De-/Re-Contextualizing Conference Interpreting
Interpreters in the Ivory Tower?
Author
This groundbreaking study explores Simultaneous Conference Interpreting (SI) by focusing on interpreters as professionals working in socio-cultural contexts and on the interdependency between these contexts and actual SI behavior. While previous research on SI has been dominated by cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches, Diriker’s work explores SI in relation to the broader and more immediate socio-cultural contexts by investigating the representation of the profession(al) in the meta-discourse and by exploring the presence of interpreters and the nature of the interpreted utterance at an actual conference. Making use of participant observations, interviews and analysis of conference transcripts, Diriker challenges some of the widely held assumptions about SI. She suggests that the interpreter’s delivery represents not only the speaker but a multiplicity of speaker-positions, and that this multiplicity may well be a source of tension or vulnerability, as well as strength, for interpreters. Her analysis also highlights how interpreters negotiate meaning in SI, and underscores the need for more concerted efforts to explore SI in authentic contexts.
[Benjamins Translation Library, 53] 2004. x, 223 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
-
Acknowledgments | p. ix
-
Introduction | p. 1
-
1. Previous literature, key concepts and grounding theories | p. 7
-
2. Broader social context in SI | p. 25
-
3. Analyzing an actual conference context | p. 51
-
4. Analyzing an actual SI performance | p. 81
-
5. Juxta- and counterposing actural SI behavior with the meta-discourse | p. 131
-
Final remarks | p. 147
-
Appendix | p. 149
-
Notes | p. 201
-
References | p. 207
-
Index | p. 217
“I am quite sure that De-/Re-Contextualizing Conference Interpreting casts new light on the field of Interpreting Studies. One of the major merits of the author is the attempt to consider conference interpreting as a 'real' multifaceted profession, distancing it from the 'ivory tower' aura that somehow sets it apart from other interpreting fields as well as other 'professions' and yet, as many may have experienced, does not help the public identify 'who' interpreters are or 'what' simultaneous conference interpreting may be. Diriker's highly valuable contribution will hopefully be followed by further research that integrates cognitive, social and linguistic aspects with ethics and the 'real' practice of the profession-in-context(s).”
Erika Arecco, University of Trieste, Italy, in Across Languages and Cultures, Vol. 8(1) 2007
“John Benjamins has once again rendered a service to the community of SI and other researchers by publishing this work, based on a PhD thesis. It adopts a novel approach by analysing SI in a socio-cultural context and has interesting things to say about norms, the effects of the meta-discursive representation of conference interpreting and, above all, the manner in which interpreters play an active part in shaping meaning.”
Jennifer Mackintosh, in Interpreting Vol. 8:1
“Ebru Diriker's innovative and remarkable study provides us with a broad and multi-methodological analysis of the presence and performance of simultaneous conference interpreters. In that respect we can only wish that her many interested readers and colleagues will take the oppertunity to contribute to a further exploration of these issues in different cultural, social and thematic contexts.”
Nadja Grbic, Institut für Translationswissenschaft, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria, in The Translator, Vol. 11:2 (2005)
“This is one of those rare books that strikes you by its originality and inventiveness, drawing attention to a topic that is so obviously important that you wonder why it hasn't been dealt with extensively in the literature before. What is more — this brilliant new contribution to research on interpreting is very well written, in a fluent, accessible English language.”
Cecilia Wadensjö, University of Linkoping.
“This highly readable account of meta-discursive representation of the interpreter contrasted with a real SI performance is indeed groundbreaking in its approach, as described on the book's back cover. It is a pioneering attempt to bring into simultaneous interpreting studies findings from related fields such as court and community interpreting.”
John M. Matthews, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, in the Journal of Specialised Translation, Issue 5 - Jan. 2006
“Founded on postmodern epistemologies and socioculturally sensitive translation theories, Ebru Diriker’s study is a paradigm case of multidimensional fieldwork to account for the full complexity of interpreting as a social practice and a cognitive performance. With both a high degree of personal commitment and a keen analytical perspective on the conference interpreting profession in Turkey, the author offers valuable new insights on the live issue of the interpreter’s role and visibility in a concrete communicative event.”
