## Bente Jacobsen*

## The Community Interpreter: A Question of Role

## Abstract

Studies of conference interpreting and community interpreting differ from studies of the translation of written texts in their object of study. Thus, unlike studies of written translations,  studies  of  interpreting  have  traditionally  focused  on  the  individual performing the translation, i.e. the interpreter ,  as opposed to interpreting .  Moreover, whereas research in conference interpreting has traditionally centred on issues connected with the process of interpreting, research in community interpreting has traditionally centred on role perceptions and expectations among users of interpreting services and interpreting  practitioners.  This  article  presents  an  overview  of  relevant  community interpreting literature and shows how the topic of interpreter role has always dominated the fi  eld.

## 1. Introduction

In  their  study  of  translator  status  in  Denmark,  Dam/Zethsen  (2008) draw attention to the fact that translation studies have traditionally focused on translation as opposed to the translator . According to Dam/ Zethsen (2008: 71), translation studies have only recently seen an increased focus on areas such as 'translators' backgrounds, their motivation, and their relationship with publishers and editors'. Dam/Zethsen (2008: 72) maintain, nevertheless, that the topic of translator status is still a largely ignored object of study, especially outside the fi  eld of literary translation. However, if we look at interpreting studies, which is mostly considered a sub-discipline of translation studies, we get a very different picture.

Interpreting  studies  are  generally  divided  into  two  separate  fi  elds: conference  interpreting  and  community  interpreting  (e.g.  Jacobsen

* Bente Jacobsen Department of Language and Business Communication Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University Fuglesangs Allé 4 DK-8210 Aarhus V bja@asb.dk

155

2002). In both fi  elds, studies have traditionally focused on the interpreter as opposed to interpreting . Presumably, one reason for this tradition in interpreting studies is the visibility of the interpreter. Unlike the translator, the interpreter performs immediate translations of source texts,  something  which  requires  her  presence  at  the  speech  event, whether physically in the room with the primary participants, in an interpreting booth (perhaps only 'visible' as a voice in the end receiver's ear), or on a screen (in video-linked interpreting. Bearing in mind this visibility, plus the fact that performing immediate, and oral, translations require additional competences than those needed for written translations, such as a good working memory, interactional skills, and a capacity for dividing one's attention between various simultaneous operations (e.g. Gile 1995), the traditional focus on the interpreter is not really surprising.

However, studies of conference interpreting and community interpreting differ in their chosen issues. Thus, whereas research in conference  interpreting  has  traditionally  focused  on  cognitive,  neurophysiological  and  neurolinguistic  issues  (e.g.  Kurz  1994)  as  well  as  'performance phenomena', i.e. issues such as interpreters' memory span, the time-lag (ear-voice span) between input and output, chunking and anticipation (e.g. Mason 2000), research in community interpreting has traditionally focused on role perceptions and expectations among users of interpreting services and interpreting practitioners (e.g. Shlesinger/ Pöchhacker 2008). One obvious reason for this difference is the different characteristics of conference and community interpreting which is illustrated in table 1 (cf. Jacobsen 2002: 6):

Table 1. The essential characteristics of community interpreting and conference interpreting

| Community interpreting                                     | Conference interpreting                             |
|------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------|
| Dialogue (typically, but not always, two primary speakers) | Monologue                                           |
| Spontaneous speech (some speech may be pre-planned)        | Pre-planned speech (often scripted source material) |
| (Relatively) short turns                                   | Sustained turns                                     |
| Bi-directional interpreting                                | Uni-directional interpreting                        |

Clearly, these different characteristics invite different kinds of research. Thus, whereas community interpreting invites research of interaction (face-to-face, three-party), conference interpreting invites research of action (on the part of the interpreter) (cf. Mason 2000: 216).

Finally, the bulk of research in community interpreting has been conducted in legal and medical settings (e.g. Hale 2007), and apart from role,  issues  include  professionalism,  in-group  loyalties,  discourse, cross-cultural  mediation  and  the  power  dynamics  of  the  interpreting situation (e.g. Jacobsen 2002). Before exploring the topic of role perceptions and expectations further, however, it will be useful to defi  ne community interpreting, not least because of considerable terminological confusion in the fi  eld.

