Modern Interpreting with Digital and Technical Aids: Challenges for Interpreting in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

The world is growing in tandem with the Internet, freedom of travel and globalization. Inevitably translation and interpreting are in greater demand, especially online during the coronavirus pandemic. With the beginning of the twenty-first century, interpreting faces new technical and digital challenges requiring new methods of delivery. Technical developments in the course of digitization have been on the rise and are approaching real time use simultaneous capability. The technology supporting the interpreter is becoming more and more effective, while an increasing number of systems, such as artificially intelligent programs, are competing with the human being. The interpreter must now be a technology organizer and adroitly adapt to technologically predefined interpreting situations, such as video conferences with augmented reality, tele-interpreting, etc. The movements of migrants within the EU and the influx of refugees from crisis areas outside of it render community interpreting especially of rare languages in unprecedented demand, often resulting in the unsavory use of non-professional and sub-standard interpreters. Existential problems for the entire profession become apparent. Due to networking via the Internet, unqualified interpreters pour onto the market from low-wage countries: with dumping prices and low-quality services, they discredit the profession of the professional interpreter. Meanwhile remuneration practices have been declining, with payment of interpreting services often being delayed or payment defaulted. All these lead to a devaluation of the profession of the interpreter while digital technology throws into doubt the need for the role of the human as interpreter or translator. The positive side of technological advancement is that communication (including translation and interpretation) becomes digital and therefore can be enhanced with artificial intelligence. This enhancement takes interpreting and translation to a new quality level. Translation and interpretation theory needs to adapt to translation and interpretation in the age of artificial intelligence, the focus, which has moved with the functional approaches to the translator, now moves to the target text audience. The new way of interpreting is a human, but digital-technically determined hybrid form of human-machine interactive interpretation, with due respect for the human participation expressed in the form of professional remuneration.