Moving In-Between: The Interpreter as Ethnographer and the Interpreting-Researcher as Anthropologist

Abstract

My starting point in this article is the community interpreter who works in social, medical and legal settings, under specific conditions, confronting very delicate ethical problems. In search of a theoretical framework that accounts for the social roles and cultural identities of the community interpreter I began to re-read the German anthropologist and conference interpreter Heinz Göhring. His articles can be positioned between German Studies (‘Deutsch als Fremdsprache‘), intercultural communication studies (including cultural anthropology) and translation studies. I start out with his view of an ideal translator/ interpreter as cultural expert acting like a “mini-ethnographer” and try to go beyond Göhring by connecting his ideas to the concept of the critical ethnographer as model for a professional community interpreter. In this theoretical discussion I want to show how a synthesis of the framework proposed by Göhring and recent anthropological theories can be used for a new professional profile of the interpreter, not only in community settings but in general. Besides aspects concerning translation/ interpreting politics, I wish to foreground that a re-thinking of interpreter roles would/ should also affect translation/ interpreting pedagogy and research.Dans les domaines du droit, de la santé et des services sociaux, l’interprète communautaire se voit confronté à des problèmes éthiques particulièrement délicats. Tout en recherchant un cadre théorique adéquat pouvant expliquer les rôles sociaux et les identités culturelles de l’interprétation communautaire, j’ai entrepris une re-lecture du sociologue et interprète de conférence allemand Heinz Göhring. Ses articles se situent entre les disciplines allemandes comme langue étrangère, les recherches interculturelles, incluant l’anthropologie culturelle, et la traductologie. Dans un premier temps, je décrirai sa perspective du traducteur/interprète idéal comme expert culturel. Ce dernier agit comme « mini-ethnologue ». Je tenterai d’aller plus loin que Göhring en liant sa pensée avec le concept de l’ethnologue critique en tant que modèle pour l’interprète communautaire professionnel. Je voudrais démontrer dans cette discussion théorique comment une synthèse du cadre proposé par Göhring peut être combinée avec des théories anthropologiques actuelles, non seulement dans le domaine communautaire, mais aussi en général. En plus des aspects concernant la politique de la traduction et de l’interprétation, je voudrai souligner que la révision des rôles de l’interprète doit également influencer la pédagogie et les recherches de la traduction et de l’interprétation

The (Inter)cultural Missing Link in Conference Interpreting

“…From the 1990s onwards, publications dealing with intercultural mediation and conference interpreting have been scattered. Nonetheless, there have been attempts to re-launch the debate on intercultural mediation or to draw more attention to the topic (Kondo 1990, Straniero 1998, Levy-Berlowitz 2008, studies on the role of the intercultural mediator (Marrone 1993, Bahadır 2004, Katan 2004, Al-Zahran 2007, Eraslan 2008, Torikai 2010, case-studies of intercultural communication challenges for specific language pairs (Scaglioni 2013, Bourne 2016, and pedagogic proposals to teach intercultural aspects (Katan 2004, Morell 2011, Bourne 2015. Nevertheless, all in all, we can conclude that the cultural turn did not seem to materialize in conference interpreting.…”

“…Important elaborations on intercultural mediation have been made by Katan (2013) and Bahadır (2004). For the purposes of this paper, their proposals are worth analyzing because of their innovative theoretical frameworks and their more interventionist position regarding intercultural mediation.…”

“…Similarly, Bahadır (2004) conceives translatorial action as cross-cultural transfer in the Vermeerian sense. Following Göhring's ideas from the contrastive discipline of cross-cultural communication (Snell-Hornby 1995: 40), Bahadır advocates the idea of the translator/interpreter as a professional who acts interculturally rather than only possessing the knowledge: a sort of "postcolonial mini-ethnographer" (2004: 809).…”

“…In this sense, her postcolonial concept of culture fits Katan's fourth level of culture and second level of intercultural intervention, where ideology and identity play an important role. Bahadır (2004) argues that her model should be used to conceptualize the professional identity of translators and interpreters across the board and to establish a universal pedagogical framework for training. In spite of her universalist approach to the interpreting profession as a whole, Bahadır has developed her work in community interpreting.…”

Analyzing personal embodied experiences: Autoethnography, feelings, and fieldwork

“…The idealistic image of scientific research entails strict adherence to objectivity and emotional neutrality, much like the idealistic image of interpreting (Bahadır, 2004, p. 807). This image has, however, been contested, both regarding practicing interpreters (Bahadır, 2004;Bontempo & Malcolm, 2012) and interpreting and translation researchers (e.g. Bahadır, 2004;Baker, 2001;Koskinen, 2008).…”