El intérprete en los servicios públicos entre la primera y la tercera persona

While it would be unusual to use reported speech (the third person) in conference interpreting, this practice is not uncommon in community interpreting, which could be due to a number of reasons, including lack of appropriate training, the interpreter's own beliefs and preferences, or the complexities associated with community settings and triadic interactions. In this paper twenty interpreter-mediated healthcare consultations are analysed quantitatively to verify whether there is consistency among the interpreters and within the performance of each one of them. The processing method consists of counting and classifying interpreter turns according to their level of directness (direct/indirect translation; direct/indirect representation). The findings indicate inconsistencies both among the interpreters as a group and within the individual performance (in the same consultation) of most interpreters.