Emotional Intelligence and Interpreting: A Study on Conference Interpreters in Turkey

Abstract

Interpreting is one of the most challenging professions that require many qualifications and abilities as well as language competence and cultural and world knowledge. Interpreters work under stress as the speech in a conference is rendered into another language immediately, in addition they are exposed to a large variety of situations, mediator companies, clients, audience and speakers especially for the freelancers. These challenges necessitate some affective skills, which are the prerequisites of this profession. Emotional intelligence composed of some of these abilities includes the ability to understand one’s own emotions and to express them effectively, the ability to understand others’ emotions and to use emotions in order to facilitate thoughts and actions, the ability to regulate and manage one’s own emotional reactions. This thesis aims to identify the emotional intelligence levels of conference interpreters in Turkey and to determine whether emotional intelligence levels of