Conference Interpreting as a Social Practice

JAITS＜研究ノート＞

Conference Interpreting as a Social Practice
A Bourdieusian Theoretical Approach
Deborah GIUSTINI(University of Manchester)
The objective of this paper is to theoretically explore conference interpreting as a social
practice, specifically employing Bourdieu’s theory of practice and drawing on my application of
his notions of field, habitus, and capital (Bourdieu, 1977; 1990b) reinforced by the voices of thesecond cultural turn in sociology. It proposes a theoretical framework with which to analyse
conference interpreting as a socially-situated activity and interpreters as agents endowed with a
specific quantity of resources and competences uniquely acquired in particular contexts oftraining and enacted with agency in the context of interpreting performances. The aim of thispaper is to contribute to the theoretical rationale of sociological research in interpreting toposit the construction of its object as a whole and fill the gap deriving from its partial
conceptualization. On this basis, it calls for future empirical works and methodological debatesin the flourishing field of the sociology of interpreting.

1. Introduction
This paper draws extensively upon one of the most relevant theories regarding social practices,which has been elaborated by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1977) through theconcepts of field, habitus, and capital that constitute the‘theory of practice’, an ontologicalepistemological framework that analyses action in social systems. This paper aims to contributeto the flourishing field of the sociology of translation by examining the particular relevance of
Bourdieu’s key concepts applied specifically to conference interpreting and the particulardistinctiveness of interpreting itself as a social practice, integrated by the rational grasp of thesecond cultural turn of sociology (cfr. Reckwitz, Schatzki, and Warde). It aims to fill the gap inpartial sociological conceptualizations of interpreting itself, and to open the circle for empiricalinvestigations. Some final insights will be offered regarding the future role and relevance of asociology of interpreting in providing a fruitful analytical and methodological tool to address
GIUSTINI Deborah, “Conference Interpreting as a Social Practice: A Bourdieusian Theoretical
Approach,” Interpreting and Translation Studies, No.16, 2016. Pages 107-124. © by the Japan
Association for Interpreting and Translation Studies107

『通訳翻訳研究』16 号（2016）

interpreting from a holistic perspective, deeply exploring its structure and social contexts, thenorms governing them, and the agents and relations involved in this interdependent social
environment.
The examples I will refer to as a means of clarifying Bourdieu’s practice theory applied toconference interpreting are intended to offer a deeper theoretical understanding of thissociological approach and its workings on interpreting, and to link complex conceptual designs
to the reality of the profession.
2. Sociological approaches to Interpreting
Since the early 1990s there have been different attempts at conceptualising the sociological turnin Interpreting Studies. More recently, attempts have been made to specifically introduce the
Bourdieusian framework of practice theory into Interpreting Studies (see Gouanvic, 1999, 2007;
Inghilleri, 2003; Sela-Sheffy, 2005; Heilbron & Sapiro, 2007; Wolf, 2007, 2010) to highlight thedistinctiveness of interpreting as a social activity organized and regulated through social forces(Sela-Sheffy, 2000). Major studies using a sociological approach focused, so far, on a recontextualization of conference interpreting (Diriker, 2004); a consideration of symbolic andlinguistic capital in translation (Gouanvic, 2005), and within the legal field (Vidal Claramonte,2005); interpreters’intra/inter agency and identity construction (Wolf 2013); interpreters’
activities and the consequences thereof (Angelelli, 2011; Sela-Sheffy & Shlesinger, 2011); a
first introduction to the sociological backdrop to Bourdieu's thought, describing interpreters associal agents (Inghilleri, 2003, 2005b); an exploration of interpreters’power (Mason & Ren,2012) and a ground-breaking study exploring the visibility and role of interpreters through aconceptualization of habitus (Torikai, 2009).
Even though increasing numbers of scholars in Interpreting Studies have utilised
Bourdieu’s framework on a case by case basis, the past resorts to this sociological stance havebeen rather fragmented, taking the form of isolated borrowings of concepts and their application
to disparate translational contexts.
The use of such micro-perspectives and categorisations, which have been instrumental inuncovering the potentials of a sociological study of interpreting, paradoxically simplified what
is inherently complex, stripping practice theory of its characteristic of Grand Theory, an abstractand normative theory of human nature and conduct (Skinner, 1990), and whose structuralconcepts are flexible but co-dependent, making almost impossible to explain one element of
Bourdieu’s theory without ontologically referring to the others. The rejection of a heuristic,holistic approach uncovers an additional methodological problem, that is the lack of empirical
proceedings to support the devised partial theoretical framework with evidence, which have
prevented the sociological perspective to be implemented as a useful tool to refine the current
body of empirical knowledge concerning interpreting. Moreover, such sociological application
108

