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In their capacity as language experts, interpreters are sometimes expected to deliver target texts that are better than their underlying source text, especially when the latter was produced by a speaker in a language that is not their L1. The spread of global English has given rise to ever more occasions when interpreters encounter non-L1 speakers of English as a lingua franca (ELF). The question as to whether or not interpreters try to optimise those speakers’ input is addressed by applying Relevance Theory (RT) as a conceptual and methodological framework that helps to understand interpreters’ needs or readiness to augment relevance for their audience. The paper builds on data from the larger project CLINT (Cognitive Load in Interpreting and Translation). The 56 renditions by all 28 professional interpreters participating in the project’s interpreting part of two original ELF speaker texts and their edited versions are analysed with a view to the enrichment processes undertaken by the interpreters. A comparison of the renditions of the original versus edited versions of the two texts shows that interpreters do engage in such processes considerably more when rendering ELF texts, especially if they are technical in nature. Determining whether or not these interventions lead to actual cognitive ffects in terms of information gains on the part of the audiences or to increased cognitive effort on the part of the interpreters requires additional comprehension testing and triangulation with other indicators of cognitive effort.

References: - Albl-Mikasa, M. (2022). Conference interpreting and English as a lingua franca. In M. Albl-Mikasa, and E. Tiselius (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Conference Interpreting, (546-563). London: Routledge. - Ehrensberger-Dow, M., Albl-Mikasa, M., Andermatt, K., Heeb, A. H., & Lehr, C. (2020). Cognitive load in processing ELF: Translators, interpreters, and other multilinguals. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 9(2), 217–238. https://doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2020-2039, In the wake of the growing impact of English as a lingua franca (ELF) on multilingual communication, it has been assumed and partially shown that deviations from conventional linguistic standards may affect interpreting and translation (T&I), especially in monological settings (Albl-Mikasa 2022). This raises the question as to how T&I professionals cope with these deviations in their effort to produce high-quality target texts. As part of the CLINT (Cognitive Load in Interpreting and Translation) project, various product- and process-based methods of the established repertoire in Cognitive Interpreting and Translation Studies have been applied in order to measure the (additional) cognitive demands involved and gauge the coping strategies targeted at managing those demands (Ehrensberger-Dow et al. 2020). To complete the picture, an international survey was conducted among professional conference and community interpreters as well as translators, designed to determine how often they actually deal with ELF texts, the characteristics of the texts that cause them the most difficulties and what coping strategies they use. Based on the responses of almost 900 professionals, this presentation highlights the self-reported results from conference and community interpreters as well as translators focusing, in particular, on their coping strategies. In addition, it will demonstrate how the addition of self-report data from members of the communities of professional practice and their experiences with ELF texts at their usual workplaces allow a richer description of ELF-related multilingual language processing than data collection from the simulated workplace setting and usability laboratory alone.

With the global spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF), T&I professionals and other multilinguals are increasingly exposed to English produced by non-native speakers. So far, research has focused primarily on the use of ELF in dialogical settings whereas the effects on language processing in monological settings are still under-researched. In a large research project, we addressed this gap with a multi-method approach. In this presentation, we draw on performance data and self-report data collected from professional conference interpreters, professional translators and teachers of English as a foreign language at secondary level. The participants were asked to process two texts on different topics: One of them in its original version produced by an ELF speaker and the other one in an edited version that conformed to English conventions. The texts and versions were counterbalanced for order. Depending on their professional background, they performed one of the following tasks: simultaneous interpreting, translation or content recall, respectively. Subsequently, they rated the comprehensibility of the texts on a six-point Likert scale. Based on the assumption that non-native speakers' texts are less comprehensible, we expect to find a negative effect of ELF on task performance and self-reported comprehensibility in all three groups. In line with the CTIS focus on the triangulation of methods, our presentation of results will show how the combination of self-reported and performance data contributes to an understanding of the effects of non-native English input on language processing.

