The impact of emotionally evocative information on interpreting accuracy in a mock asylum interview

Abstract

In asylum interviews, interpreters often relay emotionally evocative information. This study compared interpreting accuracy of emotionally evocative and neutral information. Twenty-eight Arabic-English interpreters participated in a mock asylum interview held via videoconferencing. They interpreted between an English interviewer and a Sudanese-Arabic applicant who performed a scripted interview including neutral and emotionally evocative responses. Pre-interview, interpreters completed a secondary traumatic stress measure. English interpretations of the Arabic neutral and emotionally evocative responses were recorded, transcribed and coded for interpreting errors. Emotionally evocative responses were interpreted 4%–8% less accurately than neutral responses, which was a significant medium to large effect. Secondary traumatic stress did not moderate differences in interpreting accuracy between conditions.