Ever since the profession became internationally organized in the early 1950s,
quality has been a central topic in conference interpreting. In the mid-1980s,
members of AIIC (International Association of Conference Interpreters) were first
asked what importance they attributed to various quality criteria when sponsoring
candidates for membership (Bühler 1986). Follow-up studies, however, were mostly
conducted among users of interpretation services. With the exception of Chiaro
and Nocella (2004), who conducted a web-based survey among conference
interpreters, service providers have had no chance to express their views on the
issue of quality. The two studies reported in this paper take the web-based
approach pioneered by Chiaro and Nocella (2004) as a starting point for a survey
among two well-defined populations, that is, members of AIIC and of the German
Association of Conference Interpreters (VKD). This paper presents the findings for
conference interpreters’ rating of the relative importance of output-related quality
criteria for a simultaneous interpretation. Furthermore, the two associations’
members were also asked to link the importance of the various criteria to concrete
assignment types. The main aim of this paper consists in comparing the two
groups and finding out whether members of a national and international
professional organization attach similar importance to quality criteria or whether
they differ in their perceptions of quality.
