“Today the fate of the world depends primarily on its statesmen and secondarily on their interpreters”

Trvgve Lie, Norwegian politician

First Secretary General of the United Nations

Community interpreting

Community interpreting is a more recent type of interpretation, used for the first time as term by the Chartered Institute of Linguists in London. The biggest difference to liaison interpreting is that it involves two sides that have different levels of knowledge and cultural backgrounds. It is a consecutive mode that can be performed by interpreters WITHOUT formal interpretation experience.

Due to a period of high global migration it is a service of demand. It involves interpretation before national bodies like employment agency, social service providers, medical institutions, migration offices, asylum centers etc. The competence of the community interpreters is not only the language, but knowledge of the cultural background of the migrants for example. Since it is a stressful situation for the foreigners, the interpreter shall gain confidence, in the ideal case know the exact dialect of the foreign party, be able to explain professional terms in a more simple way (medical, legal etc.) and relieve the stress from the person/persons that in most cases had very traumatic experiences before facing official institutions without any previous experience with interpreters of any kind or even bad experiences with “mediators”.