The aim of research on boundary work is to understand the role of symbolic resources in generating feelings of similarity and difference, of group membership and of exclusion. The central questions pertain to how symbolic boundaries are constructed, protected, or transformed in the process of attaining a certain goal. The author introduced the concept to Translation Studies in order to describe and analyse the construction of the professional sphere of sign language interpreters in Austria. The underlying assumption is that sign language interpreters used and continue to use strategies pertaining to boundary work in the process of constructing their professional field. The goal of this project is to identify the strategies which are used to set, maintain or shift the boundaries surrounding a profession over the course of time as well as to identify the types of boundaries that are used to create feelings of order and stability. Whilst the strength of the concept of boundary work lies in its emphasis on processes of social change and the generative role of interaction, it nonetheless leaves the question of underlying forces and enduring dispositions unaddressed. The theoretical question within the scope of this paper is therefore whether the concept of habitus might be able to fill this gap, to which end the author will focus on the first ten years of the process of constructing a profession, before the foundation of the interpreter’s association.