Conference Interpreting as a Social Practicehas been focused on various sectors within public service interpreting (cfr. Inghilleri, 2005a)
rather than on conference interpreting. On such grounds, this article concentrates on taking afurther step in devising a theoretical heuristic tool regarding the less sociologically-exploredpractice of conference interpreting to make sense of it as a social practice in its whole. In fact,
this means a consideration of both the distinctive characteristics of interpreting as a practice, thesocial trajectory of interpreters as social agents, and the stages which mark the acquisition ofinterpreting (training) and its utter practical mastery (the realm of professional life). Suchheuristic approach is conceived primarily to fill the gap of partial existing sociologicalconceptualizations of the profession itself, and as a means to lay the foundations of a futureempirical investigation of conference interpreting through the lens of sociology.
3. Interpreting as a social practice
Bourdieu conceives the social world as a space within which agents occupy structured positionsin accordance with the amount of capitals they hold (1998). The social space is underpinned bymajor organizing concept for social analysis, which Bourdieu refers to as‘thinking tools’:
field, capital, and habitus. Interdependent and co-constructed, with none predominant, they areintegral to understanding social practices and their functioning. Bourdieu argued for amethodology that would‘bring together an inter-dependent and co-constructed trio – the field,
capital and habitus – (...) each integral to understanding the social world, (...) understood
through case-by-case deconstructions’(Thompson, 2008, p. 67).
To introduce this sociological line of inquiry, the basic conceptualization to be grasped
regards that of‘social practice’. The poignant definition of the concept of practice is given on
one hand by Bourdieu, and on the other hand by the practice theorists of the second cultural
turn, such as Reckwitz (2002).For Bourdieu, practice is conceived as the dynamic and evolving
relation between field and habitus. To understand practice, it is first necessary to look at thefield in which it takes place and the habitus of those who engage in that practice. A practice canalso be depicted as a routinised type of behaviour which consists of several elements,
interconnected to one another: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, ’things’and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of
emotion and motivational knowledge (Reckwitz, 2002, p. 249). In this sense, interpreting is apractice; to give a practical illustration, conference interpreting as a practice consists of acomplex amalgam of interpreting activities (such as consecutive and simultaneousinterpretation), objects commonly associated to the profession (such as headphones and booth),background knowledge in the forms of understanding and pre-assignment preparation, language
skills, know-how of interpretation techniques, states of emotions and professional inter-relations
that need to be acquired and mastered both for the good outcome of the interpretation process
and to reach high standards in professional life.
109

『通訳翻訳研究』16 号（2016）

Furthermore, interpreting can be defined as an‘integrative practice’, that is‘the more
complex practices found in and constitutive of particular domains of social life’(Schatzki,
1996, p. 98). Any integrative practice is a collective and historic achievement developed overtime by groups of practitioners engaged in the practice itself, and it can be recognised in at least
four ways (Shove, Pantzar, & Watson, 2012):
i. In general, as an integrative practice such as conference interpreting starts to diffuse,institutions emerge to make them more widely codified and known, while practitioners
teach novices and improve performances. In the interpreting world this institutionalizationis very pronounced and occurs through formal vehicles like academic and professional
bodies, accreditation systems and training schools. These organizations ensure that the
body of training and certification processes are acceptable, typically meaning that the
proposed organizations are competent to test and certify third parties, promote ethicalbehaviour and employ suitable quality assurance;
ii. The significant amount of time dedicated to the activity, exemplified by the timeinterpreters engage in the profession;iii. The existence of standards of professional behaviour associated with the practice(Schatzki, 2006) as established and codified in national and international Interpreting
Code of Ethics;
iv. Specialised equipment devoted to interpreting activities explicitly confirming theirmutual association with the activity itself, like notepads, pens as necessary support forconsecutive note-taking on one hand, and booths, sound systems, microphones associatedto simultaneous interpreting on the other hand, and so forth.
4. Conference interpreting through Bourdieusian lenses: Habitus, field, and capital
The professional life of conference interpreters is determined by an infinite amount ofinteractions, not only under the form of interpreted events, but also as relations with colleagues,
clients, interpreting agencies, and institutions. In order to grasp these interactions, it is importantto first understand the circumstances and the place where these are produced. In other words,
interactions have to be considered in their respective social space, in the field where they occur(Bourdieu, 1966) to locate the object of investigation in its specific historical, local, andrelational context. Indeed,‘field’is of poignant importance in Bourdieu’s work, and his
writings are concerned with specific investigations of fields: for example, education (Bourdieu& Passeron, 1977), literature (Bourdieu, 1996), housing (Bourdieu, 2005) and so forth.
110

Conference Interpreting as a Social Practice

A field is a structured system of social positions occupied by individuals and institutions,with its internal logics, rules, regularities, and means of access. They are social microcosms,
separate and autonomous spaces structured by their own histories and internal logic (Townley,2014). Each field has its own norms of logic and functioning, that is a‘doxa’, a common, taken
for granted parlance that explicates and legitimates its accepted rationale by individuals in thefield itself. Of specific pertinence in this article is the field of‘conference interpreting’,practised in the modalities of simultaneous, consecutive, and whispering interpretation in thesettings of international summits, professional seminars, bilateral or multilateral meetings ofheads of State and Government, meetings between chief executives, social and union
representatives, congresses and meetings, and so forth. Conference interpreting is sociologicallynot only‘an historically generated system of shared meaning’(Iellatchitch et al., 2003, p. 732),
but also a microcosm in which the agents and institutions are integrated and interact with eachother in accordance with field-specific, shared rules (doxa) (Bourdieu, 1997). Conference
interpreting rules refer generally to high standard of quality and professionalism, neutrality, fair
remuneration, working conditions, etc. as for instance espoused by the International Associationof Conference Interpreters (AIIC) or by national codes of standards or professional agreements.
Such rules need to be internalized by the interpreters in order to demonstrate appropriate
practices and strategies (Bourdieu, 1983) in the light of providing not only high-quality
performances, but also to successfully advance in everyday professional life.
Bourdieu (1966) argues that due to their unique rules, fields are autonomous. However, healso qualifies that the autonomy is only relative as fields are embedded in a social space(Walther, 2014, p. 44). For instance, the conference interpreting field may also be influenced by
the politics, the economy, medicine, etc. as there is a potential unlimited range of topics that
conference interpreters may be required to handle, and various fields they can come in contact
with in their professional life; therefore the field of conference interpreting is relatively
dependent upon the concurrent existence and activity of others field of practice.
In Bourdieu’s sense, a field is also internally structured in terms of power relations as asocial arena within which struggles or manoeuvres take place over specific resources or stakes
and access to them. Fields are defined by specific stakes – housing, education, employment, etc.
– and conference interpreting as a field has defining stakes, which can vary in the form ofprofessional advancement, fair remuneration, accumulation of expertise and competences,prestige and recognition, whose aggregation defines the positioning for each interpreter in thefield’s network of positions (Bourdieu, 1972).
After posing that fields as conference interpreting are places of power relations wherepractices of agents are not arbitrary, it now has to be examined how positions on the respective
fields are gained and how such power relations manifest within the social space.