In their capacity as language experts, interpreters are sometimes expected to deliver target texts that are better than their underlying source text, especially when the latter was produced by a non-native speaker (Déjean Le Feal 1990: 155). In the course of the global spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF), interpreters are faced with non-native input on more and more occasions. Applying Relevance Theory (RT) as a conceptual and methodological framework enables us to analyze in detail how interpreters deal with non-native input. More specifically, an RT-based analysis helps us to demonstrate what of the source input is understood by the interpreter and how it is presented in the target rendition in an attempt to augment or maximize relevance for the audience. This, in turn, provides clues as to whether or not interpreters (feel the need to) optimize those ELF speakers’ input and to the potential additional cognitive effort that may be associated with it. Based on authentic data from the CLINT (Cognitive Load in Interpreting and Translation) project, the renditions of 28 professional interpreters of an original non-native English speaker text and its edited (to comply with native speaker conventions) version are analyzed with a view to the enrichment processes undertaken by the interpreters. A comparison of the renditions of the original versus edited versions shows that interpreters do engage in considerably more such processes when rendering an ELF speech. Determining whether or not these interventions lead to actual cognitive effects in terms of information gains on the part of the audience may require an additional qualitative analysis as well as comprehension testing among listeners.

With the spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF), English texts and speeches are increasingly being produced by none-L1 speakers of English. A recent investigation of the potential cognitive impacts of ELF on mediated communication involves interpreters, translators and non-T&I multilinguals. This presentation reports on the impact on the non-T&I multilinguals who may engage in natural translation and interpreting. A task-based experiment in a simulated workplace setting was designed to investigate how these multilinguals approach ELF material. The material was sourced from authentic conference talks and their corresponding abstracts. Of each talk and abstract, an edited version was created. The study participants listened to one talk and read its abstract in their ELF versions and listened to another talk and read its abstract in their edited versions. After each task, they were asked to rate the comprehensibility of the talk and the abstract that they had just processed on a scale from 1 to 6. They then performed a recall task of the content of each talk and abstract and addressed their handling tactics in a post-task interview. We will report on the perceived comprehensibility of non-native text material and the handling tactics applied by the participants. The results intend to stimulate the discussion of how non-professional interpreters and translators cope with increasingly frequent ELF input.

With today’s strong focus on communicative competence in second language (L2) classrooms, speech acts like suggestions, requests, refusals, and apologies are often investigated in interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) as well as instructional pragmatics. Even though there is strong evidence in ILP research that purports that L2 learners respond well to pragmatic instruction (Taguchi, 2015), the teaching of L2 pragmatics is not always prioritized in textbooks, teaching programmes or teacher education (Barron, 2016; Savvidou & Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2019) with the consequence that pragmatic learning can only occur incidentally. The present study examines opportunities to acquire L2 requests for 308 English as a foreign language (EFL) learners across 7 years of instruction in French secondary schools, investigating textbooks preferred by teachers, classroom interaction (39 hours), and teacher perspectives (semi-structured interviews with 10 teachers). After a pragmatic analysis of 15 EFL textbooks with a focus on requests, the study examines the incidence of metapragmatic input in 39 hours of teaching in 13 classes at 3 levels, and relates interactional patterns with interview data from the 10 teachers concerned. Findings suggest limited pragmatic input in both textbooks and classroom interaction. By comparing the profiles of teachers who encouraged L2 requests with those who did not, the study offers new explanations for L2 learners’ limited pragmatic development which also broadly corroborate previous findings of somewhat limited potential for L2 pragmatic development in obligatory school contexts.

With the spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF), more and more English texts and speeches are being produced by none-L1 speakers of English. Only recently have researchers started to consider the potential cognitive impacts of ELF on mediated communication such as translation or conference interpreting (cf. Albl-Mikasa & Ehrensberger, 2019). However, it remains unclear whether language mediators have developed ways of processing ELF that differ from those of non-mediating language professionals. This paper explores whether professional translators, conference interpreters and L2 teachers of English actually recognise ELF when they are engaged in taxing language processing tasks. A task-based experiment in a simulated workplace setting was designed to investigate whether ELF has an effect on their performance and how these professionals reflect on it. The ELF material was sourced from authentic video recordings of conference talks and the corresponding abstracts. They differed with regard to levels of subject specificity and technicality. The talks were then respoken in order to remove any accent and be able to investigate ELF specificities that are present both in spoken and written language. The participants in the study, who were all L1 speakers of a language unrelated to the L1 of the ELF producers, processed at least one text in the ELF version and one in an edited version in a translation, interpreting or recall task, respectively. Afterwards, their reflections on textual characteristics and on processing tactics were prompted by a structured interview, with no information provided about ELF. The recorded interviews were coded and analysed in order to identify categories of source text characterisations and processing tactics by participant group. We will report on the results and discuss potential implications for the work of language professionals dealing with ELF on a regular basis.

