earticle

영어

Community interpreters, who enable migrants to access communityservices removing language and cultural barriers, work in a wide rangeof professional fields such as immigration, asylum, healthcare, lawenforcement, court and education. Given that the interpreters’competence is closely connected with the quality of communityinterpreting service and migrants’ access to public services, theprofessional standards which apply to the practice of communityinterpreters deserve scholarly attention. Based on the review of relevantliterature, this paper examines one of the major issues discussed in theexisting literature, namely the complexity of community interpreters’role. As community interpreters often face conflicting demands andexpectations with respect to their role, without proper training, theymay easily succumb to such pressures. Community interpreters do notjust interpret linguistic message but also mediate cultural differenceswhich may hamper communication between people from differentlinguistic and cultural backgrounds. Their role, however, may be refineddepending on the context where the interpreter-mediated interactionstake place, including the purpose of communication, the employmentstatus, and so on. This paper argues that community interpreters’mediation should take place according to the professional standards andshould not compromise their professional ethics and identity. Itconcludes that the professionalization of community interpreting canserve migrant empowerment and community services in South Korea.