## 2. Defi  ning community interpreting

A  simple  way  of  defi  ning  community  interpreting  is  to  distinguish it  from  conference  interpreting,  as  in  table  1  above.  Thus,  another distinction  between  the  two  types  of  interpreting  which  deserves mention is Pöchhacker's (2004) distinction of inter-social versus intrasocial  settings,  made  by  looking  exclusively  at  the  social  context  of interaction.  This  distinction  illustrates  the  very  different  settings  of conference interpreting events and community interpreting events, and thus further serves to explain the different research focus. Pöchhacker (2004: 13) defi  nes inter-social settings as business settings or diplomatic settings,  i.e.  settings  which  involve  contacts  between  social  entities. Intra-social settings, on the other hand, involve contacts in multi-ethnic societies  and  may  be  courtrooms,  police  stations,  hospitals,  dental clinics, classrooms or various social institutions.

However, none of these or other possible distinctions (for example between language modality or between working modes) contribute to clearing up the considerable terminological confusion mentioned before. Though community interpreting now seems to be a widely accepted term, judging by the Critical Link conference series (Toronto 1995, Vancouver 1998, Montreal 2001, Stockholm 2004, Sydney 2007, Birmingham 2010), public-service interpreting is sometimes used (mainly in the UK), as is dialogue interpreting, liaison interpreting, cultural interpreting, escort interpreting or ad hoc interpreting (e.g. Hale 2007). In addition, community/public service/liaison/etc. interpreting is some- times  referred  to  by  its  particular  setting,  i.e.  healthcare  interpreting (or medical interpreting, or hospital interpreting), legal interpreting (or court interpreting or police interpreting), social interpreting (e.g. Pöchhacker 2004). In fact, court interpreting is sometimes regarded as a distinct fi  eld with different role perceptions and expectations, which is presumably due to the formalized setting with its fi  xed agenda, though the fact that the need for interpreting in legal settings has generally been recognized for a longer time than other types of community interpreting (e.g. Hale 2007; Mikkelson 2000) may also play a role. However, despite there being diversity between, for example, a court interpreting event and a health interpreting event, there is also similarity. For example, the two events share certain contextual constraints, such as the immediacy of the encounter, the physical presence of all three participants (excluding telephone or video interpreting events) and the often sensitive nature of the topic discussed (a criminal offence, a serious illness, etc.). Thus, irrespective of speech event, the fi  eld of study is interpreter-mediated communication in face-to-face interaction. As a rule, therefore, the fi  ndings from a study of interpreters working in one setting will be relevant to interpreters working in other settings also.

Consequently, for the purpose of this article, I shall employ the term community interpreting. Moreover, I shall include sign-language interpreting under this heading because it shares all the interactional features of spoken language interpreting in community interpreting event, though the face-to-face relationship is really between producer and receiver of sign instead of between principal participants (cf. Jacobsen 2002). Thus, interpreting events may be police interrogations, courtroom proceedings, immigration hearings, drivers licence tests, classroom interaction, doctor-patient consultations, dietician-client consultations, employment interviews, or social worker-client interviews. The language modality may be spoken-language or sign-language, and the working mode may be simultaneous, consecutive or sight translation. Finally, the interpreter and the primary participants may be present in the same room, or one of the primary participants, or the interpreter, may be speaking via a telephone or a video-link.

To sum up, therefore, a community interpreter typically works in an institutionalised setting. The speech event is essentially triadic, involving her and only two primary participants. Moreover, one primary participant is typically a professional - a police offi  cer, a lawyer, a doctor, a psychologist, a professor, a social worker, etc. - with a certain amount of power, while the other primary participant is typically a non-professional (and a member of a linguistic minority), who has only a small amount of power (e.g. Englund-Dimitrova 1997; Jacobsen 2008; Roy 2000). Naturally, these and other contextual constraints, such as those mentioned earlier, are bound to exert considerable infl  uence on the way meanings are exchanged and negotiated (e.g. Jacobsen 2002).

Consequently, bearing in mind the complexity of the community interpreting event, including the contextual constraints, and especially the fact that the event essentially involves three participants, one of whom is the interpreter, it is understandable that, as referred to above, studies have concentrated on role perceptions and expectations, since this topic is 'inextricably linked' (Shlesinger/Pöchhacker 2008) to deliberations of interpreters' visibility and degree of active participation in the event. The topic has also traditionally been the subject of a great deal of controversy,  however, especially in legal settings, and not only between users of interpreting services, on the one hand, and interpreting practitioners on the other, but also among interpreting practitioners themselves (e.g. Angelelli 2004; Hale 2004). Section 3 explores this controversy further.

