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Dialogue interpreting
A monologising practice
in a dialogically organised world
Cecilia Wadensj
Linkping University, Sweden
is paper investigates dialogue interpreting as a monologising social prac-
tice, and demonstrates how this can be done within a general theoretical
framework of dialogism. Drawing on earlier research on naturally occurring,
interpreted face-to-face interaction, the paper argues for treating dialogue
interpreting as a separate empirical feld within the general feld of Transla-
tion Studies. e constant overlap between target and source environment is
identifed as one of its characteristic features. Adding to the current discus-
sion on ethics in Translation Studies, the paper fnally highlights the point of
distinguishing between interpreters' professional ideology and lived profes-
sional practice.
Keywords: dialogue interpreting, dialogism vs. monologism, pragmatics,
talk and social interaction, professional ideology, professional ethics
Introduction
In a recent thematic volume on ethics in Translation Studies, Pym (2001) iden-
tifed a return to ethical issues as a trend. is trend could perhaps partly be
explained by the close link between studies on translation and translators' pro-
fessional development. To my mind, an ongoing discussion among profession-
als on professional ethics is a goal in itself, linked as it is to the process of devel-
oping and sustaining a shared professional ideology. is paper aims at adding
to this trend, not by suggesting measures by which to evaluate what translators
uniquely do, but by demonstrating ways to understand and explore the nature
of a specifc branch within Translation Studies, namely dialogue interpreting.
oo Cecilia Wadensj
I agree with current thinking within Translation studies (e.g. Snell-Hornby
1988, Toury 1993, Pym 1997) emphasising the interdisciplinary potential of
studies in this diversifed empirical feld. Nevertheless, the specifc character of
interpreting taking place in face-to-face social interaction motivates us to treat
it also as a feld of study in its own right. e interpreter's presence in this kind
of situated activity can be taken as its essential, defning feature (Wadensj
1992, cf. Mason 2000: 218).
In this paper I will analyse sequences of transcribed interpreted face-to-
face interaction and highlight the point of distinguishing between interpreters'
professional ideology and lived professional practice. In earlier work, I have de-
veloped a theoretical model of interpreting in face-to-face situations, informed
by a dialogical view of language, communication and cognition. is paper
summarises and draws conclusions based on this work. Prior to analysing dis-
course data, I will devote some space to a brief outline of dialogism and mo-
nologism.
Dialogism and monologism
Within a dialogical theoretical framework, communicative events are charac-
terised by the fact that meaning is in the process of being established, between
subjects, in the context of a specifc, socio-cultural situation. Focusing on dia-
logue interpreting as a communicative event - what I have suggested to think
of as a communicative pas de trois (Wadensj 1998: 12) - I have explored inter-
preters' utterances as realising (at least) two functions simultaneously, namely
translation on the one hand and coordination on the other, of the others' talk
(Wadensj 1992, 1998). is model puts forward not the individual interpreter
but the interpreter-in-context. e basic unit of interest is the specifc constel-
lation of people, involved in a situated communicative activity, pursuing partly
diverse communicative projects and goals.
A dialogical view of language and mind highlights a range of circumstanc-
es that can aect the ways you think of translation and interpreting. Every-
day-life ideas of 'information being lost' and 'meaning becoming distorted' in
interpreted conversation become radically modifed in a dialogical framework
of human communication. Seen from a dialogical perspective, a single per-
son cannot control the meaning of words, phrases or utterances. Instead, if
we now limit the discussion to participants in spoken interaction, people are
understood to make sense of ongoing talk on the basis of the words used and
Dialogue interpreting o;
how they are used, of the sequential order of talk, the constellation of people
present to it, the relations between and the biographical history of these indi-
viduals, the speech genre at play and so forth. Monologism seeks to construct
language as independent of single subjects. Heen Wold (1992) defnes dialo-
gism as a counter-theory to monologism". Discussing tensions of dialogism,
Linell (2003) modifes this statement by saying that we may look at the world as
dialogically organised and still acknowledge the existence of monologues and
monologising practices (cf. Morson and Emerson 1989).
While on duty in interaction, interpreters occasionally have a certain need
to objectify others' utterances, treat them as chunks of text that are consisting
of meaningful lexical units. is makes it possible to refer to dialogue inter-
preting as a monologising activity.