111

『通訳翻訳研究』16 号（2016）

4.1 Capital
Agents’actions – and interpreters’actions- in the field are enabled and constrained by theirposition within it, depending on the amount of field-specific resources, or capitals, they possessand exploit to occupy dominant or subordinate positions. Therefore, fields are competitive
spaces, loci of struggle, with power integral to their functioning. For Bourdieu (2011), theconcept of field captures the relatively autonomous social microcosms that constitute a networkof objective relations between objectively defined positions of force and competition withinsocial space, with various agents using different strategies to maintain or improve their position.
Taking as a basis that a social field is a place of competition and struggles, conference
interpreters as social agents need to be endowed with a specific quantity and structure ofresources they can put at stake in order to obtain the right to enter and stay in the field. Eachfield values particular sorts of resources named capital (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992).
Conference interpreters, on Bourdieu’s account, consolidate and advance their position andstatus in the field through a portfolio of capitals with different amount and composition(Crossley, 2013). The four forms of capital are social, cultural, economic or symbolic(Bourdieu, 1986). These forms of capital may be equally important, and can be accumulated
and transferred from one field to another. Social capital is a‘durable network of (...)
institutionalised relationships’(Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 119) and is represented by theinterpreter’s relations both with other interpreters, and with clients, interpreting agencies, andinstitutions to establish a network of social connections and secure the profits of mutual
acknowledgment. It can be institutionalised and legitimised by memberships of professional andacademic bodies (Bourdieu, 1986) allowing access to material and immaterial resources,
information and knowledge.
Cultural capital is specifically forged by education and may be institutionalized in theforms of educational qualifications, and it is manifested in three forms. In the incorporated (orembodied) state the cultural capital is a durable system of dispositions and represents aninterpreter’s entirety of intellectual qualifications and human capital (Bourdieu, 1986 citing
Becker, 1964; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1985). It encompasses linguistic and cultural competences,
mastery of interpreting techniques, background knowledge, areas of expertise, preparation of
assignments, etc. The interpreter’s culture or cultivation, however,‘presupposes a process ofembodiment as it implies a time-intensive labour of inculcation and assimilation’(Bourdieu,
1983 cited in Walther, 2014, p. 10). Hence, the acquisition of embodied cultural capital isassimilated by conference interpreters first through specific training aimed at the mastery ofinterpreting techniques, and it is constantly increased in professional performances. Linguistic
capital is a subtype of cultural capital particularly prominent in the case of language
professionals as interpreters. It is defined as fluency in, and comfort with, a foreign language
which is used by groups who possess economic, social, cultural and political power and status in112

Conference Interpreting as a Social Practice

local and global society. Bourdieu interestingly highlights that linguistic capital presupposes not
only linguistic competence, but also an interrelation between linguistic competence andsituation competence:‘linguistic competence is learnt in situations, in practice: what is learnt is,
inextricably, the practical mastery of language and the practical mastery of situations whichenable one to produce the adequate speech in a given situation’(Bourdieu, 1977, p. 647). This
provides an interesting perspective with regards to the interpreter’s performance, who should
convey the speaker’s message adopting the same register, terminology, and intention in thesetting and situation where the speech occurs, hence referring to the conjunctural configurationof context-depending renditions and the necessary linguistic and practical mastery ofinterpreters, who are again at the same time called to learn, adapt, and adjust their delivery to
the context and the speaker, in a constant process of practise assimilation and improvement. In
the institutionalized form, cultural capital for conference interpreters takes the form of‘acertificate of cultural competence, e.g. a formalized academic qualification (diploma) that issocially sanctioned by an institution’(Walther, 2014, p.10). Finally, the objectivized form ofcultural capital exists in the form of material objects, e.g. books, technological tools, etc. thatare transferable in their physical state and are physically utilized by interpreters in theirpractice.
Economic capital extends to remuneration and all forms of economic possessions.
Symbolic capital is the degree of an interpreter’s accumulated prestige and is founded on adialectic of knowledge and recognition on the conference field itself (Bourdieu & Johnson,
1993, p. 7) as it consists in the acknowledgment of capital by the entirety of the othercompetitors (Bourdieu, 1997), in the forms of other interpreters, clients, interpreting agencies,
and institutions, resulting in professional advancement and social status.
The four forms of capitals are interrelated, and they can be transferred or exchanged
against others as a form of currency as a means to ensure or advance the position occupied by aninterpreter in the social space (Bourdieu, 1986; 2006).For instance, conference interpreters may
capitalize on their knowledge of different languages (and thus on their cultural and linguistic
capital) inasmuch as these enjoy a prominent position in the labour market as a means of
exchange for remuneration (economic capital) and prestige (symbolic capital). The
convertibility of the different types of capital is the basis of the strategies aimed at ensuring the
reproduction of capital and the position occupied in social space, where interpreters’strategies
are concerned with the preservation of improvement of their positions on the field:‘such lucky
players are able to use their capital advantage to accumulate more and advance further (be more
successful) than others’(Thompson, 2008 p. 67). To perform effectively interpreters must haveaccumulated the appropriate capitals, understood the configurations of the field, and mastered
the ability to used capital effectively (Townley, 2014). As Inghilleri (2005b) states, thepossession of different forms of capital in relation to interpreters bestows status and prestige on113

