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Public Service Interpreting and the Challenges of the New Millennium 

The aim of this project, founded by the Directorate General for Interpretation of the European Comission and conducted by the MIRAS research group of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), is to promote and improve the work and training of professional interpreters in public services in a European context. This main objective is divided into the following specific goals:

  • to develop open-access audio-visual material for trainers and trainees in PSI, as well as for a general audience;
  • to give visibility to the work of Public Service interpreters in the EU space and the importance of PSI training programs;
  • to introduce PSI to conference interpreting students as a means of enlarging their knowledge of interpreting modes, fields of activity and communicative contexts.

The following set of seven videos is the result of this project. The first video is an introduction to PSI, while the other six portray a mediated encounter with an interpreter in a specific public service setting (healthcare, educational, social and legal). Each one of these six videos deals with one or more key-topics usually present in Public Service Interpreting (PSI) and shows two versions, a correct one and an incorrect one, of the same encounter, except for video 2, which compares the performance of an intercultural mediator (a professional profile widely present in countries such as Italy, Spain or Beligium) to the performance of a public service interpreter. 

The situations performed in each video are introduced and explained by a member of the project’s team especialist in the topic addressed. Seven languages are used in the videos (Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, English, French, Spanish and Urdu). All the videos are subtituled into English and into Spanish.

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