Translating Feelings and Mastering Empathy Statements in New Delhi’s International Call Centers

Abstract Empathy statements are grammatically regular, performative statements used widely in the therapy and medical industries in the United States and adapted to be used by callers in India’s National Capital Region international call centers to navigate the foreign and emotionally heightened situations workers experience while speaking to customers. This paper shows the performative nature of translation by analyzing the training of empathy in a train-the-trainer training program. By identifying the grammatical structure, enregisterment, and strategic use of empathy statements in scripts, this paper shows how semiotic frameworks of emotion play a vital role in the types of translation necessitated by the mass mediation of the international call center.