Role, positioning and discourse in face-to-face interpreting

Whereas "role" and "role conflict" have been key terms in the research and development of public-service interpreting, this paper proposes, following Davies and Harré (1990), to substitute the notion of "positioning" for that of "role" in order to reflect the constantly evolving nature of interaction among participants in interpreter-mediated encounters. Positioning differs from footing in that, rather than being the choice of an individual speaker, it evolves as a result of joint negotiation among all the participants (i.e. positions adopted by one participant are either accepted and adopted by other participants or rejected and replaced). The main source of data is a series of televised immigration interviews that illustrate a variety of positioning behaviours. A number of (para)linguistic and pragmatic categories will be suggested to illustrate ways in which participants, by their discursive practices, position themselves and others and are, in turn, affected by each other's positionings. These discursive practices are seen as emanating from social institutions or "communities of practice" (Wenger 1998), which play a part in shaping the perceptions, stance, behaviour and utterances of all those involved.