Training public service translators and interpreters : difficulties in an uncharted field

As Roberts says, Public Service Translation and Interpreting (henceforth PSTI) "has begun to aspire to professionalization only in the last decade" and "is still going through growing pains as it strives to define itself, to set standards, and to establish recognition as a profession" (2002: 157). Therefore, if even in consolidated subfields within translation and interpreting (conference interpreting, literary or technical tramslation, etc.), trainers have always faced practical dilemmas and difficulties, it seems understandable that trainers in PSTI, a still uncharted field in many respects and in many countries, face many more.