Research Limitations

5.2.1 Geographic and temporal constraints

Geographic and temporal constraints limited the depth and breadth of the research scope.

Being physically situated in Taiwan, the researcher was constrained by time differences between Taiwan and the United States, which significantly limited accessibility to research subjects. All interviews had to be conducted via internet. Personal visits to the churches in the United States was unfeasible. In-person observations were unable to be carried out, making interviews and questionnaires the main source of data for this study. However, the researcher believes that the study would have been more holistic and robust had the researcher more time to incorporate additional inputs from audio, video and in-person observations.

Geographic location is another limitation imposed, granted self-imposed, on this study.

Despite studying at an institution in Taiwan, the researcher chose to focus on churches in the USA.

Although modern day telecommunications technology allows for such a trans-continental endeavor to be possible, the researcher is nevertheless unable to speak face to face with all the church members in the USA nor is he able to visit all of their churches in person. To mitigate this shortcoming, the research will visit the USA to conduct in-person interviews and observations, albeit for a limited time with a group of select churches.

5.2.2 Denominational Constraints

Another significant challenge with conducting research on anything related to Christianity is the issue of denominational differences and defining the meaning of “church”. Although predominantly associated with the Christianity, the term “church” does not exclusively apply to Christianity and may refer to a variety of non-Christian or irreligious institutions. Thus, “church interpreter” in this study exclusively refers to interpreters in Christian church settings. The term

“Christian” is itself a term that requires further specification, as it is an umbrella term that could be referring to all or only particular variant branches within Christianity (e.g. the Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism). All branches share common core beliefs but differ significantly in terms of practice of the faith and interpretation of the Biblical scripture. The churches in the sample are all Protestant churches.

However, Protestant Christianity can be further divided into many denominations (e.g. Lutheran, Evangelical, Charismatic, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian), which like the branches of Christianity are further divided along ideological lines within the Christian faith. All of these are factors that may impact the roles of the interpreter and interpreting within a church setting.

However, due to temporal and geographic constraints, it was imperative that the scope of research be as specific as possible. By restricting the scope to only Protestant ethnic Chinese immigrant churches in the United States, the study can be made more feasible and interference from unobserved variables such as differing denominational cultures and norms can be minimized.

In this study, the sample of immigrant churches in the USA, with the exception of bilingual churches in Taiwan, were selected based on the following criteria: (1) generally Protestant churches, (2) churches founded in the United States by ethnic Chinese immigrants, and (3) churches referred by a pastor of the researcher’s home church, and/or (4) churches with members

that attend church conferences with members of the researcher’s home church. All the churches in this small sample share similar profiles (e.g. denomination, style of service, demography, years since founding). The scope of this study also excludes immigrant churches from other ethnic groups (e.g. ethnic Korean immigrant churches, Hispanic immigrant churches).

5.2.3 Limited Perspectives

During the brainstorming stages of this study, the researcher initially planned to investigate the role of the interpreter and interpreting in the church setting from a variety of perspectives.

Originally, the researcher wanted to survey various groups of respondents based on their amount of experience with church interpreting, professional interpreting, and faith-based factors (i.e.

religious beliefs, identity). Categorized responses from non-interpreter church members, church interpreters, Christian professional interpreters, and non-Christian professional interpreters would have each been analyzed separately and compared against each other. However, complications arising from respondents potentially fitting into multiple categories and difficulties with finding a sufficient number of respondents for the study prevented the researcher from investigating the two research questions from differing perspectives.

As a result of the aforementioned limitations, the researcher chose to restrict the questionnaire and interview respondents to members of a select group ethnic Chinese immigrant churches in the USA. In order to progress in this study, the researcher had to make the major assumption that all respondents had enough understanding of what professional interpreting entailed to rate comparatively between church interpreters and professional interpreters. In doing so, the potential impact of factors related to the level of familiarity with the aforementioned items (i.e. professional interpreting, Christianity) on the results in the study were not investigated in depth. Thus, this study’s findings do not reflect attitudes distinct to these perspectives.

5.2.4 Limited Number of Factors Considered

Lastly, the researcher must acknowledge that there a plethora of other factors with potentially large impacts on the data that were not explored or discussed in this study. Such factors are presented in Figure 3 in Section 2.1.3. This figure is Claudia Angelleli’s Visible Interpreter Model (2004) which presents a variety of social and institutional factors that she argued were weighing down on how the interpreter thought and behaved, which ultimately shapes the role or roles the interpreter is expected to play. Such factors include but not limited to age, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and race. No doubt all of these factors influence the role of the interpreter to varying degrees. For instance, analyzing the data by the age of the respondent may have offered insight to differences in generational attitudes towards the role of the church interpreter.

Gender was also a major factor that was not considered in this study. One church interpreter mentioned in her interview that she felt a need to maintain a certain decorum while interpreting on stage due to her gender identity. Ethnicity and nationality may be the most conspicuous elements in this study on interpreting in ethnic Chinese immigrant churches, yet these factors were not singled out for analysis of their impact on the data. Unfortunately, due to temporal, geographic, and scope constraints, factors such as gender, age and ethnicity were unable to be fully explored.