Interpreters’ professional self-image and quality requirements have been summed up as follows: “What our listeners receive through their earphones should produce the same effect on them as the original speech does on the speaker’s audience. It should have the same cognitive content and be presented with equal clarity and precision in the same type of language if not better, given that we are professional communicators, while many speakers are not, and sometimes even have to express themselves in languages other than their own.” (Déjean Le Feal 1990: 155). The same expectations apply to professional translators. In the traditional sense, this entails constantly navigating between speaker fidelity or source text loyalty and audience design, because a good performance in terms of doing justice to the speaker or author does not necessarily imply rendering a good service to the target audience. In the increasingly common context of English used as a lingua franca (ELF), as touched upon in the above quotation, this task is further complicated by an additional dimension. When interpreters and translators deal with non-standard input from non-native speakers, they also have to balance expectations of speaker/text fidelity with speech/text optimization. This raises important questions such as the following. How do interpreters or translators do justice to the basic principles of fidelity, accuracy, and complete rendition, when propositional content and illocutionary intent are unclear? What are the implications for notions of quality in translation and interpreting (T&I), including those of faithfulness, loyalty, user expectations, accuracy, errors, and norms? How do the task requirements change when compensation, normalization, and optimization measures would be needed in the target audience’s interest (as a type of domestication), compromising the requirements of speaker fidelity or loyalty to the source text producer? What does interlingual mediation mean in this more rec

The global spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF) has caused a fundamental change to translation and interpreting (T&I). Translation and interpreting used to revolve around bilingual mediation between native speakers and native listeners. In interpreting, in particular, more often than not, source speeches are now produced by non-native English speakers. The impact of this development has the potential to uproot our traditional understanding of T&I. This article sets out to describe how ELF or, more specifically, input produced by nonnative English speakers under ELF conditions, differs from the native-speaker input, translators and interpreters used to be dealing with. It gauges the consequences of these differences for translation and interpreting and examines how fundamental a change it is navigating between non-native speakers and listeners, as compared to the traditional situation of mediating between speakers and listeners operating in their respective first languages. This culminates in an exploration of the question as to whether there is reason to speak of a paradigm shift in translation and interpreting studies.

References: - Albl-Mikasa, Michaela (2021). English as a lingua franca: a paradigm shift for Translation & Interpreting? Slovo 12(4), forthcoming. - Déjean Le Féal, Karla 1990. Some thoughts on the evaluation of simultaneous interpretation . In D. Bowen & M. Bowen (eds) Interpreting— Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow . New York : SUNY , 154 – 160 . - Reithofer , Karin 2010 . English as a lingua franca vs. interpreting— Battleground or peaceful co- existence . The Interpreters’ Newsletter 15 , 143 – 157 . - Setton, R. (1999). Simultaneous Interpretation. A Cognitive-Pragmatic Analysis. John Benjamins. - Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (2001). Relevance: Communication and cognition (2nd ed). Blackwell Publishers., In Déjean Le Feal’s classic definition of conference interpreting some amount of agency, which is generally attributed to community interpreting, and deviation from the conduit ideal is already factored in: “What our listeners receive through their earphones […] should have the same cognitive content and be presented with equal clarity and precision in the same type of language if not better, given that we are professional communicators, while many speakers are not, and sometimes even have to express themselves in languages other than their own” (1990: 155, my emphasis). That some amount of “improvement” is particularly relevant in non-native English speaker settings has been pointed out by Reithofer (2010: 151). While Reithofer’s PhD results show that conference participants reliance on interpretation yields better comprehension scores than direct listening to the ELF speaker, it is as yet unclear, what this “improvement” consists in or what interpreters actually do in target speech production to enable such better comprehension. Relevance Theory (RT) (Sperber/Wilson 2001) provides the tools to analyze in detail the changes interpreters make to source text input. The fleshing out of explicatures by means of enrichments, disambiguations and reference assignments is particularly transparent in mediated communication where fleshed out target speech can be compared to underspecified source speech input. From an RT perspective, interpreters, when mediating between native speakers, are meant “to convey the message to the hearers at the same level of relevance, i.e. requiring on their part no more effort for the derivation of the same contextual effects than is required of members of the audience who are listening to the Speaker directly" (Setton, 1999: 230). Under ELF conditions, however, preliminary research results suggest a need for greater agency (Albl-Mikasa 2021), which would translate into extra enrichment, disambiguation and reference assignment processes requiri