『通訳翻訳研究』16 号（2016）its owners; capital (or a lack thereof) positions conference interpreters within the field inspecific ways, and it can come to serve as the basis for the professional domination of someover others. This confrontation between the interpreters located within the field is always
constituted in relation to the distribution of specific forms of capital – it involves a struggle togain symbolic and material advantage with respect to social and professional positioning, toconfer‘strength, power, and consequently profit on their holder’(Bourdieu, 1987, p. 4). Eachis the product of an investment strategy, takes time to accumulate and has the potential to induce
profits for the interpreter who possesses it.
According to Bourdieu, it is through the workings of habitus that the practice issuccessfully linked to capital and field. To this extent, the next section will be devoted totheoretically explore the workings of habitus.
4.2 Habitus
The concept of habitus lies at the core of Bourdieu’s practice theory, and it has become anincreasingly useful tool to examine how social actions and relations are internalized andexperienced as natural, and how it generates an infinite range of appropriate actions. In thissection I propose an understanding of habitus based on the actualizations given by the author in
his writings; I subsequently map its relationship to conference interpreters to operationalize
habitus in training and in interpreting performances using examples from past literature andshared common knowledge about the practice, to illustrate how this concept can be further fed
into empirical proceedings.
The habitus‘informs agents on how to orient their actions to relate to the familiar, and toadapt to new situations. It‘translates’(...) into schemes of perception, thought, and action(dispositions) that enable the individual to function in the field’(Townley, 2014 p. 46). The
habitus integrates past experiences acquired through life trajectories, and it is how‘our history
informs the present (ways of being, acting, and feeling), its influence on the choice we makeand the actions we take’(ibid.).
Bourdieu developed the concept of habitus to account for the manifestation of the socialworld within the individual, and for the principles of social organization as embodied: it is‘asocialised body. A structured body, a body which has incorporated the immanent structures of aworld or of a particular sector of that world -field- and which structures the perception of thatworld as well as action in that world’(1998, p. 81). As clarified by Reay (2004) one of the
crucial features of the habitus is that it is embodied, and hence composed not only of mental
attitudes and perceptions, but also of body attitudes, and that‘this is expressed through durable
ways of standing, speaking, walking, and thereby of feeling and thinking’(Bourdieu, 1990acited in Reay, 2004).It is a‘system of durable, transposable dispositions, which functions as astructuring structure’, that is internalized ways of know-how and competences, both mental and114

Conference Interpreting as a Social Practicecorporeal (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 12). Since there is a difference between primary and secondary(or specific) habitus, with the former informed by early familiar and socialization processes
firstly began during childhood, the latter developed within specific spheres of activity(Bourdieu, 1998), the interpreter’s habitus can be depicted as a form of specific‘interpreting’habitus. I identify the interpreter’s habitus as an aggregation of encounters with foreign
languages which possibly helped foster their sensitivity to interpreting and to the acquisition aset of dispositions moulded into linguistic capital, world knowledge, interpreting skills, andinter-relational skills. The interpreter’s habitus is the result of dispositions acquired througheducation and specific interpreting training, and then fortified into practical mastery of theprofession through encounters with the field of interpreting and peer interpreters in the samesocial space. In the interpreter’s case, he or she would have been likely in the position todevelop with the primary habitus an appreciation for foreign languages and cultures,
predisposing the holders of such dispositions to pursue adequate interpreting training and toform a specific interpreting habitus. Practical mastery is finally achieved by interpreters when
activities become embodied and turned‘into second nature’(Bourdieu, 1990a p. 63), and their
engagement with the interpreting practice is able to be adapted to various situations throughinvention and improvisation after long immersion in the field itself. Indeed, the habitus is‘permeable and responsive to what is going on around’(Reay, 2004, p.434). Current
circumstances are internalized and become yet another layer to add to the previous ones, andhence the habitus is continually re-structured by interpreters’encounters with the social andprofessional space,‘from restructuring to restructuring’(Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 134).
4.3 Habitus in training and practice
Habitus can be transformed through a process that raises the individual’s dispositions; it would
account here for an example of how interpreters, attending specific training, can transform theirinitial habitus into an interpreting habitus. I will do this by emphasizing the dynamism of thehabitus in interpreting training, and by considering that a sense of habituation is necessary forthe acquisition of the practice.
Interpreting as a social practice is a coordinated entity composed of several competences(such as language and cultural knowledge, background knowledge, interpersonal competences,interpretation skills, analytical capacity, ethical behaviour, and so forth) and as a series of
performances, whose existence necessarily depends on the specific interconnectedness of theaforementioned elements, and which cannot be reduced to any one of these single elements. It isonly through successive moments that the interdependencies between elements that constitute apractice such as interpreting are acquired, and then sustained over time (Warde, 2005; Shove,
Pantzar, & Watson, 2012). Every element is gradually acquired by practitioners throughrepetition and social experiences, through a‘myriad of mundane social processes of learning115