Analysing institutional encounters
A crucial aspect of dialogism concerns the socio-cultural development of com-
municative genres. Following a dialogical approach, communicative activities
carried out in hospitals, police stations, business negotiations and other socio-
cultural settings are subject to more or less ritualised norms and rules, his-
torically formed in these situations. It therefore seems reasonable to take these
norms into consideration when describing (and evaluating) naturally occur-
ring translation and interpreting. As demonstrated by e.g. Hermans and Lam-
bert (1998), translation is normally deeply embedded in structures of social
organisation. Hence, recognising the translation aspect of dialogue interpret-
ing, it seems illogicical, if not impossible, to understand the work performed
by them as if they were (or could be) disconnected from their partners and
these individuals' communicative goals. Investigations of dialogue interpreting
taking place in various institutions (e.g. Berk-Seligson 1990, Wadensj 1992,
1998, Roy 2000, Davidson 2002) also indicate a clear impact of the institutional
frames on the interaction that takes place.
A general feature of institutional encounters is that a professional party
normally is in charge of them. at is, the representative of the institution is
by defnition in control of how topics are selected, of how much and how of-
ten clients/patients/suspects etc. normally are expected to talk, and how their
contributions will be evaluated (cf. Agar 1983, Drew and Heritage 1992). In
interpreter-mediated institutional interaction, the person in charge occa-
sionally may have to lose some of this control. e interpreter - willingly or
o8 Cecilia Wadensj
unwillingly - ends up taking a certain responsibility for the substance and
the progression of talk. Scrutinising talk frame-by-frame, one can detect more
precisely how participants distribute control between themselves, how topics
are selected, turns at talk are organised and so forth.
Analysing gestures and gaze
A corner stone in a dialogical theoretical framework is the embodiment of spo-
ken language. Applied to studies of dialogue interpreting this means that there
is a need to highlight participants' bodily orientation, gestures and gaze.
A dialogical theoretical approach also draws attention to the organisation
of language use in time. In studies of dialogue interpreting this implies that at-
tention must be paid to how sequences of talk unfold. An interpreter working
in spontaneous face-to-face interaction relates to spoken (or signed) utterances
that appear in a particular time and space. In studies of written translations,
source text" and target text" can be used as both analytical and empirical
units. Texts that can be labelled in this way exist as artefacts. In dialogue in-
terpreting they don't. In these encounters, primary parties' and interpreters'
utterances co-exist in sequences of embodied utterances. Dialogue interpreting is
constituted by spoken utterances following subsequently upon and in parallel
with one another. Interpreters performing in interaction are dependent on the
others' immediate assessment of what they do in order to continue (promot-
ing, stopping, or re-orienting the joint activity) and vice versa. At the same
time, dialogue interpreting implies the construction of (fugitive) units, which
may be labelled source text" and target text" respectively. Exploring dialogue
interpreting as a discourse, one can construct text units in retrospect, using
recorings and transcriptions.
Perspectives in studies of dialogue interpreting
In Translation Studies, Lambert and Van Gorp (1983) already some time
ago recommended that translation research should never be reduced to text
analysis. ey argue strongly in favour of locating translated messages within
their target environment, to investigate them also (perhaps primarily) as com-
ponents in a chain of communication. In studies of interpreting the need to
look at the work of interpreters from a larger social perspective, including the
Dialogue interpreting o
implicit and explicit instructions which are imposed on interpreters by those
who hire them, has been stressed particularly within the tradition of Skopos
theory (e.g. Nord 1997).
e link between certain instructions and certain communicative behav-
iour can be methodologically hard to establish, however. Moreover, one of the
peculiarities of dialogue interpreting is that in this activity, there is an overlap
between what you may term respectively target and source environment. ose
involved in interpreter-mediated interaction might have a clear understanding
of interpreters' utterances as talk corresponding to the talk of one-self and the
other participants - a correspondence as the one between written (source and
target) texts. It is normally quite obscure, however, to people participating in
interpreter-mediated encounters, exactly how the interpreter's utterances relate
to those of the primary parties.
Analysing transcribed discourse one may fnd more or less correspondence
- of various kinds. Moreover, the analysis may look at correspondences at the
word level, at utterance level or at sequence level.
e coordinating function of interpreters' utterances is oen more immedi-
ately sensible to participants, even if not necessarily transparent. In interaction,
interpreters' utterances indeed achieve the function of components in chains of
communication, connecting and coordinating others' utterances. Interpreters'
coordinating can be seen already in the simple fact that they, when performing
consecutively, take every second turn at talk, thus monitoring the fow of the
exchange in time and space, or, as Roy (2000) prefers to put it, managing the
discourse process. Seen like this, it is not an empirical question if interpreters
are translators or coordinators - they cannot avoid serving both functions.
