Translators and interpreters' voice on the spread of English as a lingua franca in Italy

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an online survey on the spread of ELF in the translation and interpreting (T&I) industry in Italy. It follows previous perception studies based on a limited number of ad-hoc interviews or broader surveys including unsolicited comments on ELF. This study is the first attempt to carry out a large-scale, online survey among professional translators and interpreters specifically to analyze how they perceive the effects of the increasing use of English by non-native speakers and the resulting consequences on their job. A total of 247 T&I professionals took part in the survey, answering questions about their professional profile, ELF-related features found in source texts, the resulting strategies and solutions adopted to deal with them, and the future developments of T&I. Overall, several challenges are voiced by survey participants, from greater comprehension difficulties to fewer jobs, thus confirming the results of previous studies. However, ELF use also seems to provide new opportunities in more specialized settings and enable better communication with a broader client base. In fact, opposite views can be highlighted in most survey items, pointing to the need to increase the awareness of both service users and providers about the positive and negative effects of the global language par excellence.