The Interpreter’s "Role-space" Educational Interpreting

This thesis examines the educational interpreter’s everchanging role-space from the perspective of sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics,using methods including discourse analysis,ethnography and interviews.The aim is to throw off the shackles of preoccupied opinions of interpreters being "invisible" and provide boundary-pushing ideas for studies regarding interpreters’ role and educational interpreting.As a challenge to static and stereotypical studies in the last century,this thesis analyzes the variation of educational interpreters" role spaces with an interdisciplinary approach.Llewellyn-Jones and Lee put the interpreter’s role space into a quadrantal model consisting of axes of presentation of self,alignment,and interaction management,thus creating a new analytical model for interpreted interactionsIt is proven that the educational interpreting,with its dual natures of being both monologic and dialogic,requires the interpreter to constantly adapt his or her role-space to the given situation.With the role space model as its theoretical framework,this thesis takes different situations in educational interpreting as a starting point.The author analyzes video recordings of educational interpreting so as to examine th ree main points,namely interpreters’ psychological status,the intra-social relationship between the interpreter and interlocutors,and the interpreter’s interaction management.Interviews are used for data analysis to further understand the adaptation and variation of interpreters’ psychological status and their interaction with interlocutorsThe conclusion of this thesis is that interpreters’ role space is not determined by prescriptive rules,but instead,is influenced by the given interaction goal.Educational interpreters should be equipped with not only interpreting skills and domain knowledge but also interaction management strategies and pedagogic techniques.