In dialogue interpreting, the translating and coordinating aspects are simul-
taneously present, and the one does not exclude the other. As a matter of fact,
these aspects condition each other. Moreover, interpreters are dependent on
the primary participants' mutual attention and on how they adapt to the char-
acteristic pattern of interpreter-mediated turn taking - a non-standard one,
compared to turn taking in one-language conversations in similar settings.
In the following, I will look at three excerpts drawn from earlier explora-
tions of naturally occurring face-to-face, interpreted interaction. Fleshing out
the interpreter's activity as a monologising practice, I will start by looking at
the frst excerpt as texts - 'originals' and 'renditions'. Subsequently I will apply
an overall dialogical approach, exploring the sequence as an instance of social
interaction.
o Cecilia Wadensj
Textual units in an interpreter-mediated event
e frst example is from an encounter that took place at the immigration de-
partment of a Swedish local police station. A Russian-speaking woman was ap-
plying for residence permit in Sweden. She was interviewed by a police ocer,
assisted by a professionally trained interpreter.
It was the frst time the applicant and the police ocer met. Asked to
identify herself, the applicant showed her Soviet passport. (e conversation
was recorded when the USSR still existed as a state.) When questioned about
citizenship, however, she claimed to be Greek. e ocer suspected that the
distinction between citizenship and nationality, or ethnic origin, was unclear
to the applicant and rephrased his question about citizenship. e applicant
insisted that she was a Greek woman, and said that 'there' in my passport it
said that I am Greek". e interpreter translated the answer and the police of-
fcer put a new question. e described instance neatly illustrates the dialogical
character of language and understanding. e meaning of Soviet passport" is
not glued to the lexical items but is shaped and established in the current con-
text, between the acting subjects. Participating in interaction, the interpreter
by necessity takes part in this social process.
Fragment 1 is (my own) English translation of a short excerpt drawn from
the encounter. In reality, the languages spoken were Swedish and Russian (see
endnote). Italics mean that words were spoken in Russian, capital letters marks
prosodic emphasis, two lines with parallel square parentheses, '[', marks the
start of parallel talk, and text within ordinary parentheses '( )', describes non-
verbal actions.
Fragment 1
1
(G22: 9-10)
1 : can you show me where: (handing over the passport)
2 : eh can you show where? (handing over the passport)
3 : oh no. noI In THIS one. noI In THIS one.
4 : no not in [this one.
3 : [IhIs Is see, In Ihe SovIeI passporI. IhIs
6 one Is a unIon passporI IsnI II. [gIven Io Ihose
7 : [this is an
8 international passport and I had in mind an internal
one.
To begin with, I will analyse the sequence as two kinds of corresponding texts,
as 'originals' and 'renditions'.
Dialogue interpreting
e interpreter's utterance in line 2, compared with the police ocer's talk
in line 1, could be called a 'close' rendition. e English translation does not
reveal, however, a dierence in grammar, more precisely between you" and
you". In reality, the police ocer used du (tu"-form) - the standard and
polite pronoun of address in Swedish. e interpreter used vy (vous"-form)
- the conventional, polite pronoun of address in Russian. Applying grammati-
cal criteria, the interpreter's utterance in line 2 could thus also be classifed as
a 'divergent' rendition.
e interpreter's next utterance (line 4) looks fairly 'close' as well, in par-
ticular if we understand the repetitiveness in the original (line 3) as redundant.
e number of lexical items is 'reduced', but the applicant's message is more
or less the same. On the other hand, to repeat oen means to emphasise. e
applicant's repeating twice not in this one" (line 3) could be understood as a
way of stressing her disagreement. In other words, line 4 can also be seen both
as a 'close' and a 'divergent' (lexically and functionally 'reduced') rendition.
e last pair of texts - in lines 3-6 and 7-8 - might look quite 'divergent',
at least at frst sight. As will be seen, there is strong reason to categorise the
rendition also as 'close'. e closeness is somewhat hidden behind a reversed
word order, an added personal pronoun - I" (line 8) - and the 'reduction'
of the interrupted ending given to those -" (line 6). e closeness is evident,
however, if one compares the activities performed in and by the original and the
second version respectively.