English is the first global lingua franca. The growth in the number of ELF users goes hand in hand with an exponential increase in the number of texts and speeches produced by non-native English speakers in international lingua franca communication. While conference interpreters are primarily trained to interpret from native speaker input, this new ELF reality sees them confronted with wide-ranging non-native English source input. Some report it being even more commonplace than native English. Interpreter complaints abound. They report taxed resources, tiring assignments, frustrating source input, adversely affected motivation and declining job satisfaction. A SCIC insider offers little sympathy: ‘Oh well, interpreters always complain’. And besides, ELF research provides evidence of successful communication in ELF contexts, contrasting with interpreters’ reported observations. Are interpreters imagining unwarranted impediments or are they facing up to genuine challenges? In this seminar, we will explore the nature of ELF and the potential pitfalls it harbours for interpreters. I will present insights from research looking into ELF in relation to interpreting and translation (ITELF) and discuss preliminary results from the CLINT (Cognitive Load in Interpreting and Translation) project that uses multiple methods to answer questions relating to whether or not ELF input actually impacts interpreters’ processing and performance.

In previous work, we have outlined the effects that English as a lingua franca (ELF) or, more specifcally, the increasing number of non-standard English source texts (in specialized and public service translation) and speeches (in conference and community interpreting) can have on translation and interpreting (T&I) processing, performance, and quality (Albl-Mikasa and Ehrensberger-Dow 2019). We have also suggested that the respective research fields can be merged into the subdiscipline of Interpreting, Translation and English as a lingua franca (ITELF). In this chapter, we take a closer look at how Translation Studies and Interpreting Studies converge in facing and addressing similar issues and questions raised by the ubiquity of ELF in most places in the modern world. We consider fundamental translation and interpreting (T&I) concepts with different labels (e.g. speaker fidelity – loyalty) and contrast their relevance under what have been considered standard vs ELF conditions.

References: - Albl-Mikasa, Michaela. 2010. ‘Global English and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF): Implications for the Interpreting Profession’. Trans-Kom 3 (3): 126–48. - Bendazzoli, Claudio. 2020. ‘Translators and Interpreters’ Voice on the Spread of English as a Lingua Franca in Italy’. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 9 (2): 239–64. https://doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2020-2040. - Taviano, Stefania. 2013. “English as a Lingua Franca and Translation: Implications for Translator and Interpreter Education.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 7 (2): 155-167., With the increased use of English as a lingua franca (ELF), translators and interpreters are more and more often confronted with English source texts produced by non-native English speakers (Albl-Mikasa 2010). This does not come without challenges for translators and interpreters, who have described non-native source texts as more demanding because it is more difficult to understand the intended meaning (Bendazzoli 2020). Little is known, however, about the effects these comprehension problems may have on students of translation and interpreting, and more particularly whether, apart from being perceived as more demanding, non-native English source texts may also cause more intense feelings of uncertainty or stress than source texts that conform with English norms. We will present data collected from 18 students of translation and interpreting. They were asked to sighttranslate either the original version of a transcription of a conference talk produced by a non-native speaker of English, or a transcript of the same talk that had been edited to comply with English conventions. The target language was German, which was also the native language of all study participants. Prior analysis of the original version of the transcript had confirmed that it contained many vague, unclear or inconsistent expressions that may increase the perceived cognitive load. As indicators of the latter, we recorded the participants’ heart rates during the task, as well as their self-reported levels of stress after the task (i.e. STAIX). Based on the assumption that non-native English source texts are more demanding than their edited versions, we hypothesize that 1) non-native source texts are reported to be more demanding than the corresponding edited versions and that 2) nonnative source texts cause higher heart rate levels than the edited version. The results may contribute to a better understanding of the effects of non-native source texts on students of translation and interpreting, and