『通訳翻訳研究』16 号（2016）

and training, until the individual acquires a set of dispositions which literally mould body andmind, becoming a second nature’(Bourdieu, 1984, p.12),until their acquisition and theformation of an interconnection of habituated conducts and specific competences. Wacquant(1995) emphasizes the ability of the body to be retooled through training to imprint bodily
schemata and cognitive states that make a competent interpreter, who is trained to go through aseries of crystallised set of prescribed tasks and actions of increasing difficulty to beaccomplished step-by-step to enhance cognitive consistency.
The training of interpreters presupposes a regimen in which the habitus is worked upon toextend cognitive and bodily capacities through repeated exercises and actions of increasing
difficulty, managed through routine adjustments, involving a pedagogy in which thedevelopment of interpreting competences occurs through calibration, in the form of presentationof good technique and correction of poor technique. It is a‘earning process of explanation,
demonstration, practice, feedback and extension exercises which deconstructs technique down
into its key elements so that these can be practised and mastered, and then synthetized into alarger movement (Noble & Watkins, 2010, p. 528).By providing means of expression whichenable practical skills to be consciously organized around explicit principles, the training makes
possible an adequate mastery of the principles of the practice, and it rationalizes the disposition.
Another crucial part of the refinement of the interpreting techniques is that‘practising thepractice’naturalizes such competences. Indeed, both during training and professional life, theseelements are acquired exercising the habitus through constant repetition to perform themnaturally. Routine adjustments and continuous calibration naturally follow this path, since they
are necessary to refining and improve the interpreter’s performance during encounters. In thisprocess, the habitus is also constantly subject to new experiences being an‘open system ofdispositions’, and it is‘endlessly transformed’through a dialectic with its social environment(Bourdieu 1990b, p. 116; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 133).It is in this dialectical
relationship between the body and mind of the interpreter and the interpreting practice itself thatinterpreters find the form par excellence of their structural practical apprenticeship which leads
to the embodying of the practice, as Noble and Watkins underline:‘as beginners they need explicit instruction regarding technique; as intermediate players
they have developed an ability to link elements (...) and hence need practice to develop
their rhythm to concentrate on the result of the action rather than the action itself; asadvanced players with high levels of skill they can co-ordinate all the aspects of the game’(2010, p. 535).
At the same time, conference interpreting is carried out through frequent performances orassignments in their professional life, which guarantee practical and regular enactment and116

Conference Interpreting as a Social Practicereiteration. It is through continuous performance, through the immediacy of doing, that thepattern and techniques provided in interpreters’training are subsequently reproduced byinterpreters in real-life assignments (Warde, 2005; Shove, Pantzar, & Watson, 2012). Later on,
along with other competences, these acquired dispositions will result in the complete formationof conference interpreting practice and in its appropriate management, or practical mastery,which is likened to a‘feel for the game’- an interpreter’s sense of how to operate within theestablished norms of the field (Inghilleri, 2005a), which may be easily recognized in the issues
widely discussed by previous studies, ranging from the discussion of accuracy and faithfulness;semantic, syntactic, and lexical choices in relation to the rendition itself; neutrality, invisibility,and power both within and beyond the interpreted encounter (cfr. Angelelli, 2004; Davidson,
2000; Metzger, 1999; Bélanger, 2003; Berk-Seligson, 1990; Fowler, 2003; Jacobsen, 2003; Roy,
2000; Wadensjö, 1995, 1998a and 1998b).
I have outlined how competence is achieved in training when practitioners return explicit
processes to the realm of unconsciousness. However, I will discuss further on how the
habituation of interpreting behaviours needs to bring those same behaviours to consciousness inorder to alter it in the course of everyday assignments.
Even though successful interpreter training and practice are in need of capacity and crisis
management, thus requiring the interpreter to resort to conscious coping strategies (Gile, 1995,
p. 190), it is also what Bourdieu devaluates in his framework the modalities of habitus
consciousness: he conceives habitus as having the potential to generate a wide repertoire ofpossible actions in a specific field, but he also proposes that individuals act in habitual,
conventionalized ways, with strategies working below the level of consciousness, excluding
deliberation (Bourdieu, 1980, p. 53), refusing the idea of social actors as conscious, calculative
rational beings, although he does allow for the possibility of‘rational choice’under specificcircumstances (ibid., p. 131). In his formulation, individuals’adjustments to the external world
are all apparently working under the realm of unconsciousness. Indeed, at the core of
Bourdieu’s habitus lies the tendency to always act the same way in similar situations, as‘thestrategy generating principle enabling agents to cope with unforeseen and ever-changing
situations’(Bourdieu, 1990b, p. 12), he also suggests that habitus operates at an unconscious
level unless individuals confront events that cause crisis and self-questioning. Nonetheless,following Daniel Gile (1995) I suggest that conference interpreting is a constant‘time of crisis’for its very cognitively challenging, time-constraining nature and modalities in which it iscarried out. This would account for the fact that conference interpreters’habitus operates more
on a conscious level because individuals are constantly confronting events that cause crisis andself-questioning in relation to their language rendition. Therefore, the example of conference
interpreters at work can account for a conscious reworking of habitus allowing for the
possibility of change, equipping the habitus with‘a far greater agentic function’(Noble &117