e applicant used Soviet passport" (line 3) to name the document in
which she was identifed as a Greek. At this very moment, Soviet passport"
to her meant the passport she used while in the USSR, i.e. the internal pass-
port, valid only within the Soviet Union. e document she had brought to
the current encounter she referred to as the union passport". is one was
valid outside the USSR and was given only to those who were allowed to travel
abroad. e woman marked the distinction between the frst and the latter by
emphasising specifcally the last this" (line 3), repeating the emphasis from
her latest contribution (line 3), stretching out her arm and pushing the docu-
ment back in the direction of the police ocer. is one was the passport that
in an institutional context, such as the current one, normally would be referred
to as a Soviet passport". e interpreter referred to that one as internation-
al", in contrast to the internal", the one the applicant had le in the USSR
(line 8). e interpreter's 'rendition' escaped in this way a possible confusion
of terminology.
i Cecilia Wadensj
Trouble sources
Grasping that Soviet passport" in the current context meant dierent things
to the two primary participants the interpreter repeated the applicant's activ-
ity of distinguishing between two kinds of passports. She also replicated the
applicant's activities of reminding the police ocer of the Soviet passport sys-
tem. Moreover, she refected the applicant's willingness to provide requested
information. e interpreter repeated the applicant's activities without using
the key concept - Soviet passport". In other words, the applicant's non-stan-
dard denomination of the document at hand remained unknown to the police
ocer. is implied that the meaning of Soviet passport" or this" was never
negotiated in interaction. e exchange on the matter of citizenship was con-
cluded there and then.
e pronoun there"
2
obviously also made sense in various ways to the
primary parties at one point and, in contrast to Soviet passport", indeed was
a trouble source during some time in the encounter. When the applicant said,
there in my passport it said that I am Greek", there", it turned out, referred
to her former homeland, there" meaning in the USSR and not, as the inter-
preter and the police ocer apparently frst got it, there" in the passport. e
interpreter's: this is an international passport and I had in mind an internal
one." (lines 7-8) established the meaning of this particular there" as 'there in
the passport, however not in the one brought to the encounter in question, but
in the one valid within the USSR'.
Exploring naturally occurring data from the point of view of translation
one can fnd, for one thing, that a number of features are systematically diver-
gent between originals and translations. To mention two such features present
in the above example, the interpreter's utterances tend to have more of written-
language-like style than those of the primary parties. Shlesinger (1989) pre-
sented such fndings in a study where she compared segments of talk originally
spoken in Hebrew and corresponding, interpreted talk in English. e segments
were drawn from an authentic court trial and a discussion between delegates at
a conference. Interpreting was carried out simultaneously. My observations of
interpreting in and of spontaneous spoken interaction, performed by (profes-
sionally trained) interpreters in the consecutive mode, confrm her fndings. In
our data, typical features of spoken discourse, when found in originals, such as
repetitive paraphrases within the same utterance, tend to be followed by ren-
ditions with a simplifed structure, oen more written-language-like in style.
Moreover, renditions tend to specify references of pronouns such as there",
Dialogue interpreting
this" and that", also if they are mentioned only unspecifed in the originals
(cf. Wadensj 1998: 143-131).
e main point here however, is that investigations of naturally occurring
interpreting show that renditions in practice never are unambiguously equiva-
lent with the preceding originals. Recognising language and language use as
dialogically organised, one must say that interpreters, as well as translators of
written texts, are doing their monologising activity for all practical purposes.
All translations are particular translations.
In the following I will distinguish and highlight the coordinating aspect
of interpreters' utterances, looking again at Fragment 1, but now more in the
context of the ongoing, dialogically organised interaction.
Participation framework in an interpreter mediated event
I consider it safe to regard as interpreters' general, overarching goal to be to
promote mutual understanding, at some level, between the primary parties.
e question of interest to me is how this goal is pursued in practice. As I have
described in earlier analyses of the above sequence (cf. Wadensj 1998), the
interpreter in and by her utterance can you show me where" (quoted in line 2)
made a frm eort to keep intact the established interaction order. is is not
visible in the transcription, but it was evident indeed in the recording situation.
At the same time as the interpreter translated (in line 2) the ocer's words (in
line 1), she also repeated his gesture of handing over the applicant's passport.
While he had given the document to the interpreter, making a quiet request
as if o-the-record", she forwarded the passport - and the request - to the
applicant. e interpreter in this way established the status of the preceding
utterance (the ocer's can you show me where:") as part of ongoing, on-
the-record" talk. e interpreter by using I" (line 8) as referring to the appli-
cant additionally confrmed this re-settlement of the current interaction order.
