Interpreter role (self-)perception: A model and an assessment tool

Abstract

Ongoing discussion continues to debate the role interpreters should embrace, whether the interpreter should be an impartial agent or whether impartiality can be demanded from a human agent at all. The current discussion favours the idea that roles are negotiated through interaction and that the ideal of impartiality may be compromised in specific situations or settings. This negotiation, far from constituting an academic discussion, is determined by the parties to the communicative situation. It is therefore relevant to be able to assess interpreters’ and users’ views as to what a particular situation requires of the interpreter. Based on a content analysis of the existing literature on the interpreter’s role, we developed a model to account for opposing perceptions of what interpreters are and should do in their professional practice, and represent those views as possibilities on a continuum rather than as opposing and excluding options. This paper presents a tool based on that model which allows perceptions to be made explicit and discussed. The model and preliminary experiences of the application of the tool in interpreting teaching and in one professional context are presented.

Keywords

• interpreter’s role
• role negotiation
• professional ethics
• impartiality
• neutrality
• fidelity
• mediation