『通訳翻訳研究』16 号（2016）

Watkins, 2010, p.526). Since Bourdieu does not completely deny the character of inventive
strategy intrinsic in the habitus (1990a) it is a question of to what degree - and not if interpreters are creative when interpreting in real assignments, and by what conscious choices
supported by their habitus are caused and linked to.Actions are dependent upon the interplay
between habitus and circumstances in the field, and thus habitus is not immutable. Theirrelationship shapes and influences the enacted practice. Actions are, at the same time,
influenced by options available and how these are perceived through dispositions (Townley,2014).
In the supposed example of a conference setting with simultaneous interpretation provided,
the interpreter needs to organize his language output from a limited set of linguistic cues
continuously unfolding, while actively checking for mistakes, omissions, additions, cultural
explanations, and facing problems such as speed, variety of accents and intonations, with nointerruption or thinking longer than a few seconds. The habitus should then unconsciously guidethe interpreters’simultaneous delivery on the basis of their previous experiences and strategies
already sedimented, while making them operate at the level of consciousness to choose from a
range of creative linguistic possibilities to achieve the goal of a successful communication
performance.In real performances, the habitus would therefore unconsciously influence theinterpreter’s actions and reactions, directing him or her towards the correct, accepted, predisposed way of practising, putting at work a selection of forms of conduct and coping
strategies acquired through past experiences and based on present resources. Gile poses that‘inspite of interpreters’preparation strategies, problems do arise in interpreting situations (...) andare encountered regularly’(1995, p. 191). I argue that it is exactly when problems arise inperformances that one can investigate the interpreter’s strategy and the extent of habitus
consciousness, on the basis that‘in everyday situations (...) it is defined as a tactic (...) when it
becomes a conscious endeavour, as opposed to an ordinary, subconscious process’and that
‘interpreters do not choose the tactics at random. They seem to follow rules, sometimes
consciously, often unconsciously. These rules help select one tactic over the other’(ibid., pp.
192-201)
Bourdieu accepts that habitus has degrees of change in response to the individual’sexperience (1990a) that there are two levels on the spectrum of creativity that are mobilized by
the habitus: creativity and consciousness of the practice can be revealed in agentic and selfmonitoring reflection, which can be retrospective/analytic and projective/synthetic, whereinterpreters consider their actions within the context of the situated performance, which
involves the active and creative monitoring and self-monitoring of conduct which can bebrought to discourse (Giddens, 1984, pp. 4-7), highlighting an awareness of what they havedone (analytic capacity) and what they can do (synthetic capacity) while interpreting (Noble &Watkins, 2010, p. 530).
118

Conference Interpreting as a Social PracticeGile (1995, pp. 194-197) distinguishes between‘reformulation tactics’and‘preventive
tactics’, which I layer with retrospective/analytic habitus-guided strategy and projective/
synthetic habitus-guided strategies. Retrospective/analytic strategies, for instance, encompasses
analytic and self-reflexive monitoring: mistakes, incorrect word choice, incorrect numbers,
misunderstandings, reconstruction of the segment with the help of the context, delaying the
response, replacing a segment with a superordinate term or a more general speech segment, etc.
(ibid.).
Projective/synthetic strategies are intended to produce synthetic anticipation as
automaticity during the course of a game – but it does this through very creative and conscious
reflection, and involves the active monitoring of habitus to influence the present and future
moments of the performance and avoid likely moments of crisis. Examples include: interpreting
two languages with a very different structure, in case of missed sentences, changing the order ofthe syntactic and lexical elements in the sentence, taking notes, changing the ear-voice span,segmentation, changing the order of elements in an enumeration, etc. (ibid.).
There is, thus, a constant dialectic of habitus automatization and habitus creativity, amastery of conscious and unconscious strategies driven by the interpreter’s habitus on the basisof previous experience and rationalized improvisation aimed towards a successful performance,
as a means for interpreters to reflect upon their performance and alter it as they see fit. By
drawing together these examples, habitus can be viewed as a‘complex internalized core fromwhich everyday experiences emanate’(Reay, 2004, p. 435). Interpreters immersed in aninterpreted event may choose from a range of available choices, but at the same time the choice
inscribed in the habitus are limited; these same choices are also bounded by the framework of
external field circumstances that makes‘some possibilities inconceivable, others improbableand a limited range acceptable’(ibid.)
The conceptual force of the habitus lies in its attempts to account for how regularities of
behaviour become established and maintained through what Bourdieu terms strategies,‘theproduct[s] of the practical sense as the feel for the game, for a particular, historically determinedgame’and that presupposes at the same time the capacity for invention and adaptation in social
situations (Bourdieu, 1990a, pp. 62-63). Habitus demonstrates how interpreters as social agents
immersed in the field of interpreting can be determined and pre-disposed to certain actions andstrategies in real-life professional encounters, and yet be acting too. From a sociological stancewhich does not exclude cognitive and neurological aspects, the habitus is what enables
interpreters to feel at home in the field of interpreting as that world is‘embodied’in them, as itis through the workings of habitus that they sediment their knowledge of such world in a takenfor-granted sense (Inghilleri, 2005a). Since‘ideas like those of habitus (...) were intended topoint out that there is a practical knowledge that has its own logic’(Bourdieu, 1991, p. 252)and it was conceived as a method, it can provide for an empirical investigation of the experience119

