Analysis of the current status of interpreting as a profession in Colombia: An exploratory case study.

Abstract

Having as main objective the delimitation of the current status of Interpreting as a profession in Colombia, this research Project took on a mixed research approach favoring the explorative and case study research methods. In the same way, the theory of professions guides the theoretical standpoint of this project. It took into account interpreting students, an interpreting instructor and active interpreter and 57 Colombian interpreters. By means of non- participant observations, interviews and an online survey to the different participant of this study it was possible to find interesting yet realistic data regarding this issue. It was possible to establish different aspects about this profession in Colombia such as the demographic, the academic and the working reality of it. It was found among other things that there are more male than female interpreters, most of them are empiric interpreters, they work on more than one interpreting field with English as the main working language and they do not receive a consistent salary for their job