Challenges Identified in the Current Situation

For conference interpreters: first, the conference interpreting market at the present stage is characterized by unsteady workflow and is highly competitive. In recent years, the market has been

declining due to lack of international trades. Both conference organizers and interpreters identify unsteady workflow as a major difficulty they face. However, these two groups dwell on different aspects. Interpreters worry about workflow for the reason that it directly affects their income. They are forced to obtain other part-time or full-time jobs to make sure that they could make a living.

Conference organizers are affected in another way. As participant M indicates, if he/she adds many interpreters to the interpreter pool of his/her company but can only provide all the interpreters with enough conference jobs during peak seasons, eventually some of the interpreters will choose to take up other professions. But if he/she does not have enough interpreters that he/she is comfortable working with, once the case number surges, he/she will have a hard time locating suitable interpreters in a short notice. This leads to a increased chance of hiring incompetent interpreters.

Second, client education is still insufficient. Participant L points out that at times clients would have unreasonable demand due to the fact that they do not have a clear understanging of the nature of conference interpreting work and they do not know how to work with conference interpreters. The clients interviewed actually agree to this view. They admit to the fact that the professional side of conference interpreting service is a mystery to them. Which made them all the more inclined to locate a sufficient measuring and search tool for qualified conference interpreters.

The clients are not unwilling to work with the interpreters, they simply do not understand what is required of them.

Third, there are no clear professional standards or rules that conference interpreters all agree upon and no systematic and firm theory base. Participant K mentions that interpreters do not even have consensus on terms such as conference interpreting or the ways to judge how experienced an interpreter is. As a result, the conference interpreting profession is unable to exercise quality control comprehensively and convincingly to both practitioners and clients.

However, according to interview results, conference interpreters are not actively engaged in promoting or explaining the nature of conference interpreting and interpreters to the public at the

moment. Some participants, such as participant B and I, suggest that it is because the professionals themselves have no clear idea how to systemize their knowledge and form standards that enable them to express themselves clearly to the public.

Fourth, the profession lacks an evaluating tool that can be easily understood and accepted by the market. This may results in information asymmetry. Without an observable measuring tool, conference organizers and clients have to resort to reputation. By reputation, they do not only refer to the reputation of the conference interpreters, but also the person whom they ask for advice, whether or not that this person is a professional in the interpreting industry is irrelevant. What matters to the clients is that the person knows how to make the right decision when it comes to hiring competent interpreters. However, the dependence on reputation will present as an obstacle for novice interpreters with almost no prior experience. They will have a more difficult time trying to convince the clients to give them an opportunity to prove themselves.

Furthermore, there is no sufficient quality control and no authority figure to supervise the functioning of the occupation, thus generate a sense of insecurity for clients. Participant A, C, G, and K believe that at the moment, trained or not, any bilingual can enter the interpreting market.

Although that does not mean these bilinguals can survive the market, it may not be a positive influence on the professional image of conference interpreters. After all, it would be hard for the clients to tell quality interpreters from inadequate ones before the service was done. Clients that are not familiar with the market may take the poor performance of the inadequate interpreters as the average performance.

All the clients interviewed mention that if escort interpreters failed to perform well, they can always step in; however, with conference interpreters, there is no way to make up for the damage done by poor quality interpreters. Clients cannot interrupt the proceeding of the conference and fill in the missing information or hire another interpreter immediately. Therefore, they would like to be certain of the quality before they hire conference interpreters. To achieve this purpose,

they would very much like to have a measuring benchmark that is accepted by the society.

Sixth, the conference interpreting market is quite closed. Presently, senior conference interpreters and market mechanism together function as the quality control mechanism. Participant I and M state that senior conference interpreters are now truly powerful and they are the main measuring and selecting mechanism at the present stage. Many of the T & I Schools, interpreters and conference organizers interviewed mention that without the approval of senior conference interpreters, novice interpreters hardly have any chance to enter the conference interpreting market.

