What is Interpreting?

What is Interpreting?


Interpreting, or interpretation, is the intellectual activity that consists of facilitating oral or sign-language communication, either simultaneously or consecutively, between two or among three or more speakers who are not speaking, or signing, the same language.

The words interpreting and interpretation both can be used to refer to this activity; the word interpreting is commonly used in the profession and in the translation-studies field to avoid confusion with other meanings of the word interpretation.

Not all languages employ, as English does, two separate words to denote the activities of written and live-communication (oral or sign-language) translators. Even English does not always make the distinction, frequently using translation as a synonym of interpreting, especially in nontechnical usage. Source

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