Erworben im Rahmen der Schweizer Nationallizenzen (http://www.nationallizenzen.ch), The focus to date on interactive encounters has resulted in there being little research into monological texts and speeches produced in English as a lingua franca (ELF) contexts. They are, however, the very substance of what interpreters and translators increasingly deal with today. The quality of these language professionals’performance depends to a large extent on the input they receive. From a translation and interpreting studies (TIS) perspective, understanding what makes an ELF text or speech special and different seems paramount. In this paper, we present an innovative approach to exploring what is in an ELF text. We introduce the concepts of ‘ELF density’ and ‘ELF dense spots’ to capture and visualize types and tokens of ELF features as well as clusters they form at a local and more global level across stretches of text or speech and discuss a number of methodological challenges in determining ELF density. Based on a preliminary retrospective verbal protocol and interview analysis following 26 professional interpreters’ renditions, we aim to demonstrate the concepts’ added value for TIS, but also for non-TIS related applied linguistic tasks geared towards ELF.

This chapter provides an overview of research into the implications the global spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF) has had for conference interpreting over the past decade, during which the subfield of ITELF (interpreting, translation and English as a lingua franca) has evolved. It details the complete list of empirical studies carried out so far and outlines the consequences for central topics in conference interpreting, namely interpreting quality, cognitive demands, interpreting strategies and capacity management, interpreters’ self-concept and interpreter training. It also addresses preliminary insights into how conference interpreting under ELF conditions could be rethought. It concludes with a table summarizing the changes in the parameters and premises that characterize the new paradigm of interpreting input from a majority of non-native English speakers.

Translatorische Aufbereitung im Zeitalter von Englisch als Lingua franca – ein Paradigmenwechsel? Sinn und Kontext sind die Eckpfeiler der Verdolmetschung und Übersetzung. Fallen diese in sich zusammen, wenn sie von ELF untergraben und ausgehöhlt werden? ELF oder Englisch als Lingua franca bezieht sich auf die globale Ausbreitung von zunehmend nichtmuttersprachlichem Englisch in der mündlichen wie schriftlichen Kommunikation und damit einhergehend auf mehr und mehr von Nichtmuttersprachlern produzierte Ausgangsreden und -texte. Die Tragweite dieser Entwicklung für das Dolmetschen und Übersetzen ist noch wenig erforscht, es zeichnet sich allerdings ab, dass sie gravierend sein könnte. Denn Sinn bzw. mentale Kohärenzbildung und Kontext bzw. situative Einflussfaktoren sind über kognitiv-inferentielle Verarbeitungsprozesse auf vielfältige Weise verflochten und voneinander abhängig. Was passiert, wenn die zentrale Kohärenzbildung durch hybriden, nichtstandardgemäßem Sprachgebrauch gestört wird, wenn sich der Ko-Text auf grammatischer, semantischer und pragmatischer Ebene als unzuverlässig erweist, wenn wichtige Kontextfaktoren wie Textproduzentensprache und - kultur nicht mehr einschätzbar sind? Wie nehmen Dolmetscher ihre Verantwortung bezüglich Rednertreue oder genauer und vollständiger Wiedergabe wahr, wenn die Aussageintention unklar formuliert ist, wenn dem Redneranliegen kein Vertrauen geschenkt werden kann und wenn die Inputanalyse Kapazitäten vom Produktionsprozess abzieht? Und wie werden sie dem Kredo „faithful in message and style“ (Gile 1992: 189) gerecht, wenn sich dieses auf eine Ausgangsrede bezieht, die der Redner vielleicht lieber anders präsentiert hätte, wäre er dazu in der Lage gewesen (gemäß dem Motto: dans la langue maternelle on dit ce-qu’on veut, dans une langue étrangère ce que l’on peut)? Und die Übersetzerin, wie kann sie einen natürlich und idiomatisch klingenden Zieltext verfassen, wenn der Ausgangstext vielleicht das ganze Gegenteil ist? Best

