By Tatiana González-Cestari, PhD, CHI-Spanish, Danielle Meder, NIC-RID, and Sarah Stockler-Rex, MA, CHI-Spanish.
For too long, remote interpreter trainers have wished for training content specific to remote interpreting. Existing qualifying training programs were designed for a particular type of student: the face-to-face interpreter. These programs work to train remote interpreters to an extent, but interpreter employers are left to fill in the blanks on how to handle situations that can’t or won’t occur onsite.
In late 2019, Cross-Cultural Communications, formerly under the direction of Marjory Bancroft, assembled a diverse group of remote interpreting experts to fill this exact gap. The team began creating The Remote Interpreter: a textbook to provide remote interpreter training content and benchmarks applicable globally and in nearly all specializations.
What is The Remote Interpreter?
The Remote Interpreter is a foundational textbook for:
- Students who want to begin their careers as remote interpreters
- Existing interpreters who plan to transition to remote interpreting
- Remote interpreters who seek to refine their skills
The textbook targets a global audience and supports all remote modes, specializations, and language pairs. It teaches students the skills, tools, strategies, and best practices to succeed and to support the communicative autonomy of all. The authors span all modalities, bringing decades of combined experience to deliver instruction that will change how interpreters learn and join the remote interpreting landscape.
The Remote Interpreter is the first comprehensive textbook focused solely on interpreting remotely.
- Volume 1 provides general information about how to perform the work.
- Volume 2 addresses specific interpreting areas, including remote simultaneous interpreting, various specializations (e.g., healthcare, education), relay interpreting, and team interpreting.
Who should read The Remote Interpreter?
The Remote Interpreter is designed to train and educate remote interpreters worldwide. While many of the book’s examples draw from remote interpreting in the U.S., the content also supports interpreters internationally.
The training content spans many specializations:
- Both spoken and sign language interpreters
- Both general and specific requirements for remote interpreting
- Relevant laws and best practices that affect or govern remote interpreting services
The book also supports interpreter trainers, educators, language service coordinators, staff, quality assurance teams, and others who work with remote interpreters. Other groups that may find the book useful include government agencies, schools, refugee resettlement groups, nonprofit human service organizations that support immigrants and refugees or the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and any other organizations that work with interpreters.
Collaboration by Industry Experts
The Remote Interpreter is a collaboration between a broad team of remote interpreting and interpreter training experts.
Primary authors:
- Katharine Allen, MA
- Marjory A. Bancroft, MA
- Tatiana González-Cestari, PhD, CHI-Spanish
- Danielle Meder, RID-NIC
- Caroline Remer, MA
- Dieter Runge, M.Ed
- Sarah Stockler-Rex, MA, CHI-Spanish
Contributing authors:
- Maha El-Metwally, FITI
- Analía C. Lang, CHI-Spanish
- Lyana Mansour, CHI-Arabic
- Gabriella Maldonado, MSc, CMI
- Monika McCartney, CoreCHI
A Note From the Authors:
We have poured our hearts and brains into this project, mixing our collective industry experience with considerable research and knowledge to advance language access and the interpreting profession. We proudly bring this first-of-its-kind textbook to interpreters and language access teams worldwide.
How Can You Get a Copy of The Remote Interpreter?
Visit https://www.cultureandlanguage.net/bookupdates to receive updates and to pre-order your copy!
