International Association of Conference Interpreters


　　国际会议口译员协会（International　Association　of　Conference　Interpreters，简称AIIC），是会议口译这一专门职业惟一的全球性专业协会，AIIC的会员身份被广泛认为是会议口译员的最高专业认证。目前，全球AIIC传译人数合计不过2600多名会员。

　　AIIC is the international professional association that represents conference interpreters and sets standards for the practice of the profession.

　　Setting standards means working together with international and national technical bodies, such as the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), involved in building conference venues, interpretation booths and the complex sound equipment required for simultaneous reception and transmission of a single speech in several languages. AIIC collaborates with such bodies, and with builders of conference centres, to ways to create a working environment that will ensure the highest standards for the benefit of all.

　　Conference interpretation is a service whose quality depends not only on the qualifications of interpreters, but also on the physical, psychological and economic conditions under which they work.

　　Establishing the working conditions needed to ensure quality of service is just one of the ways AIIC furthers the interests of conference interpreters, one of the goals consecrated in the association's charter.

　　It AIIC also sets standards for interpretation schools so that those whom they train meet the stringent requirements of the profession. Furthermore, it introduces and explains the profession to clients, governments and intergovernmental organisations helping them to provide the technical and organisational means interpreters need to perform to the best of their ability.

　　The interests of interpreters, both members and non-members of AIIC, are further served by research on the practice of interpretation, linguistics and use of languages. The health of interpreters is constantly faced with work-related stress and helping to minimise that stress by procuring the best possible working conditions is one of AIIC's highest priorities.

　　Promoting the interests of conference interpreters also means negotiating conditions of work and remuneration with major employers, such as the European Union and the United Nations. Because of its strength and representativity, AIIC has been the sole partner for interpreters in negotiations with major employers leading to agreements governing the conditions of work for all interpreters. The physical working conditions agreed upon in actual fact serve as international standards largely accepted throughout the world.

　　Another important aspect of promoting the profession of conference interpretation involves getting the public at large and users to understand what it is and how it works. That is what AIIC has been doing for years. This Web publication - COMMUNICATE, the AIIC Webzine - aims to further our goal of making an ever-larger audience aware of our profession and of the activities of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC).