Havaintoja Suomessa toimivien pikatulkkien ammatillisista taustoista ja työnkuvasta

Abstract

The article focuses on the background and work habits of interpreters who carry out on-demand interpreting assignments for the public service sector in Finland. On-demand interpreting forms a specific branch of interpreting, as the possibility for the interpreter to prepare for the assignment is very limited. Access to contextual information about the interpreted situation is practically nonexistent until the first contextualization cues start to appear once the interpreting begins. The interpreter needs to constantly monitor various kinds of contextualization cues in order to understand the meaning of an utterance and decide the best way to convey it in the target language. The interpreters’ sociocultural background, their personal history and skills influence how they perceive the communicative situation. Prior experience from interpreted situations and public service encounters help them understand both the context and skopos of a communicative event, and how best to formulate the interpretation. Based on a set of qualitative interviews, this explorative study sets out to examine the work of on-demand interpreters. It describes on-demand interpreters’ educational background and their work habits, the range of topics and typical duration of on-demand assignments, as well as the interpreters’ attitudes towards on-demand interpreting.