Status and Recognition of Legal Interpreters and Translators Today
Date: 16-17 March 2018
Venues: Sofia Palace of Justice & Hotel Novotel, Sofia, Bulgaria
Sofia welcomed, on 16 and 17 March 2018, a large number of legal interpreters and translators from all over Europe and from Japan at the EULITA Conference on “Status and Recognition of Legal Interpreters and Translators Today”.
On the first day, a meeting took place at the Palace of Justice where Bulgarian members of the executive and of the judiciary presented the legislative and procedural aspects applicable in Bulgaria to a process where interpretation is required.
On day 2, a very interested audience – that was given the opportunity to intervene and contribute to the discussion using a new, highly appreciated technology – attended a series of presentations divided into three sessions.
The first was dedicated to a training course for humanitarian interpreters in Italy, the experience of a colleague working for the Red Cross in a war scenario, and a linguistic stress test organized during the Greek refugee crisis.
During the second session, the topics of the standard of language assistance for communication with counsel, the work of LITs in the real world and legal translation from the perspective of the financial markets were presented.
The three final speakers spoke on the evolution from “wiretap interpreter” to Forensic Linguistic Tap Expert, on a joint training for police and interpreters in the UK and on the new ISO standard on legal interpreting.
You will find all the presentations hereafter.
During the 8th General Assembly of EULITA, which followed the conference, full and associate members discussed several administrative issues and approved the proposal introduced by the Luxembourg association ALTI to hold the 9th General Assembly in Luxembourg in 2019.
Please note: The following speakers kindly made their presentations available for publication (in order of appearance). The right to publication of these presentations is reserved by EULITA. Any use or publication by third parties is subject to EULITA’s prior approval.
SESSION 1
Italy in the forefront of refugee inflow: a pilot training course for humanitarian interpreters
Mariachiara Russo, Department of Interpreting and Translation, University of Bologna at Forlì, Italy
Legal interpreting between the booth and the prison cell – International Committee of the Red Cross perspective
Karim Bouarar, Red. ICRC Senior Arabic Reviser and Interpreter, Switzerland
The Greek refugee crisis: a linguistic stress test
Dimitra Stafilia, PEEMPIP President, Greece
SESSION 2
Language assistance for communication with counsel – has the standard been raised?
James Brannan, Senior translator, European Court of Human Rights, France
A reality check: the work of LITs in the real world
Supplementary document: Answers to open questions posed at the conference
Liisa Laakso-Tammisto, court interpreter and authorised translator, past President of SKTL, Finland
The market for legal translation in Austria: the financial markets supervision perspective
Supplementary document: Answers to open questions posed at the conference
Michael Bailey, Translator, Banking Supervision Department, Financial Market Authority (FMA), Austria
SESSION 3
Folitex or Forensic Linguistic Tap Expert: why (s)he should take the place of the former “wiretap interpreter”
Katalin Balogh and Heidi Salaets, KU Leuven, Sint-Andries campus, Antwerp, Belgium
Joint training for police and interpreters in specific scenarios
Irina Norton, APCI Vice Chairman, United Kingdom
An update on EULITA’s project of an ISO standard on legal interpreting (DIS 20228)
Liese Katschinka, ISO standard project leader, Austria