Public Service Interpreting is a hugely complex activity, encompassing human, ethical, commercial and political dimensions. It is unseen and unrecognized by most of the population but vital to those who depend on it for their security or wellbeing. The quality of PSI provision is seen by the authors as a clear indicator of how a society views and responds to the realities of a multi-ethnic and multilingual global community. Following recent significant changes in the power balance between them this book explores the increasing tensions among multiple stakeholders who together deliver such a fundamental service in a modern open society. Chapters focus on how all stakeholders need to appreciate the wider context of political and economic realities whilst collaborating more responsibly to deliver the conditions, training and support needed for expert linguists to be attracted to and retained in this vital profession.

Dr Théophile Munyangeyo is Senior Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University. With extensive teaching experience involving semantics, pragmatics, communication theories and models, translation and Consecutive Interpreting, he is a Higher Education Academy Senior Fellow. He is the Course Leader for Public Service Interpreting provision, member of editorial boards of international journals and PhD research supervisor in language learning and teaching. Graham Webb was Principal Lecturer in Spanish at Leeds Beckett University from 1991 to his retirement in 2013. He taught translation and consecutive interpreting. Now a freelance translator of academic texts on aspects of pedagogy, especially assessment, he also acts as a mentor on several youth enterprise schemes. Marina Rabadán-Gómez is Lecturer in Spanish at the University of Liverpool where she teaches Spanish language and communication skills. She previously worked at Manchester Metropolitan University and Leeds Beckett University. Her research interests are in communication theories and pragmatics as well as in translation and interpreting applied to language teaching.