Assessing Quality in Asylum Interpreting: A Relevance-Theoretic Perspective

This chapter aims to contribute to a better understanding of the impact of Relevance Theory (RT) on asylum interpreters’ competence and its use for training purposes. It starts out by illustrating the explanatory potential of RT, and how this can be adopted as a theoretical framework in order to (re-)define the notions of quality and fidelity. Furthermore, it zooms in on the challenges found in interpreting from a cognitive-pragmatic perspective. Lastly, theory and practice are combined to present results from an analysis of authentic asylum interpreting data, consisting of real-life asylum interviews mediated by Nigerian English–Italian interpreters. Findings inform research towards conceptualising the notion of interpreting quality and setting evaluation standards in accordance with the relevance-theoretic principles, through an emphasis on cross- and meta-pragmatic competence. A shared understanding of language mediation is not only useful for explaining the interpreter’s task, but also to help determine the skillset needed to fulfil the practitioner’s role and improve efforts towards higher levels of interpreter professionalisation . This will help set clear, attainable standards for training and testing, and improve the overall quality of the service – for service users and society as a whole.