Ethnographic Approach to Research on Interpreting in Tanzania: Challenges of Adjusting the Methodology
Abstract
The present study was conducted to explore the role of interpreting services in Tanzania, focusing mainly on the general issues such as the demand on interpreters in the country, their working conditions, possibilities of self-improvement, working languages mostly required and competences appreciated by the clients. Tanzania was chosen because of the strong status of its national language Swahili that is the medium of negotiation in the majority of meetings and international conferences.
The approach chosen for conducting the empirical study was strongly inspired by research methods followed in ethnography. Since interpreting is a new field of study in Tanzania, the written sources referring to it are very scarce.
For that reason, the data were collected mainly during interviews with respondents who could offer a first-hand experience related to interpreting as well as intercultural communication in general. However, the initial methodology of conducting interviews needed a dynamic adjustment derived from the experience acquired during the research stay in Tanzania.
This paper highlights the most significant challenges such as the selection of appropriate respondents, building trust and establishing contacts, planning the meetings, preparing questions for different groups of interviewees, as well as the process of fixing the data in a suitable form for their future analysis. The case of Tanzania opens new perspectives for the interdisciplinary approach in research on Interpreting Studies and gives an overview of challenges faced by exploring interpreting in an environment, where this topic is a new, but rapidly developing field