Interpreter's Visibility Consciousness

Interpreting is a communicative activity in nature.The way it operates decides that interpreters have to present at the scene,and that how interpreters perceive their role will directly affect their interpreting strategies and hence the final communication results.Historically,the idea that interpreters should be invisible by being an “outsider”,“conduit” or “non-person” has been prevalent.Recent years,however,some scholars and theorists have challenged such opinion by arguing that interpreters have always been an active part in interpreting events and that their role does not remain the same but has to adjust accordingly.Based on the author's three-day interpreting practice for a UK company and its Chinese counterpart,the report describes the complete process of the practice,including task description,pre-task preparation,on-spot practice and post-task summary.By providing transcript excerpts,the report also analyzes the difficulties and unexpected situations encountered in the activity,strategies adopted by the interpreter and poor manifestations of interpreter's visibility consciousness.Through the task,the author discovers that acting as a gatekeeper,co-constructor and mediator driven by interpreter's visibility consciousness can generate better communication results while an inappropriate display or the lack of it might cause unpleasantness or communication failure.The report is in an effort to further raise the understanding towards interpreter's visibility consciousness and shed light on future liaison interpreting activities of similar kind.