Interpreting across Genres: Multiple Research Perspectives

With the emergence of English as a dominant language in the globalization of communicative practices, interpreting plays a major role worldwide in various interlinguistic/cultural settings over a myriad of domain-specific genres. This volume offers a collection of research papers on interpreting across a range of scenarios covering several language combinations with English. It offers multiple research perspectives encompassing diverse interpreting modes within both conference and public service settings, including new emerging areas in Interpreting Studies such as media, remote and sign language interpreting. Each chapter investigates a genre or subgenre associated with a specific field of discourse: business, literature, law, medicine, media, defence, politics, and sport. The variety of topics investigated is broad and the diversity of methodological approaches wide, offering insight into rhetorical, microlinguistic and terminological features, drawing upon text linguistics, discourse and conversation analysis, corpus linguistics and studies on quality.

The rational behind the selection of papers presented in this volume is discussed as way of introduction. Interpreting with English is a major feature that prevails throughout the eleven chapters which cover genres in as many interpreting scenarios. English is recognized worldwide as being a major lingua franca today in numerous interlinguistic communicative settings and is increasingly being adopted internationally as a language for business, science and international negotiation. Though the principal aim of interpreting to transfer a message from one language to another (be it spoken or signed) remains unchanged, modes of transfer have adapted according to work requirements, from simultaneous interpreting in traditional conference settings, to consecutive, whispering or remote interpreting in various kinds of meeting or public service encounters. Interpreting follows all areas of human activity, thus, interpreters are confronted with an infinite range of linguistic, textual, cultural and generic features in the workplace. Multiple perspectives and research methodologies emerge from chapters covering media, medical, business, political, literary, military and legal genres.