Franz Pöchhacker, University of Vienna
“This book addresses issues of the socio-cultural, interactional and ideological contexts in which simultaneous conference interpreters are working. Ebru Diriker approaches Simultaneous Interpreting (SI) as situated action, illustrated with reference to a particular SI-mediated conference held in 2000 in Istanbul. Her findings, which are based on participant observations, interviews with interpreters, speakers, organizers and users of interpreting services, as well as a detailed analysis of transcripts of the interpreter's delivery, reflect the interdependency between socio-cultural contexts and the presence and performance of conference interpreters. Her fascinating study sheds new light on the actual behaviour of interpreters, thus illustrating their role as active participants and organizers of the interaction and as powerful regulators of the multiple speaker-positions in the delivery. By highlighting the complex relationship between interpreters, speakers, and socio-cultural contexts, Ebru Diriker's study challenges some of the widely held assumptions and (mis)conceptions of simultaneous interpreting we encounter in the meta-discourse. In particular, her findings challenge the purist cognitive paradigm in SI research. This book will provide great stimulation for researchers, trainers and students of interpreting.”
Christina Schäffner, Aston University
Cited by
Cited by 76 other publications
al-Zahran, Aladdin
2008. Consecutive Conference Interpreters’ Perception of Their Role as Intercultural Mediators. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 6:2 ► pp. 237 ff. 
Ayan, Irem
2021. Re-thinking Neutrality Through Emotional Labour: The (In)visible Work of Conference Interpreters. TTR 33:2 ► pp. 125 ff.
Baigorri-Jalón, Jesus & Mª Manuela Fernández-Sánchez
2010. Understanding High-level Interpreting in the Cold War. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 8:2 ► pp. 1 ff.
Bartłomiejczyk, Magdalena
2017. The interpreter’s visibility in the European Parliament. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 19:2 ► pp. 159 ff.
Bartłomiejczyk, Magdalena
2020. Parliamentary impoliteness and the interpreter’s gender. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 30:4 ► pp. 459 ff.
Bendazzoli, Claudio
2018. Corpus-based Interpreting Studies: Past, Present and Future Developments of a (Wired) Cottage Industry. In Making Way in Corpus-based Interpreting Studies [New Frontiers in Translation Studies, ], ► pp. 1 ff.
Boéri, Julie
2008. A Narrative Account of the Babels vs. Naumann Controversy. The Translator 14:1 ► pp. 21 ff.
Boéri, Julie
Boéri, Julie & Jesús de Manuel Jerez
2011. From Training Skilled Conference Interpreters to Educating Reflective Citizens. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 5:1 ► pp. 41 ff.
Chen, Jinjin
2021. Translating Chinese Neologisms Without Knowledge of Context: An Exploratory Analysis of an Eye-Tracking and Key-Logging Experiment. In Explorations in Empirical Translation Process Research [Machine Translation: Technologies and Applications, 3], ► pp. 315 ff.
Chistova, Elena Viktorovna
2019. MULTI-CHANNEL NATURE AND MULTIMODALITY OF PERCEPTION IN A SIMULTANEOUS INTERPRETER’S COGNITIVE ACTIVITY. Philological Sciences. Issues of Theory and Practice :9 ► pp. 337 ff.
Collard, Camille & Bart Defrancq
2019. Predictors of ear-voice span, a corpus-based study with special reference to sex. Perspectives 27:3 ► pp. 431 ff.
Collard, Camille, Heike Przybyl & Bart Defrancq
2019. Interpreting into an SOV Language: Memory and the Position of the Verb. A Corpus-Based Comparative Study of Interpreted and Non-mediated Speech. Meta 63:3 ► pp. 695 ff.
Dam, Helle V. & Karen Korning Zethsen
2012. The Status of Professional Business Translators on the Danish Market: A Comparative Study of Company, Agency and Freelance Translators. Meta 56:4 ► pp. 976 ff.
Defrancq, Bart, Sarah Delputte & Tom Baudewijn
2022. Interprofessional training for student conference interpreters and students of political science through joint mock conferences: an assessment. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 16:1 ► pp. 39 ff.
Donovan, Clare
2011. Ethics in the Teaching of Conference Interpreting. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 5:1 ► pp. 109 ff.
Downie, Jonathan
2015. What Every Client Wants? (Re)mapping the Trajectory of Client Expectations Research. Meta 60:1 ► pp. 18 ff.
Downie, Jonathan
2017. Finding and critiquing the invisible interpreter – a response to Uldis Ozolins. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 19:2 ► pp. 260 ff.