When the interpreter says, I had in mind" it is understood that I" refers to
the applicant. Hence, in this context, I" emphasises the applicant as the one
responsible for the content of talk and the interpreter as her mouthpiece.
e sociologist Erving Goman (1981) oers a theoretical model to study
situated social interaction. He observes how individuals display aspects of their
listening and speaking selves, in order to present themselves as more or less
responsible for the content and the progression of current interaction, and
describes this in terms of a participation framework. e interpreter on duty
Cecilia Wadensj
utilises the possibility of emphasising various 'footing in Goman's terminol-
ogy, i.e. various modes of speaking and listening.
Footing is defned as the alignment of an individual to a particular utter-
ance, whether involving a production format, as in the case of the speaker, or
solely a participation status, as in the case of a hearer" (Goman 1981: 227).
at is, participants adopt dierent - and constantly shiing - attitudes vis-
a-vis each other and in relation to what is uttered in interaction. A speaker
may behave as principal, showing commitment to and ownership of what is
expressed, as author, responsible for the ways thoughts are expressed and the
words are uttered, or merely as animator, a sounding box, a talking machine,
if you wish.
In analogy with Goman's model, I have identifed various modes of listen-
ing; various reception formats, i.e. various ways to assume responsibility as a
listener for the content and the progression of ongoing interaction (Wadensj
1992, 1998). I see a potential for this analytical tool both when conducting
research and when training interpreters. e model can help raising aware-
ness about the work of footing in interaction, not least how shiing modes of
listening has an impact on the interaction order in face-to-face encounters. So,
I have suggested distinguishing between listening as a responder, as a reporter
and as a recapitulator. Interpreters can be observed to shi between focusing
on each of these three modes of listening.
Relating as 'reporter' to an utterance, an interpreter would be preparing to
subsequently speak only in the restricted sense of 'animator' of someone else's
talk. is might be how many like to think of the interpreter's function - as
someone solely animating other's utterances. Yet, interpreters are only very ex-
clusively 'animating' in a strict sense, the exact words spoken by the preceding
speaker.
Discussing Goman's analytical model in relation to interpreted televised
talk-shows, Straniero-Sergio (1998: 162) points out that the interpreter is nei-
ther the author nor the principal of the ST". Expressed in positive terms, how-
ever, interpreters normally, and quite uniquely, relate as 'reporter' of others'
words (ST) - they are listening in order to be able to repeat - at the same time
as they, by necessity, relate as 'author' of what they utter themselves in the other
language (TT). Having the mandate and the responsibility to compose new
versions of the utterances they hear, interpreters systematically position them-
selves also as 'recapitulator', preparing to re-author the other's message. Nor-
mally, however, they do not position themselves as 'responder' but, as a rule,
avoid speaking for themselves, acting in the position of 'principal'. e primary
Dialogue interpreting ,
participant normally, at least theoretically, occupies this position. In reality, of
course, primary parties occasionally refer to (sometimes non-present) others
as the 'principals', the ultimate sources, of what they say.
A new look at Fragment 1
In Fragment 1, drawn from the immigration department, the police ocer's
request can you show me where:" (line 1) addressed the interpreter as a 're-
sponder', someone expected to reply from her own point of view. Being obser-
vant to the work of shiing 'footing', the interpreter immediately counteracted
it, authoring a new version of the same utterance in the other language. Basi-
cally, this is what many interpreters routinely do when primary interlocutors
address them directly at the same time as they speak about the other primary
party (tell him to., ask her if., etc.).
e frst sequence has shown an interpreter's action to maintain the pre-
ferred interaction order by repeating (instead of accommodating to) a primary
party's occasional shi of footing. It also shows how interpreters can promote
the primary parties' mutual attention by positioning the preceding speaker as
the current 'principal', simultaneously as they withdraw from an anticipated
position of 'responder'.
Adopting dialogism, one's point of departure is interaction, which includes
interaction between those involved as participants in a focused exchange as
well as those present to this exchange as members of an audience. e follow-
ing two examples are drawn from instances where the possible impact of an
audience could be taken into consideration.
Perspectivising
e following short sequence is from a paper by Hale and Gibbons (1999),
which brings to light a tendency found in data collected in Australian courts
of law. e authors argue that courtroom reality tends to become deleted or
diminished in the discourse of interpreters. e sequence is drawn from an
instance where an ocer of the court was trying to make a witness tell her
story about an event under investigation. e authors draw attention to the
fact that the interpreter's translation does not highlight the court as requesting
the witness-account. I will use the example to demonstrate a key strategy that
o Cecilia Wadensj
interpreters use when the preceding speaker positions them as reporter and
responder, all in the same turn at talk.
