Interpreting in the pandemic times: state of play

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has influenced all areas of human activity, including interpretation, which has been shifted to virtual space. Even if these tendencies of displacement towards the virtual were felt since the first decade of the second millennium, the pandemic has accelerated this development; it represents a quantum leap that has had a considerable impact on the very substance of the interpreter's profession. The following text aims to give a general picture of the interpreting profession in the post-pandemic period. The attention will be focused on three axes: 1. how the necessity of physical distance influences the very nature of interpreting; 2. the impact of remote interpreting on the health of interpreters; 3. consequences of the pandemic crisis and lockdown measures for the workload of interpreters with the Slovak-French combination and comparison with those with English in their language combination. Finally, the article describes the impact of the new situation on the teaching of interpretation at Slovak universities and on the training of future interpreters.