Downie, Jonathan
Downie, Jonathan
2023. A comparative interpreting studies view of interpreting in religious contexts. Translation and Interpreting Studies
Díaz-Galaz, Stephanie, Presentacion Padilla & M. Teresa Bajo
2015. The role of advance preparation in simultaneous interpreting. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 17:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
English, Rebecca & Shaun Nykvist
2016. Looking At the Other Side. In Gender Considerations in Online Consumption Behavior and Internet Use [Advances in Human and Social Aspects of Technology, ], ► pp. 150 ff.
English, Rebecca & Shaun Nykvist
2019. Looking at the Other Side. In Healthcare Policy and Reform, ► pp. 1289 ff.
Ferreira, Aline, John W. Schwieter & Daniel Gile
2015. The position of psycholinguistic and cognitive science in translation and interpreting. In Psycholinguistic and Cognitive Inquiries into Translation and Interpreting [Benjamins Translation Library, 115], ► pp. 3 ff.
Fu, Rongbo & Jing Chen
2019. Negotiating interpersonal relations in Chinese-English diplomatic interpreting. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 21:1 ► pp. 12 ff.
Galaz, Stephanie
2011. The effect of previous preparation in simultaneous interpreting: Preliminary results. Across Languages and Cultures 12:2 ► pp. 173 ff.
Gallez, Emmanuelle & Anne Reynders
2015. Court interpreting and classical rhetoric. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 17:1 ► pp. 64 ff.
Gao, Fei & Jeremy Munday
2023. Interpreter ideology. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 25:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Grbić, Nadja
2008. Review of Roy (2006): New approaches to interpreter education. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 10:2 ► pp. 265 ff.
Gu, Chonglong
2018. Towards a Re-Definition of Government Interpreters' Agency Against a Backdrop of Sociopolitical and Cultural Evolution. In Redefining Translation and Interpretation in Cultural Evolution [Advances in Religious and Cultural Studies, ], ► pp. 238 ff.
Gu, Chonglong
2019. Interpreters caught up in an ideological tug-of-war?. Translation and Interpreting Studies 14:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Gu, Chonglong & Rebecca Tipton
2020. (Re-)voicing Beijing’s discourse through self-referentiality: a corpus-based CDA analysis of government interpreters’ discursive mediation at China’s political press conferences (1998–2017). Perspectives 28:3 ► pp. 406 ff.
Hild, Adelina
2011. Review of Monacelli (2009): Self-preservation in simultaneous interpreting: Surviving the role. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 13:2 ► pp. 251 ff.
Hokkanen, Sari
2012. Simultaneous Church Interpreting as Service. The Translator 18:2 ► pp. 291 ff.
Hokkanen, Sari
2017. Chapter 10. Simultaneous interpreting and religious experience. In Non-professional Interpreting and Translation [Benjamins Translation Library, 129], ► pp. 195 ff.
Hokkanen, Sari
Hokkanen, Sari
2019. Experiencing the interpreter’s role. In Translation Practice in the Field [Benjamins Current Topics, 105], ► pp. 61 ff.
Russell H. Kaschula & H. Ekkehard Wolff
2020. The Transformative Power of Language,
Kotzé, Herculene & Kim Wallmach
2020. Interpreting Research in South Africa. In The Transformative Power of Language, ► pp. 304 ff.
Lee, Jieun
2015. Evaluation of court interpreting. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 17:2 ► pp. 167 ff.
Lee, Sohhee
2006. Categorization of Strategies in SI. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 4:2 ► pp. 69 ff.
Li, Xin
2018. Conclusion. In The Reconstruction of Modality in Chinese-English Government Press Conference Interpreting [Corpora and Intercultural Studies, 1], ► pp. 133 ff.
Li, Xin
2018. Introduction. In The Reconstruction of Modality in Chinese-English Government Press Conference Interpreting [Corpora and Intercultural Studies, 1], ► pp. 1 ff.
Li, Xin
2018. The Reconstruction of Modality in Relation to Its Sociocultural Context. In The Reconstruction of Modality in Chinese-English Government Press Conference Interpreting [Corpora and Intercultural Studies, 1], ► pp. 113 ff.
Li, Xin
2018. Theoretical Framework and Methodology. In The Reconstruction of Modality in Chinese-English Government Press Conference Interpreting [Corpora and Intercultural Studies, 1], ► pp. 35 ff.
Li, Xin
2018. Previous Literature on Interpreting and Modality. In The Reconstruction of Modality in Chinese-English Government Press Conference Interpreting [Corpora and Intercultural Studies, 1], ► pp. 11 ff.