Fragment 2
: Can you tell the court to your best, to the best
of her recollection, the best of her memory:
: Pero algo recuerda usted:
Gloss: But you remember something:
(from Hale and Gibbons 1999: 209)
Normally, transcriptions must be analysed together with the sound of the ac-
tual exchange and as part of longer sequences. e current analysis is based on
nothing more than a short strip of text. Nevertheless, I think it is safe to use
this fragment just to illustrate a phenomenon I would call perspectivising, a ten-
dency that can be found in interpreter-mediated discourse data from a variety
of institutional settings.
Fragment 2 shows a case of shiing footing within a single primary party's
utterance. What frst seemed to be the ocer's eort to formulate a request for
the witness' recollection of a certain event (can you tell"), ended up as a call
for the interpreter's assistance to make her" - the witness - remember. e
ocer of the court changed from talking to, to talking about the witness at the
same time as he invited the interpreter to act as his ally. Willingly or unwill-
ingly, he hereby ascribes some of his responsibility as investigator to the inter-
preter. e interpreter, in turn, repeated the request to recollect a certain event
by addressing only the witness, and only directly.
e but" in the interpreter's utterance indicates an opposing tie between
this phrase and something else just stated in the same language. In ordinary
conversation, reminding of, or recycling something just said in a question for-
mat is a conventional way to urge co-participants to speak on a current issue.
We don't know what had happened before in the conversation, or how it
continued. We know that the instance of the ocer's shiing footing at this
point within a single utterance, did not become shared and common knowl-
edge (unless the witness understood this from the English version).
e interpreter's utterance did not reveal that the ocer's request had ad-
dressed her directly, and the witness indirectly. In this way, the rendition sup-
ports the participants' (possible) sense of being involved in a joint conversation
on a shared topic (the event under scrutiny). Also, the interpreter led talk away
from being about talk, a topic that in the current setting ocers of the court
have a privileged access to.
Dialogue interpreting ;
e concept of perspectivising helps visualising by what means control of
the discourse fow was actually managed in this case.
Fragment 1 and 2 both highlighted the interpreter's occasional need/ten-
dency to withdraw from an anticipated position of responder, in order to pro-
mote a shared and common focus between the primary participants. e third
sequence illustrates another case of the interpreter's explicit positioning of the
preceding speaker as the source of current talk, drawing the listener's attention
to the staged I". Here it goes together with the interpreter's re-using words
recently used by a current addressee.
Use of cotext
In order to help establishing what Clark (1996) has termed common ground,
people in conversations tend to re-use words and expressions that have been
recently used, in one word, to use cotext. In this section I will look at a short
fragment showing a simple case of this.
Fragment 3 is drawn from Berk-Seligson's 1990 e bilingual courtroom.
She uses the sequence to illustrate that, in American courts of law, Spanish
testimony provided in English interpretation tends to be longer, in terms of
words spoken, than the original Spanish version. Berk-Seligson's analysis of
numerous hours of recorded courtroom interaction indicates that what she
here calls lengthening", was due to the interpreter's tendency to, for instance,
add hedges, add polite forms of address, and use uncontracted forms, as, for
instance, in the following striking example:
Fragment 3
1. : Of what country are you a citizen:
2. : De qu pas es usted ciudadano:
Of whaI counIry are you a cIIIzen?
3. : Mexico.
4. : I am a citizen of Mexico.
(From Berk-Seligson 1990:133, underlining in original)
e interpreter's utterance (line 4) is obviously longer than the witness's origi-
nal utterance (line 3). As Berk-Seligson notes, the bookish grammar, which
may be a result of the lengthening tendency typically conveys an impression
of hyperformality. is is one of the characteristics of what O'Barr and At-
kins (1980) called powerless" testimony style. According to O'Barr and his
colleagues, the consequences of using a powerless style in a US court may be
8 Cecilia Wadensj
serious, since testifying in this style tends to leave listeners with the impres-
sion that the speaker is less convincing, less competent, less intelligent and less
truthful than when testifying using none or fewer of the linguistic traits con-
stituting powerless style. We should note that this fnding was valid for test
audiences dominated by English speaking people, however not for audiences
dominated by Hispanics.
