MIGRATION, IDEOLOGY AND THE INTERPRETER-MEDIATOR. THE ROLE OF THE LANGUAGE MEDIATOR IN EDUCATIONAL AND MEDICAL SETTINGS IN ITALY. (original) (raw)

The issue of ‘role’, perhaps one of the broadest and at the same time most complex aspects of community interpreting, has assumed a prominent place in the debate in this discipline. This is indeed not surprising given its unique positioning in the interface between theory and practice on the one hand, and academia and professional institutions on the other. This situation is exacerbated by its hybrid nature as both a sub-discipline of Translation/Interpreting Studies and as a profession in its own right. Although it is a profession that has been practiced from time immemorial, it does not, however, have the support that academic disciplines usually enjoy nor the industrial protection that safeguards – at least in theory – the basic rights of practitioners in most established professions. What is interesting in our discipline, we believe, is that this interface is at the heart of the profession’s profoundly troubled nature and yet is at the same time the driving force behind its uniquely dynamic character. The current status quo, then, is a result of its position at the interface between different strands of knowledge, practice and ethics that have only recently ‘discovered each other’: Interpreting Studies has relatively recently woken up to the fact that interpreting is more than conference interpreting, and professional interpreters are only recently beginning to feel that they have the support of an academic and institutional network and that they are a ‘real’ academic discipline. Practitioners and academics, two separate discourse- and professional communities, are thus coming to the discipline from different ontological angles, leading to an interpreting-focussed job-centred approach (especially regarding theory and interpreter ethics) that must be aligned with an institution- and task-focussed approach (related to practice and institutional ethics). Although the interface between these two aspects generates vitality and debate, they are not, however, always compatible: Practice, research, academic descriptive/prescriptive knowledge and professional ethics do at times, clash. In our view, both in the literature and in the field, this clash is most evident in the issue of ‘the interpreter’s role’. Indeed, as well as more obvious aspects such as the interpreter’s participation and involvement, his/her tasks and responsibilities, ‘role’ affects a host of less apparent factors. These include institutional budget constraints that require the interpreter to multi-task and that affect the (lack of) staff recruitment of (in particular trained professionals vs. less costly ad-hoc solutions such as bilingual staff, short-term training, relatives and friends as interpreters).