A Descriptive-Exploratory Approach to Community Interpreting in Turkish Context: Some Insights about Professionalism and Self-perceptions

The present study aims to explore the level of professionalism and the self-perceptions of community interpreters who work in different settings such as hospitals, sports clubs, courts, police stations, churches, and schools in Türkiye. To this end, this study adopted a fieldwork in which 34 students, who enrolled in Community Interpreting course offered at the Department of Translation & Interpreting, administered a survey to 32 community interpreters. The goal of this awareness-raising task was twofold: 1) to provide students with opportunities to interact with market participants in order to improve empathy and observational skills; 2) to provide some insights into the current portrayal of community interpreters, their professional competencies, shortcomings, and, consequently, their self-perception. Findings have revealed that the interpreters are skilled in different interpreting modes such as consecutive and sight interpreting; however, they have difficulties in taking notes while interpreting and lack knowledge of interpreting theories and technological advances. More importantly, they cannot improve those deficiencies through an established self-development program. This research further revealed discrepancies between the expectations from the self-development programs and their contributions in practice. Overall, student feedback demonstrated positive effects of the direct interactions with the interpreters to observe the status quo of the profession.