Berk-Seligson's analysis showing the lengthening tendency is based on a
comparison between 'originals' and 'renditions'. Taking into consideration the
sequentially of the event, we may describe this instance of lengthening" also
as the interpreter's use of cotext.
Saying, I am a citizen of " (line 4), the interpreter reminded of the link
between this reply and the attorney's question (line 1), what normally is an
adjacent pair of utterances, following immediately upon one another, but here
are separated by two intermediary turns at talk (line 2 and 3). Spelling out I
am a citizen of " the interpreter compensated, if you wish, for the necessary
suspension in time between question and answer, a delay which in ordinary
court room interaction would arouse some suspicion. Seen like this, some cas-
es of lengthening can actually be a sign of interpreters' pragmatic competence
- whether intuitive or conscious. is kind of conversational linking is yet an-
other means by which interpreters are assuming responsibility for the progres-
sion of a joint and focused exchange, sustaining the participants' experience
of common ground. In this case these include not only those who current talk
immediately concerns and who are ratifed to 'repair' communication, but also
an overhearing audience.
A similar way to describe and explore the phenomenon is suggested by
Shlesinger (1991). She sees it as one of many accommodation procedures,
used by interpreters to ensure cohesion for the listeners who are involved in
an interpreted event. Interpreters are observed to create cohesion within the
discourse in each language. Shlesinger's approach highlights the interpreter's
work as a monologising activity, as production of target texts. Berk-Seligson's
fndings of the lengthening" tendency do so even more.
e present analysis of Fragment 3 does of course not invalidate her fnd-
ings. On the contrary, it suggests a possible way to complement the picture,
drawing also on Shlesinger's fndings. Where Berk-Seligson seems to be in-
clined to assess cases of lengthening as inaccurate interpreting, however, I have
rather refrained from evaluating this tendency in negative or in positive terms.
My point is that assessments of interpreters' performances self-evidently can
be based on comparisons between originals and renditions; however, if they
Dialogue interpreting
are based on these exclusively, a range of linguistic and other features which
are signifcant for how participants make sense in interaction will escape the
marker's attention.
In conclusion, instead of assessing the interpreters' actions pointed at in
the above fragments, I will devote some space to a more general discussion on
ethics in dialogue interpreting, recognising the interpreter's job as a monolo-
gising activity in a dialogically organised world.
Dialogue interpreting and ethics
Where an ocial Code of Ethics regulates interpreting it principally entails
obligations concerning interpreters' relation to a possible assignment before it
takes place, aer the performance is done and during the very process of inter-
preting. e obligations most oen involve:
- to interpret only when there is no real or apparent confict of interest (e.g.
close relationship with one of the parties),
- to observe strict confdentiality and not disclose any information gained
from the assignment to outside parties,
- to avoid siding with any of the parties, but keep a neutral and detached
stance.
In particular the last point, on neutrality and detachment, is an issue that has
caused some controversies. e understanding of interpreters as neutral and
detached actors recognises frst and foremost the interpreting as a monologis-
ing activity. Institutions where interpreters regularly assist, e.g. within the legal
sphere, are insuciently prepared for the consequences of abandoning what
Morris (1993) has described and explored as a myth.
e survival of this myth" must probably be explained by the fact that the
interpreter's monologising activity, her treating spontaneous talk-in-interac-
tion as text, suites everyday, layperson's understanding of what interpreting is
all about. e complex picture of interaction being dialogically organised is
harder to grasp all at once. e survival of the myth" also refects the pro-
fessional need to unify around certain working principles. In scientifc work
myths are normally put to death, but the same myths can be used for practical
purposes. Myths seem to fll people's need for guiding inspiration.
io Cecilia Wadensj
Neutrality is a relational notion, anticipating a certain sameness between
two sides and the non-attachment of a middle party. Oentimes the existence of
both of these features can be questioned in interpreter-mediated interaction.
Unless interpreter-mediated interaction is described and explored within a
dialogical theoretical frame, however, a range of aspects of what interpreters do
(can do and/or should do) and what interpreter-mediated interaction requires
from those who take part in it will be kept unattended.
In Sweden, where a system for national certifcation of interpreters has
existed since 1976, it is counted as good interpreter's practice to observe neu-
trality and detachment in all kinds of situations. e Swedish Code of Ethics
involves three basic rules of thumb:
- to interpret everything said fully and faithfully,
- to do nothing but interpreting,
- to perform interpreting not in the third person, but in the frst person, the
I-form".
