Social Distance and the Role of the Dialogue Interpreter

Abstract

Professionals and researchers have debated the issue of the role of the dialogue interpreter for decades. Role negotiation has been tied to the degree of mediation carried out by the interpreter in the communicative act. Pragmatics still has a lot of untapped potential as an approach to explore factors that contribute to this mediation. The present paper aims at investigating the interplay between mediation, role, and the pragmatic notion of social distance in dialogue interpreting. Firstly, the relevant literature on social distance is reviewed in order to define the concept; secondly, its applicability to dialogue interpreting is analysed, along with its complex and singular dynamics in triadic exchanges; finally, the last section addresses the implications of social distance for mediation and, thus, for the interpreter’s role negotiation.