The first to be held in the southern hemisphere, took place in Parramatta, Sydney, Australia, from 11 to 15 April, 2007. It attracted the largest number of delegates since the inception of the Critical Link congress series in 1995, with a total of 489 delegates from 28 different countries. The theme was “Quality in interpreting: a shared responsibility”.
The program featured 3 plenary lectures, one by a linguist, one by an Aboriginal interpreting expert and one by a Supreme Court justice; 5 plenary panels with lively audience participation; 10 workshops which predominantly discussed ways to work effectively with other professionals such as lawyers, the police, speech pathologists and mental health professionals; 134 paper presentations and 22 posters.
There were also a number of very popular pre and post conference activities which included visits to NAATI, the Health Care Interpreters Service, the subtitling unit of the Special Broadcasting Service, to name a few. Interesting exhibitors were on site every day of the conference. The theme of the conference was reflected in all presentations but was particularly explored in the plenary panel discussions.
The questions posed during these panel discussion were: what is the responsibility for quality of the different participants in the interpreted interaction? What is the perspective of the different participants about the meaning of quality? How can quality be benchmarked? and How can changes be implemented to ensure quality? The fifth panel discussion touched on the controversial issue of role. A live performance of different scenarios which presented ethical dilemmas provided the topics for discussion. The conference also offered social events, with the conference dinner at Old Government House at Parramatta Park, which is the oldest public building in Australia.
Critical Link 5 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.
Vesna Dragoje and Debbie Ellam – Australia
Shared Perceptions of Ethics and Interpreting in Health Care
Yvonne Fowler – UK
Interpreting Into the Ether: Interpreting for Prison/Court Video Link Hearings
Annemarie Fox and Jocelyn Avigad – UK
Therapy in Translation – Clinical Work Through an Interpreter
Heather Glass and Dagmar Dixon – Australia
Overcoming Disparity and Laying the Foundations for Quality – An Australian Case Study in the Development of Competency Standards for Interpreters and Translators
Kristina Zimányi – Ireland
A Narrative Enquiry into Mental Health Interpreting in Ireland: The Responsibilities of Quality Service Provision
Brooke Townsley – UK
Quality in Interpreting: The Service Providers Responsibility
Carmen Valero Garces – Spain
Steps in the Development of a Translation Market for Migrant Communities
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.