On the profession of sworn/court interpreter in Serbia

Abstract

The profession of sworn/court interpreters often remains unnoticed and insufficiently studied, and there are many misconceptions about it, both in the public and within the professional community. There are many problems related to the practice, as the profession seems to be undervalued as a whole. In order to make it clear how types of interpreting may be different, the paper first gives a classification of interpreting (oral translation), not just a common classification into simultaneous and consecutive translation, but the classification into sub-categories as the practicing professionals see fit. The classification is followed by a comparative review of the status of the profession in some European countries and in Serbia as well. The data available for the European countries suggest that the situation is far from ideal and that there is still a lot to be done in order to provide a legal status of the profession, the criteria for practice, etc. The situation in Serbia seems to be much better than in the majority of countries included in the paper, but further improvement is also welcome. It is commendable that Serbia stands out as a positive example, being a country where there are criteria set for this rather important profession as well as procedures that need to be followed in order to become a sworn/court interpreter and translator. A lot of facts referring to the profession could not be included in the paper due to its limited scope, such as stress as an inevitable part of the profession, lack of appropriate formal but also informal education and training, the need for constant improvement and learning, the problems related to getting remunerated for the job done, and other similar issues. These facts could be the topic of some future research.