Interpreting quality in times of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) : new variables and requirements

In the debate on interpreting quality, there has been a shift in focus from looking at the interpreter's ability to build content, form and performance-related equivalence to a broader view, based on a notion of interpretation as a complex interactional and communicative event encompassing pragmatic and socio-linguistic factors (Garzone 2002, 107). Quality is now regarded as a pragmatic optimisation process in a complex socio-relational network (cf. Mack 2002, 114). Kalina (2006), in particular, illustrates how the interpreter's performance needs to be looked at in a much larger context, that is, from the perspective of the overall process, covering different phases before, in, around, and after the actual interpreting activity. In doing so, it becomes possible to cover the great variety of factors that influence interpreting quality, including the interpreter's individual capabilities (e.g., language and subject knowledge, memory capacity, concentration, motivation, and strategic behaviour) as well as customer demands, participant profiles, technical conditions and other situational and non-situational factors (e.g., availability of documentation, research access, time invested). The global spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF) adds yet another dimension. In this paper, I wish to outline how the interpreter's work is affected by the increasing number of non-native English-speaking conference participants.