In my view, this document has served - and still is serving to new generations
of interpreters working in Sweden - as a manifestation of a common profes-
sional ideology. However, the document does not work - and cannot work
- as an advertisement or a list of contents of a readymade product; not as a
description of everything that could be expected from an encounter assisted by
professional interpreters. Professional ideology needs to be distinguished from
professional practice.
In practice, dialogue interpreters regularly anticipate and counteract pos-
sible communicative problems between the primary parties. All ways in which
this is done are not and cannot be listed in a professional Code of Ethics. e
above rules of thumb" in the ideology would correspond to reminders of the
practice like the following:
Ideology Practice
- to interpret everything said fully
and faithfully,
- to do nothing but interpreting,
- to perform interpreting not in the
third person, but in the frst person,
the I-form".
- to be aware of the dialogical character of under-
standing,
- to be aware of how talk in social interaction is
normally organised,
- to be observant of participants' shiing of footing
and aware of how the distribution of responsibil-
ity for the content and the progression of interac-
tion can be managed in and by such shis.
Dialogue interpreting i
Conclusion
Interpreters are language workers. A dialogical outlook on language draws at-
tention to the fact that it is never used out of context, always used in a certain
time and a certain space by sense-making subjects. Nevertheless, interpreting
is what can be called a monologising activity, and needs to be explained and
explored as such. Interpreters by necessity de-contextualise others' talk, treat
language as texts, in order to provide second versions of others' utterances in
another language. All translations indeed are copies, second versions. Inter-
preters metaphorically take utterances out of one context, apply a new angle, a
new perspective, and a new linguistic context is created.
e presence of an interpreter in face-to-face interaction somewhat re-de-
fnes a communicative situation. ose participating in interaction are pursuing
their respective goals, having ideas about how this is and should be normally
done. Moreover, they have their respective - more or less fxed - precon-
ceptions of translation and/or interpreting (cf. Pym 1999). Even if a common
ideal view of interpreters is that of invisible, unobtrusive, non-interlocutors,
in face-to-face interaction, at any moment, interpreters can be seen - and
understand themselves - as potential interlocutors. e interpreter-mediated
conversation is indeed a special case. e communicative activities in this kind
of encounter are in some sense dyadic, in other respects triadic. e distri-
bution of responsibility for the content and the progression of interaction is
fundamentally dierent in dialogue interpreting compared to conversations
between persons speaking the same language. e specifc character of spon-
taneous spoken interaction makes the task of the interpreter in face-to-face
social interaction dierent from all other translation tasks.
Notes
An earlier version of this paper was read at the Critical Link 3 conference, in Montreal,
Canada, May 22-26 2001. I am indebted to two anonymous Target reviewers and the editor,
Jos Lambert, for helpful comments of an earlier dra of the paper.
. Fragment 1 (G22: 9-10)
1 Police ocer: kan du visa mig var:
can you show me where?
2 Interpreter: a :
eh can you show where?
ii Cecilia Wadensj
3 Applicant: a . . ..
oh no. not in IhIs one. not in IhIs one.
4 Interpreter: ne inte i [den hr.
no not in [this one.
3 Applicant: [ .
[this is see, in the Soviet passport. this one is a
6 . [ -
union passport isnt it. [given to those-
7 Interpreter: [det hr r ett internationellt pass
[this is an international passport
8 och jag menade inrikes.
and I had in mind an internal one.
i. e applicant's Russian word is tam" (there" in Russian) and the interpreter quotes it
as dr" (there" in Swedish). is comes immediately prior to the sequence given in Frag-
ment 1.
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Resume
Cet article envisage l'interprtation communautaire comme une pratique sociale a porte
monologisante et cadre son tude dans une thorie gnrale du dialogisme. En rfrence
a des travaux antrieurs sur l'interprtation de l'entretien de face a face, il propose ensuite
de concevoir l'interprtation communautaire comme une sous-discipline du domaine plus
vaste des tudes de traduction. L'une des caractristiques de l'interprtation communautaire
i Cecilia Wadensj
est le chevauchement constant des environnements des langues de dpart et d'arrive. En
complment aux discussions en cours sur l'thique de la traduction, l'article tablit enfn
une distinction entre l'ideologie professionnelle de l'interprte et la pratique professionnelle
vcue.
Authors address
Cecilia Wadensj
Department of Communication Studies
Linkping University
SE-381 83 LINKOPING, Sweden
e-mail: cecwa,tema.liu.se