The process of accurately rendering one spoken or signed language into another in real time whilst faithfully retaining meaning but taking into consideration culturally specific information. The focus when interpreting is on meaning, therefore utterances are not interpreted “word for word”.
The sign/speech interpreting process often occurs simultaneously, with a short time lag to allow the interpreter to process the meaning. However, there will be occasions where the interpreter may need to pause communication to work in a consecutive manner, translating one chunk of information at a time. This may be due to the presence of a Deaf communication professional, due to the language needs of the Deaf person or to convey complex information accurately.