As a matter of fact, conference organizers interviewed also relate that they will not hire students from these schools unless they are endorsed by senior conference interpreters. This also means that not all interpreting degrees have the same effect on conference organizers and they have more faith in the judgments of senior conference interpreters than any other credentials provided by interpreters. This corresponds to the preference expressed by the conference organizers when they hire conference interpreters: they value referral above all. (see Table, 5.3)

If the selection process is controlled by a privileged few, it will inevitably discourage future candidates to join the profession. Potential candidates who might become excellent conference interpreters may be forced to take up other profession due to the lack of job opportunities. The limited number of professionals within the conference interpreting profession also means that the profession will not be as powerful as the large scale professions such as accountants. This makes it harder for the conference interpreter profession to fight and promote their rights and welfare, let along pressing for legal recognition.

Table 5.3 Factors Affecting the Recruitment of Conference Interpreters

Seventh, participant A, F, and L talk about the clients’ reluctance to pay for good quality interpreting. Participant A goes on to say that many clients will accept lower quality service because it is cheaper. This phenomenon may have two implications. One is that the clients do not actually understand good quality service from poor ones. They may think that there is hardly any difference or that the gap is fairly small. Therefore, they are reluctant to pay a lot more for the marginal

increase in quality. The second may be that the quality of interpretation is of no importance to them.

As long as the interpreters can get the most of the messages through and provide an understandable rendition into the target language, they are satisfied. Since the clients do not deem conference interpreting service as essential, they would naturally not be willing to spend their budget on the service. Both implications show the clients do not see interpreters as professional and do not think

what interpreters do can be important enough to affect the final results. Under these circumstances, if interpreting is certified or licensed, the clients may be more inclined to believe that it requires professional skills and knowledge to perform interpreting tasks. As participant L points out, it would definitely be easier to convince the clients of the importance of good quality interpretation if interpreters are endorsed by the government.

Contrary to what participant A, F and L suggest, Participant M, I and J believe that clients who would engage conference interpreting service already have a good understanding of what to expect, how to treat conference interpreters and is willing to pay higher price. As for the clients who are not willing to pay a decent price for conference interpreting services, a certificate will not convince them to change their minds. Some of the interpreters and conference organizers interviewed believe that if the clients do not understand the fact that low pay equals low quality, then there is nothing they can do. It is impossible for this study to determine the reason why some clients are unwilling to pay higher price for conference interpreter; however, one of clients specified that an accreditation system can increase the bargaining power of interpreters and all the clients express more willingness to employ conference interpreters that are certified. Therefore, it is possible that clients are reluctant to pay because they do not fully understand the nature of conference interpreters and the level of professional proficiency needed.

Eighth, lack of a platform for the professionals and the clients to interact with each other.

Therefore, the clients are unable to locate adequate conference interpreters when needed and

interpreters, especially novice interpreters, have limited channels to approach clients who may have the need for conference interpreting services. Although the conference interpreters and most of the conference organizers interviewed do not think that it is hard for clients to locate conference interpreters. All the clients interviewed express a certain level of stressfulness when they have to locate satisfactory interpreters. Apparently conference organizers and conference interpreters only have the knowledgeable clients in mind when they think about client-expert relation. The supply

side of the profession do not put much thought into expending their client base by reaching out to other client groups.

Other situations identified include that the topics of conferences are even more specialized and difficult, conference interpreters have to rely on themselves for job gratification and the difficulty to locate conference interpreters in language combinations other than Chinese- English. (see Table 5.4 for more details)

Table 5.4 Challenges Identified in the Current Situation

Challenges Identified

Insufficient Client Education ˇ H, F, G, J, L

No Clear Professional Standards or Rules ˇ B, I, F, K Lack of an Evaluating Tool that can be

Easily Understood and Accepted by the

Market Monopoly by Senior Interpreters F, I, K, L, M, N, Clients’ Reluctance to Pay for Good

5.2.1 Can Government Accreditation Test Meet these Challenges?

The purposes of a government accreditation identified by the interviewees are: first, to improve the professional status of conference interpreters, gain public trust and increase bargaining