『通訳翻訳研究』16 号（2016）of interpreters immersed in the social spaces which make their experiences possible. Habitus,
then, is a means of viewing structure (the profession of conference interpreting) as occurring
within small-scale interactions (interpreted events) and activity within large-scale settings (e.g.
the field of conference interpreting, but also the field of court interpreting, healthcareinterpreting, etc.) taking into account the social and professional trajectories of interpreters associal agents.
5. Conclusions
In this paper I have approached Bourdieu’s theoretical framework and his main concepts offield, capital, and habitus to investigate their relevance and application to the profession ofconference interpreting. The conceptualization of conference interpreting as a social practice inthe light of the relationship of habitus, field, capital, has proved useful for providing food forthought regarding the trajectories and actions of interpreters immersed in acts of interpreting
within particular socio-cultural contexts and the specific agency they have on the complex of
networks in which they operate.
This article calls for the opening of innovative research trajectories on how conference
interpreters are involved in different socio-cultural professional contexts, and of what appears tocommit them to the specific social practice under investigation; how their expertise is disposed
and acquired through the habitus, and their account for their‘taken for granted’sets ofdispositions and for their level of agency and positioning in the interpreted event. Furthermore,
the role of the habitus in practice acquisition could open the path for revised training methods
which would stress the importance of socio-cultural factors lying ahead in professional life.

About the Author
Deborah Giustini is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Manchester. Her
ethnographic research explores conference interpreting as a social practice in the UK and Japan.
She is the author of Gender and Queer Identities in Translation.

References
Angelelli, C. (2004). Revisiting the interpreter's role: a study of conference, court, and medical
interpreters in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Angelelli, C. (2011). Can you ask her about chronic illnesses, diabetes and all that? In C.
Alvstadt, H. Hild & E. Tiselius (Eds.), Methods and strategies of process research:Integrative approaches in translation studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 231-246.
Becker, H. (1964). Personal change in adult life. In Sociometry, 27 (1), 40-53.
120

Conference Interpreting as a Social PracticeBélanger, D. C. (2003). Les différentes figures d’interaction en interpretation de dialogue. In L.
Brune, G. Bastin, I. Hemlin, & H. Clarke, (Eds.), The critical link 3: interpreters in thecommunity. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 51-66.
Berk-Seligson, S. (1990). The bilingual courtroom: Court interpreters in the judicial process.
Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1966). Champ intellectual et projet createur. In Les Temps Modernes, 246, 865906.
Bourdieu, P. (1972). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Studies in Social and Cultural
Anthropology.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge&. Co.
Bourdieu, P. (1983). The field of cultural production, or: The economic world reversed. In
Poetics, 12 (4), 311-356.
Bourdieu, P. (1980). Le sens pratique. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1985). Les hériters. Les étudiants et leurs études. Paris: Éditions
de Minuit.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory andresearch for the sociology of education (241-258). New York: Greenwood.
Bourdieu, P. (1987). What makes a social class? On the theoretical and practical existence ofgroups. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 32, 1-17.
Bourdieu, P. (1990a). The logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1990b). In other words: Essays towards a reflexive sociology. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1996). The rules of art: Genesis and structure of the literary field. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1997). Pascalian meditations, Paris: Seuil.
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical reason: On the theory of action. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2006). Le capital social. Notes provisoires. (1986). In Le capital social. La
Découverte, 29-34.
Bourdieu, P. (2011). The forms of capital. In I. Szeman & T. Kaposy (Eds.), Cultural theory: An
anthology. Madden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 81-93.
Bourdieu, P., & Johnson, R. (1993). The field of cultural production: Essays on art and121

