State of the art in community interpreting research: mapping the main research topics

Abstract

Over the past ten years Community Interpreting research has become a flourishing field of study with a great number of contributions being published every year. Books, articles, papers and presentations may vary in their topics - some of them being very general and some of them much more specific - and this diversity has been the source of our motivation to draw what could be regarded as a map of the main research topics in Community Interpreting. Thus, based on a literature review and inspired by Williams & Chesterman's (2002) map for Translation Studies, this paper proposes a specific map for Community Interpreting research, while also attempting to summarize the main contributions. It does not intend to provide an exhaustive revision, but an overview that reflects the state of the art in Community Interpreting as a basis for future research. It finally states that research topics art not isolated, but tightly interconnected as different steps in the path towards professionalization, as can be seen in the conceptual map suggested at the end of this paper.