10. Community Interpreting into Plain Language

Summary

Existing guidelines for Plain Language were devised for written texts. Nevertheless, occasional attempts to interpret into Plain Language do already occur in practice. Community Interpreting into Plain Language allows people with temporary cognitive impairment and migrants with little knowledge of the local language to follow public talks or debates.

To date, Community Interpreting into Plain Language has hardly been addressed by the academic community. Therefore, Research Area 10 will have to lay the theoretical foundations of this area of study. Research findings of Research Area 4 will inform a new conceptual framework for Community Interpreting into Plain Language. Whenever possible, traditional interpreting models will be transferred to this Research Area and guidelines will thus be developed for spoken Plain Language. A series of tests will then serve as the basis for the development of ad-hoc interpreting strategies for Community Interpreting into Plain Language. In Research Area 10, the project partners will coordinate the collection of existing research output in closely interlinked areas of study.

The main objectives of Research Area 10 are therefore:

• To describe target group communication needs in Community Interpreting into Plain Language.
• To compile a set of guidelines for spoken Plain Language by drawing on existing guidelines for written Plain Language (cf. Research Area 4).
• To carry out a series of tests to a) evaluate the comprehensibility of Community Interpreting into Plain Language with representatives of the target groups, and, if possible, b) develop ad-hoc interpreting strategies for Community Interpreting into Plain Language.