Abstract (eng)
Court and public service interpreting is a highly complex process that poses great challenges to both interpreters and clients. On the one hand, professional skills and profound subject-matter competence are required by interpreters. On the other hand, clients (i.e. judges, prosecutors, police, etc.) are faced with a challenging situation in their effort to successfully cooperate with interpreters.
This master thesis examines the question of how quality in court interpreting is defined in the law and which competences court interpreters should have in this respect. It starts out with a theoretical discussion of the general concept of competence, tackles interpreting competence in a next step and then moves on to discuss the skills required in particular by court and public service interpreters. The role of quality assurance in the law is also discussed by way of comparing and contrasting the Austrian Court Experts’ and Interpreters’ Act (Sachverständigen- und Dolmetschergesetz; SDG) and the Zurich Language Services Ordinance (Sprachdienstleistungsverordnung, SDV). It is examined if and to what extent the law refers to translation skills and competences and whether the legal framework safeguards compliance with such qualification requirements or rather disregards those aspects. In order to establish whether the process of appointing an interpreter is comparable to the certification procedure in terms of efforts to enhance professionalism and quality assurance in the field of court and public service interpreting, the aspect of quality assurance by making use of highly qualified interpreters is investigated. Finally, the appointment processes applied in Austria (on the basis of the Austrian Criminal Code (Strafprozessordnung, StPO) and in the Swiss Canton of Zurich (according to the SDV) are outlined, followed by a comparison of the payment schemes in the two regions, focusing in particular on the Austrian fee invoice (Gebührennote) and the Zurich SDV remuneration tariff.
The research design used in this master thesis is aligned with the rules of qualitative social research. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with court interpreters and judges to tackle the research questions focusing on court interpreting quality. The interviews were analysed and evaluated using specific categories established by Philipp Mayring. By way of conclusion, the thesis once again reviews the research process and critically reflects on the research results in summary, emphasising the questions that remain unanswered and that could be used as points of reference for future research.