Basic tenets and features characterising telephone- and video-based remote communication in dialogue interpreting

In the last three to four decades the massive diffusion of information and communication technologies has made their price drop dramatically. Access to long-distance real-time audio and video communication which used to be limited to large and wealthy organizations - such as governments or multinationals - has become affordable for a large share of the world population. Historically interpreting has been a communication “enabler”, allowing people with different languages and cultures to communicate. But, until recently, interpreters enabled communication in shared situations such as meetings and conferences or in a shared place such as an office, a hospital, a courtroom. As private citizens have increasingly gained access to ICTs, the demand for the provision of distance, fast and immediate services has boomed, and language services are no exception to the rule. Moreover, since most societies are becoming increasingly multilingual and multicultural, nowadays public and private service providers, companies and institutions have to deal with users/customers who do not necessarily speak their language. Distance interpreting offers a great opportunity to companies, institutions and organisations to deal with foreign language users/customers efficiently and at a lower cost. Another advantage offered by distance interpreting is the possibility to recruit interpreters virtually everywhere and for every language. Telephone and videoconference interpreting are therefore rapidly gaining ground in a variety of settings: healthcare, legal, business, administrative. The European Union recommends distance interpreting even in legal proceedings when language mediation is essential to guarantee the fundamental rights of citizens (Directive 64/2010). Despite all the advantages offered by remote interpreting (easier and faster access to interpreters and interpreting services also from and in remote areas, saving travel time and expenses, to name just a few) the inherent differences between face-to-face and remote communication also apply to distance interpreting and pose specific challenges to interpreters. The Handbook aims at providing a theoretical framework as well as practical tips to professional interpreters or interpreting students who are willing to start working remotely. Section 1 of the Handbook presents the theoretical background needed to understand the mechanisms and specific features of remote interpreting (both telephone and videoconference), with a focus on the basic features of remotely interpreted communication, on the importance of linguistic, paralinguistic and kinetic elements, on social, pragmatic and ethical implications, on the settings and subject areas in which remote interpreting is mostly used and on the parties, factors and instrumentalities involved. The authors' chapter "Basic tenets and features characterising telephone- and video-based remote communication in dialogue interpreting" presents an overview of the main pragmalinguistics and interpreting concepts necessary to successfully interpret remote interaction. The authors present the following concepts: characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of remote interpreting (RI) vs. face-to-face interpreting, impact of space allocation in RI, structure and dynamics of human verbal interaction, with reference to RI, nature and contribution of non-verbal communication, paralinguistic features of human interaction, note-taking and memorisation techniques, impact of RI on quality.