Interpretare le Emozioni: (Ri)Conoscerle per (Re)Agire Consapevolmente nell’Interazione Mediata

Abstract

Interpreting studies have in recent years highlighted the importance of the emotional component in the selection and training of future interpreters, emphasizing how empathy, vicarious trauma and burn-out must be taken into serious account when preparing to work in delicate and emergency settings, and suggesting guidelines for trainers aiming to integrate these components into their courses and curricula. Following in the footsteps of González Rodríguez (2022), who in the first dossier edited by Zanoni and Zuccheri problematized the emotions and the human factor involved in dialogue interpreting and showed how they affect not only the smooth functioning of services but also interpreters’ health, in this paper we will report on how we prepare DIT's master's degree students in interpreting to enter highly emotional contexts, such as healthcare and emergency settings. We will first introduce the Theory and practice of specialized dialogue interpreting course in which this emotional component was introduced; in the first section, we will also provide some definitions of emotions, empathy, vicarious trauma and burn-out that will prepare the theoretical ground for the subsequent analyses. These will focus on the emotions that two groups of student-interpreters have thematized in relation to the healthcare setting at different points in their training, i.e. before and after having participated in the classes dedicated to this setting and after having actually worked as interpreters in some healthcare facilities. The third and last section will present two training initiatives developed with the two psychologists of the Italian Society of Emergency Psychology (SIPEM SoS E.R.) who, in addition to preparing the students to emergency settings and supporting them when they actually entered them, co-authored this paper.