Jonathan Downie

• PhD
• Researcher at Independent Researcher

While interpreting sermons into other languages has long formed a vital part of Church practice, it has only recently been the subject of academic research and remains on the periphery of homiletical debate. This paper argues for homiletics to pay greater attention to sermon interpreting, not only in the interests of better informed practice, but a...

PLEASE STOP ASKING FOR THE FULL-TEXT OF THIS. IT IS AN ENTIRE BOOK. Being a Successful Interpreter: Adding Value and Delivering Excellence is a practice-oriented guide on the future of interpreting and the ways in which interpreters can adjust their business and professional practices for the changing market. The book considers how globalisation...

In his discussion paper in Interpreting (18:2), Uldis Ozolins argued that the idea of interpreter invisibility functioned as a straw man for researchers keen to contrast their findings with what they perceived as existing professional norms. In his view a better term is “impartiality,” which he views as an unimpeachable principle for professional p...

This article argues that the use of interpreting settings as theoretical categories is no longer empirically sound. Instead, research should focus on the commonalities of all interpreting practice. This move is viewed as an enabling shift for the creation of Comparative Interpreting Studies, a strand dedicated to considering interpreting as a globa...

This article presents findings of a snowball survey of the language provision offered by churches and how these churches view themselves in terms of cultural and linguistic diversity. Within this, the characteristics of churches with interpreting are compared to those of churches offering weekend services in only one language. While definitive find...

This article examines stakeholder expectations of interpreters in the Brazilian legal system and how they may have changed with the shift to remote interpreting during the pandemic. The study explores stakeholder expectations of interpreters and the interplay of these expectations with the growth of remote interpreting. To do so, it builds on the g...

This article presents a critical review of literature on church interpreting, also called interpreting in church and sermon interpreting, and introduces the public Bibliography of Interpreting in Christian Settings. The review argues that this literature can be usefully organised into three separate approaches: publications aimed at practitioners,...

This article applies recent discussions of ethical aspects of Interpreting Studies to research on church interpreting. Lessons from this case study are then applied to field research on interpreting more broadly, with an emphasis on the specific ethical and methodological issues that arise when examining client expectations of interpreters. It begi...

While interpreting long remained unaffected by the technological progress that transformed the translation industry, recent years have witnessed a paradigm shift, such that interpreters increasingly interact with technological tools, that the delivery of interpreting services becomes increasingly dependent on technologies, and, finally, that techno...

This article applies Comparative Interpreting Studies to research on interpreting in religious contexts and the relevance of this literature to Interpreting Studies more broadly. Comparative Interpreting Studies is an approach that looks to plot the commonalities of all interpreting practice. It is argued that actual observed interpreter behaviors,...

This paper examines the relationship between church interpreting and Bible translation and suggests ways that the two can work in partnership. Church interpreting is understood as the process of taking what is said or signed in one language in a church context and producing a new version in another spoken or signed language. While historical and ex...

This paper describes the operation and outcomes of the Promoting Equal Access to Services project, which had two aims. The first was to reduce the gap between training and work for sign language interpreters by offering a six-month structured internship, including placements in the Police and National Health Service, alongside mentoring, supervisio...

This paper describes the operation and outcomes of the Promoting Equal Access to Services project, which had two aims. The first was to reduce the gap between training and work for sign language interpreters by offering a six-month structured internship, including placements in the Police and National Health Service, alongside mentoring, supervisio...

With Sarah and Alex G away on assignment, Jonathan and Alex D sit down with interpreting scholars Elisabet Tiselius and Michaela Albl-Mikasa to discuss the Routledge Handbook of Conference Interpreting. The two guests take us behind the scenes of putting together a scientific publication, from A to Z. This volume is unique in its approach to the f...

This note discusses the general economic forces affecting the provision and availability of interpreting. it is an updated and tidied version of a blog post previously appearing on the Still Thinking blog and contains additional sources not available at the time that post was created.

This article argues that the use of interpreting settings as theoretical categories is no longer empirically sound. Instead, research should focus on the commonalities of all interpreting practice. This move is viewed as an enabling shift for the creation of Comparative Interpreting Studies, a strand dedicated to considering interpreting as a globa...

From tech giants to plucky startups, the world is full of companies boasting that they are on their way to replacing human interpreters, but are they right? Interpreters vs Machines offers a solid introduction to recent theory and research on human and machine interpreting, and then invites the reader to explore the future of interpreting. With a f...

To the Editor In their recent Research Letter, Khoong and colleagues¹ assessed the usefulness of machine translation in helping patients understand discharge instructions. Although the ubiquity and low cost of machine translation might make this seem a valid option in some cases, evaluating its potential will take more careful study than the method...

To the Editor In their recent Research Letter, Khoong and colleagues1 assessed the usefulness of machine translation in helping patients understand discharge instructions. Although the ubiquity and low cost of machine translation might make this seem a valid option in some cases, evaluating its potential will take more careful study than the method...

This paper revisits Abraham Kuruvilla's characterisation of preaching as translation and argues that instead preaching should be seen as an analogue of a related interlingual activity: interpreting. This move involves accepting the essentially unstable nature of any pericopal theology and the ephemeral and contextualised nature of all preaching. Ra...

The Bright Lights: Big Experiments! public engagement project enabled high school students Scottish S2 to prepare a short, 5 min video using their own words and in their own style to present a scientific experiment on the theme of light to their contemporaries via YouTube. This paper describes the various experiments that we chose to deliver and ou...

Since the late 1980s, scholars have sought to understand what it is that speakers, audience members or conference organisers want from the interpreters with whom they work. The aim of this paper is to provide a critical review of the work that has taken place to understand these expectations, with a view to fostering a greater understanding of both...