A Comparative Study On Interpreters’ Subjectivity Consciousness In Interpreting

The role of interpreters has always been a controversial issue in interpreting circle.The traditional notion still exists that interpreters, regarded as translation machines ormegaphones, should be invisible in interpreting. With the increasing of interculturalcommunication, interpreters, after experiencing a lot of interpreting activities, find thatunder some circumstances, in order to ensure the success of intercultural communication,they have to adopt some interpreting strategies actively and thus just can’t remaincompletely neutral or invisible. Some interpreters begin to view themselves as a partyengaged in the intercultural communication. This has drawn researchers’ attention on theissue of interpreters’ subjectivity consciousness. The increased researches done on thishave attracted people’s attention to the issue of interpreters’ subjectivity consciousness.What’s more, the idea has gradually been accepted that interpreters’ subjectivityconsciousness exists in the relatively less formal interpreting like escort interpreting andinterpreters can exert their subjectivity consciousness to some extent. However, this isnever the case in interpreting on formal and solemn occasion like business interpreting andinterpreting for governmental affairs. Even interpreters themselves may not be aware oftheir subjectivity and not sure whether they can or should display their subjectivityconsciousness in order to achieve better communicative effect. In this paper, the authorregards interpreting as an intercultural communication activity, and based on the discourseanalysis of the transcribed material of escort interpreting, business interpreting andinterpreting for governmental affairs, attempts to explore the existence of interpreters’subjectivity consciousness in the three kinds of interpreting and the manifestation ofinterpreters’ subjectivity consciousness.