Research project Asymmetrical language proficiency in dialogue interpreting

Recent literature has indicated that dialogue interpreters have asymmetrical language proficiency, i.e. a stronger and a weaker working language. The main purpose of the study is to investigate dialogue interpreters’ cognitive processes during interpreted medical encounters.

The study is comparative and employs triangulation between four methods for data collection, i.e. a questionnaire, a language test, an interpreting task and a retrospective interview. An important part of the study is that each dialogue interpreter performs two interpreting tasks, one in which a physician speaks Swedish and one in which a physician speaks Spanish. The purpose of using two interpreting tasks is to compare them and investigate the impact of directionality and asymmetrical language proficiency on the dialogue interpreter’s cognitive load.