Abstract
This chapter explores the interrelation between COVID-19, remote interpreting, and technology in affecting the provision of interpreters’ services. Drawing upon and extending scholarship that examines the articulation of interpreters’ work and materiality, the chapter adopts a sociological perspective rooted in practice theory. This approach assumes that socially situated phenomena, or practices, are the result of a complex socio-material context where habits, activities, and relationalities are arranged. Leveraging data from language industry sources and surveys, the chapter takes technology as its focus and discusses its role in arranging such elements in remote interpreting during the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, it sheds light on some of the challenges and opportunities that are emerging in the field, including how interpreters and the industry have adapted to the spread of remote work. The chapter integrates innovative theoretical lenses to remote interpreting studies, contributing a non-anthropocentric view to the role of materiality in the interpreting industry that problematizes the development of technology-mediated production and consumption behaviours.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Translation and Interpreting in the Age of COVID-19 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Publication status | Published - 2023 |
| Externally published | Yes |