## 3. Role perceptions and expectations

Role perceptions and expectations have in fact been the focus of attention since the fi  rst studies of community interpreting, which centred on the behaviour of non-trained interpreters working in a courtroom in Papua New Guinea, were published by Rainer Lang (1976, 1978). Thus, though Lang in his earlier paper (1976) focuses on the status of the local interpreting service, concluding that there is a need for formal training of interpreters, he also discusses (1976: 336) methodological aspects of interpreting and explains that, in his view, the role of the interpreters 'was contaminated' from the beginning by their roles of 'intermediaries' (resulting from the fact that they were bilinguals). Moreover, in his second paper, which centres on the behavioural aspects of one particular interpreter, Lang (1978: 241) concludes that, although the 'offi  cial role was that of a passive participant', the interpreter in fact participated actively. Lang (1978: 241) further concludes that the interpreter's involvement in the interaction was subject to negotiation, and that prima- ry participants used linguistic cues and paralinguistic features to signal to what extent they wished to include or exclude him. 'Likewise', Lang (1978: 241) concludes, the interpreter 'can by these means actively involve himself, or abstain from such involvement'. Thus, Lang (1976, 1978) reproduces the idealistic image of interpreters who work in legal settings, which is traditionally refl  ected in offi  cial requirements, namely that of a passive and invisible participant, a mere translating machine whose role it is to deliver word-by-word translations of source texts.

However, Lang does not problematize this idealistic image, which is still predominant in legal systems today, and which especially commanded attention in the 1990s (e.g. Berk-Seligson 1990/2002; Fenton 1997; Fowler 1997; Jansen 1995; Mikkelson 1998; Morris 1989, 1993, 1995; Shlesinger 1991). Four of these studies, which were carried out in courtrooms in the USA (Berk-Seligson 1990/2002), the Netherlands (Jansen 1995) and Israel (Morris 1989; Shlesinger 1991) have particularly served to illustrate the problems connected with the image of the interpreter as a passive translating device, by demonstrating how some interpreters  are  prepared  to  exercise  latitude  and  modify  originals  to convey their perception of speaker meaning or to soften the impact of their target texts on end receivers. The four studies agree that the main reason for this was the interpreters' objective of effective communication, but they differ as regards the degree of latitude interpreters should be allowed to exercise. For example, while Morris (e.g. 1989: 14) and Shlesinger (e.g. 1991: 153) argue that a degree of latitude is necessary to convey speaker meaning, Berk-Seligson talks of 'intrusiveness' and interpreters' 'intrusive behaviour' (e.g. 1990: 214).

In my own study of interpreting in a Danish legal setting which was completed in 2002 (Jacobsen 2002), I take the side of Morris (1989) and Shlesinger (1991). Applying Grice's (1975) theory of conversational implicature, which provides a framework for analyzing how hearers infer speakers' intentions, to the investigated data, I found evidence that the interpreters in my study were preoccupied with pragmatics, i.e. with building a mental model of speaker meaning and with conveying this mental model to end receivers, despite an offi  cial requirement for verbatim translations. I argue, therefore, that the key element inherent in an interpreter's performance, i.e. the very fact that her presence is meant to ensure successful interaction, which necessarily entails that the primary participants understand each other as if they spoke the same lan- guage, inevitably provides her with a more active role than prescribed by offi  cial guidelines.

Whereas all of the above studies deliberated role perceptions and expectations focusing on the interpreter's role of translating machine versus active participant, Cecilia Wadensjö (e.g. 1992/1998) in her study of the participation framework of community interpreting encounters focused on the interpreter's role as translator and coordinator. In fact, Wadensjö's (e.g. 1992/1998) analysis of Goffman's (1981) concept of 'footing', used to characterize the primary participants' and the interpreter's relationship to each other, has provided such major insight into interpreter roles that it constitutes one of the most signifi  cant contributions to community interpreting research and therefore deserves special consideration.

Briefl  y, Goffman (1981: 227) defi  nes 'footing' as the 'alignment of an individual to a particular utterance, whether involving a production format, as in the case of a speaker, or solely a participation status, as in  the  case  of  a  hearer'.  In  other  words,  participants  adopt  different, and shifting, roles and attitudes vis-à-vis each other and vis-à-vis utterances. Goffman (1981: 227) further explains that participants constantly shift footing and that such shifts are 'a persistent feature of natural talk'. Applying this framework to her study of interpreting in Swedish health-care clinics and police stations, Wadensjö (e.g. 1992, 1998) demonstrates that shifts of footing (refl  ected in a shift of pronoun and address) are commonplace in these speech events. She further identifi  es (e.g. 1992: 117-125) the various production and reception roles that participants can adopt and shows how these fundamentally affect what is  communicated and how it is communicated. She then proceeds to show (e.g. 1992: 127-134) that, at various stages of the speech event, an interpreter may adopt all of the identifi  ed reception roles, not just as a result of a free choice, but as a reaction to the principal participants' assumptions about her appropriate role. Thus, the interpreter plays an important role as a coordinator of others' talk by virtue of the footing she adopts, a role, Wadensjö (1998: 145) argues, which is 'intimately interdependent' with the role as translator of others' talk.

