A preliminary study on the professionalization of legal interpreting in Taiwan

This paper aims at exploring the development of the legal interpreting profession in Taiwan. Comparison and contrast is made with Ju’s (2009) professionalization model for conference interpreting, and revision is provided. The results show that legal interpreting has its advantages for professionalization. The Taiwanese government has passed statutes governing the use of legal interpreters. However, the loose regulations delegate the design of licensure mechanism to training institutions, leading to huge disparities among different training courses, as well as discrepancies among practitioners in abilities and how they perceive this profession. In addition, legal interpreter training courses in universities are unlikely due to a dearth of resources, including prospective students and faculty. Generally, the professionalization of legal interpreting in Taiwan differs from the conference interpreting profession, with initial protection and licensure co-existing with market disorder in the first stage, and a national professional association alone shouldering the major responsibility of professionalization and advocating regulation amendment.