Language Interpreters May Be Vulnerable to Work-Related Trauma
May is Mental Health Awareness month, and a reminder that mental health is essential to overall health. The language services profession is not immune from mental health stressors and occupational challenges for interpreters, including in the areas of health care, domestic and war crime victim services, and the legal and court systems.
Over the years, the American Translators Association (ATA) has addressed the concept and condition of vicarious trauma among spoken language and sign language interpreters. The federal Office for Victims of Crime explains vicarious trauma as the result of exposure to the traumatic experiences of other people and occurs in part “from listening to individual clients recount their victimization.”
Research further details how language interpreters may be more vulnerable to vicarious trauma: “To retell an experience with the speaker’s intended meaning, interpreters visualize the experience, cognitively engage with the content, reproduce the emotions of the speaker, and use the first-person singular or plural pronoun when delivering the message, according to research by Noor Khatijah Zafirah, Richard J. T. Hamshaw, and Annabella Dyer. This can intensify an interpreter’s emotions and enhance potential traumatic impact.”
The language services industry must continue to support the well-being of language professionals by raising awareness around mental health. The ATA has a list of reference materials for interpreters and is a valuable contact point for the industry. The OVC also offers a comprehensive Vicarious Trauma toolkit .
University Language Center recognize the challenges our interpreters face when working with victims of trauma, and we are grateful for their critical contributions to this important work.