In the case of Natural Interpreters, the matter can be dealt with summarily. Natural interpreters speak with their natural accent, that is to say their normal conversational accent. For one thing, they are probably unaware that it’s an issue. And for another, they work in ad hoc circumstances where they wouldn’t have the time or the ability to change it.

For Expert Interpreters, however, it may have far more impact.

Some years ago, when Queen Elizabeth of England, who’s also head of state of Canada, visited Montreal, she tried to please her French Canadian subjects by making a short speech in their language. It was broadcast nationally. So it was accompanied by simultaneous interpretation because only a minority of English Canadians understand French. The broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, took care to engage a female interpreter with a mature voice. Nevertheless, they overlooked something else. Hardly had the broadcast started when the CBC began to receive phone calls of complaint – this was before the internet – from listeners who objected to hearing Her Majesty ‘speak’ English with an unmistakably Canadian accent. Let’s call this effect of incompatible accents accent shock, by analogy with culture shock. More.

See: Unprofessional Translation

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