Conference interpreters in the European Parliament

Abstract

The paper presents the working environment of EU interpreters in the European Parliament (EP), a setting with 24 working languages and 552 interpreting directions. It focuses on the specificity of plenary sessions and the challenges posed by the source texts (usually very short utterances, presented in a rapid succession and at a high speed, often in non-native English). Some attention is devoted to the multi-stage recruitment procedure, which should be of interest to potential candidates. Finally, the paper offers an outline of ethnographic research on EP interpreters that has been flourishing in recent years. The methods used by researchers include surveys, interviews, observation, participant observation, and content analysis of the material from plenary sessions. Some studies suggest that interpreters’ satisfaction is lower than could be expected on the basis of the high prestige and income associated with the job. This is mostly attributable to uncooperative speakers and uninterested audiences. The author’s own study (Bartłomiejczyk 2017) explores what participants of plenary sessions say about interpreters and interpreting. The results paint a more positive picture: appreciation is much more frequent than criticism and doubt. However, the frequency of reminders about the constraints of simultaneous interpreting addressed to speakers reinforces the observations of other authors that many speakers do not adjust their output to facilitate high-quality interpreting. Evidently, some of them are not ignorant of the requirements their speeches should meet, but they simply refuse to make any concessions.