Quality criteria in simultaneous interpreting: an international vs. a national view

Abstract

Ever since the profession became internationally organized in the early 1950s, quality has been a central topic in conference interpreting. In the mid-1980s, members of AIIC (International Association of Conference Interpreters) were first asked what importance they attributed to various quality criteria when sponsoring candidates for membership (Bühler 1986). Follow-up studies, however, were mostly conducted among users of interpretation services. With the exception of Chiaro and Nocella (2004), who conducted a web-based survey among conference interpreters, service providers have had no chance to express their views on the issue of quality. The two studies reported in this paper take the web-based approach pioneered by Chiaro and Nocella (2004) as a starting point for a survey among two well-defined populations, that is, members of AIIC and of the German Association of Conference Interpreters (VKD). This paper presents the findings for conference interpreters’ rating of the relative importance of output-related quality criteria for a simultaneous interpretation. Furthermore, the two associations’ members were also asked to link the importance of the various criteria to concrete assignment types. The main aim of this paper consists in comparing the two groups and finding out whether members of a national and international professional organization attach similar importance to quality criteria or whether they differ in their perceptions of quality.