Legal and medical settings are still the main setting for studies of community interpreting here in the fi  rst decade of the twenty-fi  rst century,  and  the  topic  of  interpreter  role  is  still  predominant  (e.g.  Hale

2007). However, studies no longer deliberate if community interpreters are visible and active participants, but rather how much and with what consequences (e.g. Angelelli 2004; Merlini/Favaron 2005; Mikkelson 2008). Thus, controversies still exist. For example, Leanza (2005), who reports on interpreting in paediatric settings, shows that paediatricians tend to view the interpreter as a neutral 'translating machine', or a neutral ally in consultations (2005: 177). Leanza suggests (2005: 186-187), nevertheless, that interpreters may adopt four different roles vis-à-vis patients:  the  role  of system  agent (transmitting  the  dominant  norms, values and discourse to the patient, ignoring cultural differences), the role of community agent (presenting the minority norms and values as potentially equally valid, thus acknowledging cultural differences), the role of integration agent (fi  nding resources to facilitate integration by helping migrants and people from the receiving society understand each other,  a  role  that  takes  place  outside  medical  consultations),  and  the role of linguistic agent (attempting to maintain impartiality, intervening only on language level). However, the interpreters in Leanza's (2005: 179-186) study acted mainly as linguistic  agents  and  system  agents, and rarely as community agents, preferring to keep 'a status quite different from that of their fellow migrant patients'. Leanza (2005: 187) argues  that  granting  interpreters  more  autonomy  and  acknowledging them as professionals in their own right would be one way of making them adopt all four roles, and, in turn, facilitate the success of the interaction. Similarly, Hale (2008), who reports on the role of interpreters in legal settings, maintains (2008: 99) that role defi  nition remains 'a controversial issue' in the setting. The reason, she argues (2008: 100-101) is the profession's 'different levels of development across the world', i.e. the lack of a strong, unifi  ed profession that could counteract the different role expectations of users of interpreting services. Hale (2008: 101-119) then proceeds to present fi  ve interpreter roles that have either been 'openly prescribed' or 'deduced' from the performance of interpreters: (1) advocate for the minority language speaker, (2) advocate for the institution or service provider, (3) gatekeeper (controlling the fl  ow of information from e.g. lawyer to defendant by introducing, reinforcing and excluding topics), (4) facilitator of communication (feeling responsible for the success of the interaction), and (5) faithful renderer of others' utterances. In her conclusion, Hale (2008: 119) argues that interpreters need to consider the consequences of their choices before adopting a role. She further argues (2008: 119) that, bearing in mind the possible consequences demonstrated by her examples, role (5), faithful renderer of others' utterances, is in fact 'the only adequate role' for interpreters working in legal settings. This does not mean, however, that 'interpreters must act as mindless machines', but they should attempt 'to be as accurate as possible within human limitations (2008: 119). Hale (2008: 119) maintains that the higher the level of their skills, and the better the working conditions they have, the better chance interpreters have of translating accurately (2008: 119).

Consequently, Leanza (2005) and Hale (2008) both argue that different role perceptions and expectations of users of interpreting services still complicate interpreting situations irrespective of the setting. They further argue that the problem may be solved by professionalizing interpreters and granting them proper working conditions. Moreover, both authors suggest a number of roles that interpreters may adopt. They differ as regards their recommendations for which roles are suitable in an interpreting event, however. Thus, whereas Leanza (2005) would like interpreters to adopt all of the suggested roles and function not only as interpreters but also as cultural brokers and facilitators of integration, Hale (2008) advocates caution, arguing that interpreters need to consider the consequences before adopting a particular role.

Finally, these and other studies (e.g. Bot 2005; Morris 2008) illustrate the increased focus on quality in interpreting, a topic which is also linked to deliberations of visibility and degree of active participation. In conclusion, therefore, the topic of role perceptions and expectations still dominate the fi  eld, and the controversy that Lang fi  rst touched upon 32 years ago (Lang 1976) looks set to prevail for many years to come.

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