Quality Expectation Assessment Instrument of Conference Interpreting

The major purpose of this paper is trying to answer a long-ignored question which the interpreting community has perhaps not yet found an efficient approach to address: “What do they (clients) expect, and what will make them happy with the service and product we provide?” (Schlesinger, 1997). Therefore, instead of measuring the “GAP 5” (Expected service—perceived service gap) as most of other studies applying SERVQUAL would do, this paper intends to learn the expectation of clients in the subject of conference interpreting quality and measure the “GAP 1” (consumer expectation—management perception gap, which in conference interpreting settings is, client expectation—practitioner perception gap).

To achieve the mentioned objective, the quality expectation assessment instrument of conference interpreting (See Appendix 3) is developed based on the service quality model of conference interpreting built by this study and follows the “patterns” of SERVQUAL.

This instrument contains two parts: one measures the quality attributes under the Service Delivery Dimension, the other measures those of Service Product Dimension. The following sections explain how the statements for assessing quality attributes in the two dimensions of the instrument are formed.

3.2.1 Part I. Assessing Expectation on Functional Quality: Service Delivery Dimension As the Service Delivery Dimension is developed based on SERVQUAL’s 10 determinants, the development of its assessment instrument starts with reviewing statements of SERVQUAL’s 22 items, based on their associated dimensions. The author then identifies attributes under the dimensions which are still valid in the context of conference interpreting. 10 statements are chosen for their relevancy and are then categorized under the 5 sub-dimensions of Service Delivery Dimension (see 3.1.1)

developed by this study. Necessary adjustments on the wordings are made to make the statements directly relevant to conference interpreting.

Moreover, inspired by Yi-Hsiung Lin’s findings (2005) in his qualitative research on factors that contribute to clients’ satisfaction/dissatisfaction in interpreting events, two additional statements are added, as they are mostly referred to in Lin’s paper as major reasons why clients are satisfied/dissatisfied with the interpreters’ performance:

(1) good professional backgrounds, including academic and working experiences (2) taking the initiative in getting information of the conference or requesting for a

briefing

As a result, 12 statements are developed to serve as the instrument to assess quality expectations on the Service Delivery of conference interpreting. Table 3.6 shows the 12 statements in correspondence to those of SERVQUAL.

Table 3.6 Statements for Assessing Quality Expectation on “Service Delivery”

of Conference Interpreting, in Correspondence to SERVQUAL Service excellent interpreters will show a sincere interest in solving it.

6. When a customer has a problem, excellent companies will show a sincere interest in solving it

2. Excellent interpreters will provide the service at the time they promise to do so, including being on time.

8. Excellent companies will provide their services at the time they promise to do so

3. Excellent interpreters should have good professional background, including education and working experiences.

Developed by this paper

Empathy

4. Excellent interpreters will have clients’ best interest at heart and respond to unexpected situation with an understanding mind.

21. Excellent companies will have the customers’ best interest at heart

5. Excellent interpreters will understand the specific communication objectives of the clients and help achieving such objectives.

22. The employees of excellent companies will understand the specific needs of their customers 7. Excellent interpreters should be

polite and well-mannered.

16. Employees in excellent companies will be consistently courteous with customers

Assurance

8. Excellent interpreters should be properly dressed and look excellent companies will instill confidence in customers.

10. Excellent interpreters should be well-prepared with the conference subject to understand well the

11. Excellent interpreters will talk to the clients before and after the conference to learn the requests.

18. Excellent companies will give customers individual attention

12. Excellent interpreters will take the initiative in getting information of the conference, including requesting for a briefing or reference material.

Developed by this paper

Source: Compiled by this study

3.2.2 Part II. Assessing Expectation on Technical Quality: Service Product Dimension The Service Product Dimension is developed based on the author’s observation learned from theoretical/empirical studies on quality of (conference) interpreting service.

In this dimension, 12 attributes are identified under the 4 sub-dimensions. To assess quality expectation on this dimension, 12 statements are formed to address the 12 attributes respectively.

While developing statement for attribute 3, “completeness”, the author finds this quality attribute should be assessed in pair with another attribute, “essentials”. In Moser’s (1996) empirical study on users’ expectation of conference interpretation, it is found that while many users would consider “completeness of rendition” very important, they considered “concentration on the essentials” even more important.

Such finding is intriguing, since “completeness”, or “detailed content”, has been considered one of the most important quality attributes, proved in many previous empirical studies on users (Kurz, 1993; Kopczynski, 1994). Moser’s was the first (to the author’s knowledge) to ask users to choose between “completeness” and “essentials”, and found that users prefer “essentials” even more.

To learn how clients would response to these two quality attributes that seem contradictory to each other, “essentials” is included as one quality attribute under the sub-dimension, “Semantic Content”, and a statement is developed for it. Table3.7 shows the 13 statements for assessing 13 attributes of the Service Product Dimension.

Table 3.7 Statements for Assessing Expectation on “Service Product”

The delivery is consistent with the meaning of the original message.

(2) Logical cohesion The delivery is coherent and makes sense by itself.

(3) Completeness The delivery includes the details and nuances of the original message.

(4) Essentials The delivery extracts the essential and leave out the trimmings.

Subject Proficiency

(5) Use of correct terminology

The delivery uses the correct terminology in the field of conference subject.

(6) Use of

appropriate style

The delivery uses the appropriate style that fits the conference settings.

The delivery is grammatically correct.

Presentation

(10) Pleasant voice The voice of the interpreter is pleasant to the ears.

(11) Synchronicity The delivery is (close to) simultaneous with the original message.

(12) Prosody The delivery is rhythmic and with right intonation.

(13) Reassuring delivery

The delivery is convincing to the audience.

Source: Compiled by this study