selected findings from which will be presented.

The main aim of this paper is to report on an online questionnaire which focused on translator and interpreter perception of their working world, their mindset or Weltanshauung, and the impact of Translation Studies and university training on that world. Questions, both closed and open-ended, addressed academic/professional training, present role(s) and attitudes and beliefs about ‘the profession’ itself. Nearly 1000 respondents replied to the questionnaire worldwide. Particular questions focused on how translation should be taught, the role and status of the profession (ideally and in practice), and on personal satisfaction. The results show that university training has had little impact, and that this group of respondents have relatively little interest in the university itself in comparison with lifelong learning, with most emphasis placed on practice and self-development. Members of the group feel themselves to be ‘professional’ due to their specialized knowledge and abilities. However, their professionalism is mainly limited to their responsibilities to the text itself, and there is relatively little interest in the wider context. They are acutely aware of the lack of public recognition, and both the interpreters and the translators agree that translators in particular suffer from a markedly lower social status. However, only a minority of the respondents feel the need to change the status quo and satisfy trait theory criteria regarding professional recognition, possibly because the vast majority of respondents are more than satisfied with their job. In conclusion, it appears that translation can still only be categorized as an occupation rather than as a profession, and it is suggested that a new role be created with its own university course to cater to the professional language provider.

China’s sudden emergence as a major player in the global economy has generated enormous new demand for translation and interpreting. With the development of formal training, certification and research activity, both mainland China and Taiwan are seeing the first signs of professionalization. This article reports the findings of a survey, the first of its kind, on patterns of professional practice, self-perceptions, job satisfaction and aspirations of translators and interpreters in Shanghai and Taipei and their perceptions of their role and contribution at a time when English and Chinese look set to become the languages of the twenty-first century. In terms of professional identity, most respondents choose the generic term 翻译 fanyi (‘translation’) to describe their main occupation, with slightly more specification among interpreters (as 口译 kouyi, ‘interpreter’). Only a small minority are members of professional associations. Job satisfaction is high, particularly among interpreters, who enjoy higher status. Views about training, testing and certification are mixed. Attitudes to loyalty, neutrality, toning-down and other role-related norms appear to be close to the international professional consensus, pending future contrastive studies; most respondents express a down-to-earth attitude to their role and contribution to society, downplaying ‘cultural mediation.’ The survey was planned and conducted as a practical introductory exercise in the methodologies of interpreting studies within the PhD program at the Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation (GIIT) of Shanghai International Studies University (SISU).

In this paper an analysis of the way conference interpreters describe their role and how they perceive their importance for successful communication in simultaneously interpreted conferences will be undertaken. These findings are an excerpt from a recent worldwide web-based survey among members of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC). The focus will be on a comparison between already existing metatexts on the conference interpreter’s role and the newly collected ones from this web-survey. The paper will also briefly outline the methodological potential and limitations of web-based surveys which have been employed since the mid-1990s and have gradually found their way into translation studies.