Onsite Interpreting Versus Remote Interpreting In The Covid 19 World

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world witnessed drastic global transformations in many fields .The translation and interpretation industry has not escaped these transformations, the most important of which affected deeply the way interpreting services were delivered. This meant that many of the language services needed to facilitate communication, mainly healthcare interpreting, had to shift from onsite to online delivery of interpreting services. Thus, the aim of this article is to assess the role played by healthcare interpreters in the fight against the current COVID-19 pandemic, knowing that most of the nations affected by this disease are linguistically diverse and enjoy more than one primary language. Particular attention will be paid to the reliability of these interpreters in facilitating communication with foreign patients with limited language proficiency through efficient Onsite Interpreting, and to their ability to adapt to the new global interpreting transformations forced by the pandemic, among them Remote Interpreting.