Over the last decades, English has become the unchallenged lingua franca at international gatherings. English as a lingua franca (ELF) is not without consequences for interpreters in that they increasingly face the difficult task of having to interpret non-native speakers. Much of the ELF-related research in interpreting studies has so far focused on non-native accented speech. Current surveys among interpreters suggest, however, that accent is not the only difficulty. Instead, it seems that non-native speeches are characterized by a wide range of phenomena such as lack of cohesion and unclear argumentation, lexical and grammatical irregularities, increased explicitness and signs of processing, all of which may contribute to adding to the interpreters’ cognitive burden. In the SNSF-funded CLINT-project, we are currently addressing this research gap. Ongoing data collection allows us to look at the simultaneous English to German interpretations of 20 professional interpreters for the investigation of the effect of ELF on interpreting. The authentic source speech delivered at a conference on energy-related matters was produced by a non-native English speaker. It was recorded, transcribed and re-spoken by a Canadian native speaker to control for accent. In-depth analysis confirmed that it contained a considerable number of phenomena typical of ELF-speeches, which may affect interpreters’ cognitive load. Interpreters were also presented with a second version of the same speech which was edited to comply with standard British English. Ten participants interpreted the original ELF-version of the speech, the other ten participants interpreted the edited version of the same speech. Based on the assumption of higher cognitive load involved in interpreting an ELF speech, we expected to find an overall lower interpreting quality as well as an effect of fatigue, reflected in an earlier decline in interpreting quality. Interpreting quality is a multifaceted concept, a major aspe

This contribution analyses the argumentative premises underlying applied linguistic research conducted in the area of English-medium instruction. Applied linguistics not only studies language as it is used in the real world but is widely understood as an approach through which real-world problems in matters of language can be solved. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that applied linguistics is commonly used as a diagnostic perspective in English-medium instruction (EMI) research where it aims to provide insight into issues in need of fixing or improvement. Such studies are not conducted in an argumentative vacuum: they are embedded in a background process of policymaking, debate and discussion by stakeholders and policymakers who are involved in the introduction of English as an international language in higher education. This paper aims to highlight the argumentative backdrop against which applied linguistic research into EMI is construed and legitimised. Analysing conference abstracts in the field of EMI, the paper seeks to draw attention to everyday logic and beliefs applied linguists engage in when submitting paper proposals for conferences. It calls for a critical applied linguistic research agenda which foregrounds the potential ideological effects everyday conceptualisations of language have on EMI research and, ultimately, on EMI policymaking.

With the spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF), conference interpreters are increasingly confronted with non-native English source speeches. Apart from dealing with a variety of L1-induced accents, interpreters may also have to cope with a wide range of ELF-related phenomena such as lack of cohesion and unclear argumentation, lexical and grammatical irregularities and increased signs of processing, all of which may hamper the interpreter's comprehension. In order to level out such ELF-induced difficulties and more fully understand the intended speaker meaning, interpreters often need to rely to a greater degree on their world knowledge to draw context-related inferences. Data collected within the ongoing SNSF Sinergia project Cognitive Load in Interpreting and Translation (CLINT) allows us to analyse 24 professional conference interpreters' German renditions of two authentic ELF speeches, as compared to edited versions of the same speeches that comply with native usage. One of the ELF speeches and its edited counterpart treat a rather general topic, whereas the other pair of speeches are on a highly technical topic. To investigate whether the impact of ELF on source speech comprehension is mitigated by accessibility of contextual knowledge, we compared 1) the number of context- based additions in the target speeches, 2) interpreters' self-perceived comprehensibility of the source speech as indicated in the retrospective questionnaire, and 3) sense consistency and completeness of renditions as analysed in an accuracy rating. The comparison revealed an effect of technicality: the differences in comprehensibility and interpreting accuracy between the ELF and edited versions were smaller for the general speech, where interpreters made more context-based additions, than for the domain-specific speech where participants could not be expected to have much previous knowledge. These findings suggest that world knowledge may help to close gaps in meaning and resolve uncl