『通訳翻訳研究』16 号（2016）

literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1977). Reproduction in education, culture and society. London:
Sage.
Bourdieu, P., Chamboredon, J. C., & Passeron, J. C. (1991). The craft of sociology:
Epistemological preliminaries. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Crossley, N. (2013). Pierre Bourdieu’s Habitus. In T. Sparrow & A. Hutchinson (Eds.), A
History of Habit: From Aristotle to Bourdieu. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 291-308.
Gile, D. (1995). Basic concepts and models for interpreter and translator training. Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Davidson, B. (2000). The interpreter as institutional gatekeeper: The social-linguistic role ofinterpreters in Spanish-English medical discourse. In Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (3),379-405.
Diriker, E. (2004). De-/re-contextualizing conference interpreting: interpreters in the ivory
tower? Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Fowler, Y. (2003).Taking an interpreted witness statement at the police station. What Did the
Witness Actually Say? In L. Brune, G., Bastin, I., Hemlin, & H. Clarke (Eds.), The criticallink 3: interpreters in the community. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 195–209.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration.
University of California Press.
Gouanvic, J. M. (2007). Objectivation, réflexivité et traduction. Pour une re-lecture
bourdieusienne de la traduction. In M. Wolf & A. Fukari (Eds.), Constructing a Sociology
of Translation, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins, 79-92.
Gouanvic, J. M. (2005). A Bourdieusian theory of translation, or the coincidence of practicalinstances: Field, 'Habitus', capital and‘illusio’. In The Translator: 11 (2), 2005: Special
Issue. Bourdieu and the Sociology of Translation and Interpreting: 147-166.
Gouanvic, J. M. (1999). Sociologie de la traduction: la science-fiction américaine dans l'espaceculturel français des années 1950. Artois : Artois Presses Université.
Heilbron, J., & Sapiro, G. (2007). Outline for a sociology of translation. Current issues andfuture prospects. In M. Wolf & A. Fukari (Eds.), Constructing a Sociology of Translation.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 93-107.
Iellatchitch, A., Mayrhofer, W., & Meyer, M. (2003). Career fields: a small step towards a grandcareer theory? In International Journal of Human Resource Management, 14 (5), 728-750.
Inghilleri, M. (2003). Habitus, field and discourse: Interpreting as a socially situated activity. In
Target 15(2), 243-268.
Inghilleri, M. (2005a). Mediating zones of uncertainty: Interpreter agency, the interpreting
habitus and political asylum adjudication. In The Translator 11 (1), 69-85.
Inghilleri, M. (2005b). The sociology of Bourdieu and the construction of the‘object’in122Conference Interpreting as a Social PracticeTranslation and Interpreting Studies. In The Translator 11 (2), 125-145.
Jacobsen, B. (2003). Pragmatics in court interpreting: Additions. In L. Brune, G. Bastin, I.
Hemlin, & H. Clarke, (Eds.), The critical link 3: interpreters in the community.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 23–238.
Mason I., & Ren W., (2012). Power in face-to-face interpreting events. In Angelelli, C.V. (Ed.),
The Sociological Turn in Translation and Interpreting Studies. Special issue of Translation
and Interpreting Studies 7:2, 234–253.
Metzger, M. (1999). Sign language interpreting: Deconstructing the myth of neutrality.
Washington, D.C: Gallaudet University Press.
Noble, G., & Watkins, M. (2003). So, how did Bourdieu learn to play tennis? Habitus,
consciousness and habituation. In Cultural studies, 17(3-4), 520-539.
Noble, G., & Watkins, M. (2010). The productivity of stillness: composure and the scholarly
habitus. In D. Bissell & G. Fuller (Eds.), Stillness in a mobile world. London & New York:
Routledge, 107-24.
Reay, D. (2004).‘It's all becoming a habitus’: Beyond the habitual use of habitus ineducational research. In British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25 (4), 431-444.
Reckwitz, A. (2002). Toward a theory of social practice. In European Journal of Social Theory,
5 (2), 243-263.
Roy, C. B. (2000). Innovative practices for teaching sign language interpreters. Gallaudet
University Press.
Schatzki, T. (1996). Social practices: A Wittgensteinian approach to human activity and thesocial. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schatzki, T. (2006). On organizations as they happen. In Organization Studies 27 (12), 18631873.
Sela-Sheffy, R. (2000). The suspended potential of culture research in TS. In Target 12 (2), 345355.
Sela-Sheffy, R. (2005). How to be a (recognized) translator: Rethinking habitus, norms, and thefield of translation. In Target, 17 (1), 1-26.
Sela-Sheffy, R., & Shlesinger, M. (Eds.). (2011). Identity and status in the translational
professions. Vol. 32. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Shove, E., Pantzar, M. & Watson, M. (2012). The Dynamics of Social Practice. London: Sage.
Skinner, Q. (1990). The return of grand theory in the human sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Thomson, P. (2008). Field. In Grenfell M. (Ed.). Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts. Durham:
Acumen Publishing, 67–81.
Torikai, K. (2009). Voices of the invisible presence: diplomatic interpreters in post-World War II
Japan. Vol. 83. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
123『通訳翻訳研究』16 号（2016）

Townley, B. (2014). Bourdieu and organisational theory: A ghostly apparition? In P. Adler, P. duGay, G. Morgan, & M. Reed (Eds.). Oxford Handbook of Sociology, Social Theory andOrganization Studies: Contemporary Currents. Oxford University Press, 39-63.
Vidal Claramonte, M. C. Á. (2005). Re-presenting the 'Real': Pierre Bourdieu and Legal
Translation. In The Translator: 11 (2): Special Issue. Bourdieu and the Sociology ofTranslation and Interpreting: 259-275.
Wacquant, L. J. (1995). Pugs at work: bodily capital and bodily labour among professional
boxers. In Body and society, 1 (1), 65-93.
Wadensjö, C. (1995). Dialogue interpreting and the distribution of responsibility. In Hermes,
Journal of Linguistics 14, 111–129.
Wadensjö, C. (1998a). Interpreting as Interaction. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc.
Wadensjö, C. (1998b). Community Interpreting. In M. Baker (Ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia ofTranslation Studies. London: Routledge. 33–37.
Walther, M. (2014). Repatriation to France and Germany. A comparative study based on
Bourdieu’s theory of practice. Springer Gabler.
Warde, A. (2005). Consumption and theories of practice. In Journal of Consumer Culture, 5 (2),131-153.
Wolf, M. (2010). Translation‘going social’? Challenges to the (ivory) tower of Babel. In
MonTI, Monographs in Translation and Interpreting 2, 29-46.
Wolf, M. (2013).‘German speakers, step forward!’: Surviving through interpreting in Nazi
concentration camps. In Translation and Interpreting Studies, 8 (1), 1-22. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Wolf, M., & Fukari, A. (Eds.). (2007). Constructing a sociology of translation. Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

124