ABSTRACT
Public service interpreting is a term that originated in the UK to refer to the type of interpreting that takes place in community contexts. (Corsellis 2008: 4–5; Hale 2011: 346). It describes the kind of interpreting that enables members of a community to access public services when they do not speak the dominant language of the community (Mikkelson 1996). According to Corsellis (2008: 4–5) – vice-president of the UK’s Institute of Chartered Linguists and who coordinated the UK’s development of pilot projects in training, assessment and good practice of public service interpreting (Valero-Garcés 2014) – the term ‘public service’ refers mainly to the services provided by central or local government, including legal, health and the range of social services such as housing, education, welfare and environmental health. As a result, under the broad term of public service interpreting, legal interpreting, medical interpreting and social interpreting (Pöchhacker 2004) are often referred to as its sub-categories.