Magnifico, Cédric & Bart Defrancq
2017. Hedges in conference interpreting. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 19:1 ► pp. 21 ff.
Magnifico, Cédric & Bart Defrancq
2019. Self-repair as a norm-related strategy in simultaneous interpreting and its implications for gendered approaches to interpreting. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 31:3 ► pp. 352 ff.
Martin, Anne & María Gómez-Amich
2021. Ideology, positionality and war. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 23:2 ► pp. 269 ff.
Marzocchi, Carlo
2005. On a Contradiction in the Discourse on Language Arrangements in EU Institutions. Across Languages and Cultures 6:1 ► pp. 5 ff.
Monacelli, Claudia
2022. Implications of translational shifts in interpreter-mediated texts. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 457 ff.
Moser-Mercer, Barbara
2005. Remote Interpreting: Issues of Multi-Sensory Integration in a Multilingual Task. Meta 50:2 ► pp. 727 ff.
Mullamaa, Kristina
2008. A profession in the making: Self-descriptions of liaison interpreters in Estonia. Across Languages and Cultures 9:1 ► pp. 57 ff.
Okoniewska, Alicja M.
2022. Interpreters’ roles in a changing environment. The Translator 28:2 ► pp. 139 ff.
Paker, Saliha, Şehnaz Tahir Gürçaglar & John Milton
2015. Introduction. In Tradition,Tension and Translation in Turkey [Benjamins Translation Library, 118], ► pp. 1 ff.
Pan, Feng & Binhua Wang
2021. Is interpreting of China’s political discourse becoming more target-oriented?. Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 67:2 ► pp. 222 ff.
Pym, Anthony, Judith Raigal-Aran & Carmen Bestué Salinas
2023. Non-standard court interpreting as risk management. In Introducing New Hypertexts on Interpreting (Studies) [Benjamins Translation Library, 160], ► pp. 108 ff.
Ren, Wen
2020. The evolution of interpreters’ perception and application of (codes of) ethics in China since 1949: a sociological and historical perspective. The Translator 26:3 ► pp. 274 ff.
Russo, Mariachiara
2010. Simultaneous interpreting. In Handbook of Translation Studies [Handbook of Translation Studies, 1], ► pp. 333 ff.
Russo, Mariachiara
2012. Liaison Interpreting. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics,
Seeber, Kilian G.
2017. Multimodal Processing in Simultaneous Interpreting. In The Handbook of Translation and Cognition, ► pp. 461 ff.
Sergio, Francesco Straniero
2012. Media Interpreting. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics,
Setton, Robin
2010. Conference interpreting. In Handbook of Translation Studies [Handbook of Translation Studies, 1], ► pp. 66 ff.
Shlesinger, Miriam & Noam Ordan
2012. More spoken or more translated?. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 24:1 ► pp. 43 ff.
Tekgül, Duygu
2020. Faith-related interpreting as emotional labour: a case study at a Protestant Armenian church in Istanbul. Perspectives 28:1 ► pp. 43 ff.
Wadensjö, Cecilia
2011. Status of interpreters. In Handbook of Translation Studies [Handbook of Translation Studies, 2], ► pp. 140 ff.
Yuan, Xiaohui
2022. A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Interpreter’s Identity Management. Interpreting and Society 2:2 ► pp. 141 ff.
Zagar Galvão, Elena
2020. Chapter 6. Gesture functions and gestural style in simultaneous interpreting. In Linking up with Video [Benjamins Translation Library, 149], ► pp. 151 ff.
Zwischenberger, Cornelia
2015. Simultaneous Conference Interpreting and a Supernorm That Governs It All. Meta 60:1 ► pp. 90 ff.
Zwischenberger, Cornelia
2016. The policy maker in conference interpreting and its hegemonic power. Translation Spaces 5:2 ► pp. 200 ff.
ŞENER ERKIRTAY, Olcay & Şeyda KINCAL
2021. A Comparative analysis of role perceptions and expectations of medical doctors and interpreters in healthcare settings. RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi :23 ► pp. 1100 ff.
[no author supplied]
2015. Preface. In Tradition,Tension and Translation in Turkey [Benjamins Translation Library, 118], ► pp. vii ff.
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 june 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFP: Translation & interpretation
Main BISAC Subject
LAN023000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Translating & Interpreting