Further Exploration On Active Roles Of Interpreters In Interpretation

This paper aims at pointing out the possible roles of interpreters besides meaning transmission so as to prove the hypothesis that the roles interpreters perform are active rather than passive and single. This paper serves to further clarify, to would-be interpreters, the functions and responsibilities required for a competent interpreter and give a shortcut and guide for their further study in interpretation. The author constructs hypotheses of possible roles of interpreters on the basis of communication theory, turn-taking and cooperation principles. Besides the fundamental role, i.e. meaning transmitter, the interpreter also performs other roles, such as conversation participant, talk organizer, culture mediator, gate keeper and so on. To confirm the hypotheses, the author makes empirical study on 30 passages of interpretation in real situation to analyze the roles of interpreters and to further explore other possible roles interpreters perform. Interpreter's roles in each situation are categorized sentence by sentence in accordance with the hypothetical roles, and then the percentage and occurrence frequency of each role are processed. Furthermore, the average, variance and standard deviation are processed to testify the existence, occurrence stability and influence of each hypothetical role. Several examples are selected from these passages to illustrate the occurrence of each role and the influence to the whole interpretation. The result of the study is that meaning transmitter is a basic and fundamental role for interpreters; however, the other 4 hypothetical roles exist too. The role as culture mediator occurs comparatively more frequently and appears to be somewhat more stable; however, conversation participant and talk organizer shows somewhat weaker in occurrence frequency and stability. Moreover, other roles for interpreters have been found, i.e. controller over information adequacy and time controller, which take up a certain percentage too. Conclusion can be drawn that meaning transmitter can by no means be the unique role and function of interpreter. In interpretation, the interpreter is not a passive bystander as a "translating machine"; instead, he or she is a indispensable participant to maintain a successful conversation.