A Comparative Study On The Quality Of Telephone Interpreting And On-site Interpreting

Telephone Interpreting first came about in Australia in 1973 when the country was facing a substantial number of immigrants who came from non-English backgrounds,so the government launched a round-the-clock Telephone Interpreting Service by the name of Emergency Telephone Interpreter Service to help the immigrants settle in.Then it quickly gains momentum as a substitute form of On-Site Interpreting.However,the advantages of Telephone Interpreting come hand-in-hand with its constraints.And ever since it first appeared,there have been concerns for the quality of Telephone Interpreting,mainly due to the lack of visual interaction during the process,some argue that this would lead to unsatisfactory service.This thesis aims to study the two forms of interpreting and through an experiment,come to a conclusion.This thesis examines the advantages and constraints of Telephone Interpreting,using Gile’s Effort Model as a theoretical framework to analyze the possible problem triggers that might have a negative impact on the quality of Telephone Interpreting.By conducting a comparative study where two groups of college students will be performing Telephone Interpreting and On-site Interpreting,their performance will be evaluated in the hope of determining whether there is a disparity between the quality of these two forms of interpreting.At the end of the thesis,the thesis explains the conclusion,lists all the limitations of the study and proposes suggestions for future studies as well as possible ways to enhance the quality of Telephone Interpreting.