Although the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) has become a new professional reality for translators and interpreters, its implications for translating and interpreting have only recently started to be investigated scientifically (Albl-Mikasa, 2018). This PhD project focuses on the impact of (the often hybrid nature of) ELF on simultaneous interpreters' processing of source text from a pragmatics perspective. Findings from Reithofer's (2013) comprehension-testing study, namely that an ELF speech was understood less well by the audience than its simultaneous interpretation into the audience's first language, suggest that interpreters manage to produce coherent target texts from less coherent source text input, presumably levelling out ELF-induced problems. To date, no research has been done on how exactly this is achieved. Drawing on the pragmatic framework of Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1995), transcriptions of professional interpreters' renditions of an ELF source text are subjected to a qualitative product analysis and compared with renditions of an edited English version of the same source text to assess the cognitive effects generated by the interpreters. More specifically, the explicatures identified in the interpretations are compared with those in the source texts with regard to the enrichment processes interpreters may have engaged in. According to Relevance Theory, these include "disambiguation, reference assignment, the resolution of vagueness, and the recovery of ellipsed or unexpressed material" (Blakemore, 1987, p. 72). As the relation between cognitive effects and processing effort has been shown to be crucial for the description of the translation process as a cognitive activity (Alves, 2007; Alves & Gonçalves, 2015, 2003), the product analysis is triangulated with process data to gauge the cognitive effort involved in the interpreting processes. This contribution will present an overview of the study design as well as preliminary result

EMI in Swiss higher education is often implemented in a concerted effort involving different stakeholders including curriculum planners, subject teachers and applied linguists. Curriculum planners typically are heads of study programs or teaching coordinators who drive EMI within their institutional contexts. Subject teachers are those lecturers who volunteer, or are required, to take part in an EMI initiative. Applied linguists are internal or external EMI experts invited to help curriculum planners. While collaboration between these stakeholders on EMI initiatives may be very fruitful, it is often accompanied by friction that reveals a discrepancy in understanding of the role of EMI experts and, more generally, of language and communication in disciplinary learning. These conflicting interpretations pose particular challenges for the EMI experts as they find themselves in the role of disciplinary outsiders trying to negotiate their perspective. Against this background, I am going to review the efficacy of the EMI support we have offered in different disciplinary contexts over the years, revisiting points of successful collaboration with subject experts and points of struggle and frustration.

Many factors can affect the translation and interpreting process, but the quality of source texts has been explicitly identified as an issue in surveys of professional translators and interpreters as well as in recent workplace studies. If translators and interpreters encounter resistance in carrying out their tasks, for example by difficulties in extracting meaning from non-native English input, then flow can be interrupted and performance affected. In this paper, we explore how English as a lingua franca (ELF) input could potentially increase the cognitive load not only for translators and interpreters but also for other multilinguals. We describe the range of methods that can be used to measure the cognitive effort and stress associated with processing ELF input and explain the challenges that can be encountered when researchers are committed to using authentic ELF material to make comparisons under relatively controlled but ecologically valid conditions. One of the driving motivators for this type of research is to understand how interpreters and translators deploy their expertise to deal with ELF input in work settings in order to draw inferences about strategies for other segments of the population.

The unprecedented spread of English as the first global lingua franca for international communication has been identified in the literature on conference interpreting as one of the most significant issues for interpreting today. English as a lingua franca (ELF) is a major force of change for the profession and is generally viewed highly critically by professional interpreters, because it pushes them into a subsidiary role in dealing with multilingual communication. This paper looks at conference interpreters’ perception of the impact of ELF on their profession and the ensuing changes, on the basis of the introspective comments made on ELF in Gentile’s 2016 global survey on interpreters’ self-perception of their professional status. The comments take particular significance from the fact that they picked out ELF as a central theme without any explicit formulation in the questions prompting respondents to do so. This can be taken as a clear sign of the importance interpreters attach to developments related to ELF. Aspects addressed in the answers to the open questions fall into three broad categories: (1) the adverse effects of the spread of ELF on market conditions, (2) a decline in interpreter Status and (3) an impoverishment of communication in international encounters. The paper provides a detailed account of the unsolicited qualitative comments on ELF by the respondents of Gentile’s survey and links them back to the results so far produced in the emerging subdiscipline of ITELF (interpreting, translation and English as a lingua franca) (Albl-Mikasa 2017).

This paper presents a concept of multilingual communication training for students of engineering sciences. It integrates training in English as a foreign language with training in German as mother tongue in Switzerland. The writer also opens up the challenges in justifying communication training for engineering sciences. Moreover, the discussion equally covers the universal rationalisation of the need for foreign languages, something that is well known among all language experts but not so much among other academic disciplines.