Professional interpreter in the 21st century: new technologies and social networks

The topic of this master's thesis is new technologies and social networking sites in the field of interpreting. The theoretical part discusses how, over the course of time, technological advances have altered not only the face of interpreting itself but also the way interpreters work, and presented them with new possibilities. This part also briefly deals with the history and functioning of social networks, namely Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and examines the possibilities social networking sites offer in terms of marketing. The empirical part presents conclusions drawn from the study. The purpose of the study was to determine general tendencies in the use of new technologies and social networks by Czech interpreters. The questionnaire distributed online focused mainly on the following points: ownership of smartphones and tablets, awareness of technical novelties in interpreting, use of social networks for professional and marketing purposes. A total of 150 people took part in the study. The analysis of collected answers revealed that the number of tablet or smartphone owners amongst the participants is quite high, that participants are skeptical towards nontraditional ways of interpreting and that interpreters use social networking sites rather for communicating within the interpreting community..