A Practice Report On Interpreter’s Active Roles In Community-based Settings Under Turn Exchange System

This report takes turn exchanges system as theoretical framework,to discuss and to analyze the role of an interpreter in community-based settings based on the experience of the reporter herself being community interpreter during cultural Mexican Cooking Demonstration event organized by Shenyang Foreign Affairs Service School and Shenyang US Consulate in June 2014.With the development of community interpreting,studies had shown that an interpreter in community-based settings is not only an interpreter but a culture broker and an interaction mediator.The notion "role" was linked with the appearance and development of the community interpreting,due to the reason that the majority of the community interpreting tasks require the interpreter to be actively involved and mediated.Since turn-taking is the most basic discourse unit to study the roles of interpreters in community-based settings from the perspective of discourse.Based on personal experience and analysis,5 roles of an interpreter in the task are identified,which are:a talker,an interpreter,a communication manager,a discourse flow mediator and finally a problem solver.This result implies the need to enhance interpreters’ communication skills and impart discourse and social interaction knowledge in college and in interpreting course for interpreters’ future career.However,this single case study cannot cover all possibilities of the role positioning for an interpreter.Therefore,more cases are needed to support in order to systematically study the interpreter’s role.