Critical Link International spearheaded a movement that has evolved into a robust field of study, research, and professional practice in community interpreting.

Critical Link 4: Professionalization of Interpreting in the Community

The first conference to be held outside Canada, took place in Stockholm, Sweden, from May 20th to May 23, 2004 and attracted 354 participants from all over the world. The theme was “Professionalization of interpreting in the community” and the programme was as challenging as it was interesting. It featured 4 plenary lectures, 5 panels, a workshop and more than 70 paper presentations.

An innovation was the inclusion poster presentations, which numbered about 20. Several sub-themes including medical and health care interpreting, legal and court interpreting and interpreter training were recognised from earlier conferences. Some topics were more novel, for instance specifics of interpreting for children, which was analysed in three papers, and the role of interpretation agencies, which was the discussed in one of the panels.

Many papers gave interesting “state of the art” reports from countries and regions which are new to the field of community interpreting, such as Poland, Estonia and Hong Kong. The conference also offered a diversity of social events, with highlights such as the luncheon in the Golden Hall in the City Hall and the conference dinner at the museum of the 17th century warship Vasa – sunk but salvaged after 333 years on the bottom of the Baltic sea!


Critical Link 4 Papers

As in the case of earlier Critical Link conferences, a number of papers from the 2004 conference, held in Stockholm, were selected for publication by John Benjamins. The same publisher is including five papers on healthcare interpreting in a special issue of Interpreting 7:2 (2005). Several other papers are available below in PDF format.

Abraham, Diana and Doreen Weston—Canada
Does the Absence of Public Policy Compromise the Professionalisation of Community Interpreting? Case Study and Analysis

Cambridge, Jan—United Kingdom
‘Profession’ is a Cultural Concept: Training new arrivals (Original version)
« Profession » : un concept culturel (French translation)

Fox, Annemarie and Jill Gander—England
Interpreting for Survivors of Torture

Furmanek, Olgierda—USA
Promoting professional interpreting standards through students’ internships

Russell, Debra—Canada
Interpreting Strategies in Legal Discourse

Russo, Mariachiara—Italy
Community Interpreter, Liaison Interpreter, ad hoc Interpreter, Intercultural Mediator… What kind of curriculum for such a multifaceted profession?

Valero-Garcés, Carmen and Mustapha Taibi—Spain
Professionalizing Public Service Translation and Interpreting in Spain

Vali, Yasmin—Canada
Adapting To Diversity Organizational Change at The Scarborough Hospital

Disclaimer:
The text of the following papers is in the exact format provided by the author and has not been edited or altered in any way.

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