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Abstract
This article examines the role of the interpreters in cross-linguistic discourse, arguing that
earlier analyses of their functions as ‘voiceboxes’ or mere instruments of linguistic conversion
do not adequately describe the processes by which linguistic common ground is constructed
between speakers of different languages (Clark, Herbert H., 1992. Arenas of Language Use.
University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Clark, Herbert H., 1996. Using Language Cambridge
Uniiversity Press, Cambridge). Central to this analysis is the notion that the interpreter must
be engaged in the (re)construction of contextually relevant meaning (Wadensjö, Cecilia, 1998.
Interpreting as Interaction. Longman, London and New York). These findings are demon-
strated through the development of a model that accounts for all possible turn-types within
interpreted discourse, and the application of this model to several stretches of naturally
occurring interpreted medical discourse. # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Interpreting; Discourse analysis; Sociolinguistics; Cross-cultural communication;
Social interaction
1. Introduction
0378-2166/02/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S0378-2166(02)00025-5
1274 B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300
when two speakers do not share a language in common, and must resort to conver-
sing through an interpreter. The principal findings are that:
To demonstrate these findings, I will first address briefly how speakers achieve
reciprocity and construct common ground in the same-language discourse, and then
will present a model of interpreting that takes into account these facts about how
conversations work. What is important about this model is its ability, not only to
account theoretically for the turn-dependent processes for constructing meaning across
languages, but also to uncover, when applied to naturally occurring interpreted dis-
course, regular patterns of behavior between interpreters and their interlocutors. These
in turn allow us to examine both what interpreters are doing within the discourse and
also how their actions affect the course and content of that discourse. Finally, I will
discuss the implications of this model for studies of interpretation specifically and
for discourse studies generally, and suggest where it might apply usefully to the lar-
ger study of interpretation of discourse, as both a historical and a political act.
The study of discourse processes (that is, the ways in which speakers and hearers
construct meaning through verbal interaction) in interpretation is a field that is only
beginning to be adequately addressed (Davidson, 1998; Roy, 1999; Wadensjö, 1998).
For the most part, studies of interpretation and translation have ignored discourse
as a field of study, and instead have focused on written texts or monologues; that is,
they have focused on the difficulty in replicating various forms of meaning in utter-
ances (semantic, pragmatic, stylistic, etc.) or reproducing the intended effects of
utterances upon hearers, without addressing the interpretation of discourse, or
merely glossing it as the consecutive interpretation of single utterances (Alexieva,
1990; Barik, 1973, 1975; Bendix, 1988; Calzada Perez, 1993; Cartellieri, 1983; Nichol-
son, 1992; Seleskovitch, 1978; Snell Hornby, 1988; Weber, 1984, among others).
Students of discourse, for their part, have glossed in passing, if at all, the role of
the interpreter in discourse as that of a ‘‘talking head’’ inserted between the two
primary interlocutors (Clark, 1992, 1996; Goffman, 1981; Hymes, 1972). Interpreted
discourse has been viewed, structurally, as a trivially modified version of same-lan-
guage discourse; the analyses of this form of discourse, such as they are, have
assumed that the interpreter is not engaged meaningfully in the conversation, but is
rather a type of linguistic instrument through which the ‘‘real’’ speakers commu-
nicate.
B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300 1275
As previous researchers have shown, however (cf. Roy, 1999; Wadensjö, 1998),
the interpretation of discourse is neither the ‘‘mere’’ process of consecutive
interpretation of monologues, nor is it the work of a linguistic parrot. Interpreters
are speaking agents who are critically engaged in the process of making mean-
ingful utterances that elicit the intended response from, or have the intended effect
upon, the hearer, not a simple or thoughtless task. One can not always, as does
Goffman (1981), easily separate the speaker, that is, one who is formulating
meaningful utterances, from the initiator, that is, one who serves as a mere ‘voi-
cebox’ or parrot, without adding or subtracting meaning. Hymes’ (1972) example
of the King’s messenger is a possible counter to this claim, but the situation is
fundamentally different here: the repetition by the messenger is formulaic, the
repeated utterance is in the same language as the original, and there is no reply.
The King’s messenger is engaged in a monolingual monologue, not a bilingual
conversation.
The reason for failure of analyses of interpreted discourse that are based on a
model of discrete, non-sequential utterances is that they ignore those aspects of dis-
course processing that have been central to the analysis of same-language discourse,
which are:
(1) speakers and listeners are equally engaged in the ongoing process of con-
structing conversational meaning, and
(2) in order to negotiate and capture the meaning of an utterance produced
within an ongoing discourse, one must be a participant in the discourse itself.
If one does not fulfill the requirements of (2) as an active participant in the dis-
course, one is reduced to the status of an ‘‘overhearer’’, a status which has been
shown to lead to a progressively diminished understanding of what is being said as
the discourse progresses (Clark, 1992, 1996). Interpreters who are reduced to the
status of overhearers, then, cannot interpret very well, because what they are inter-
preting will become progressively more opaque, and one cannot interpret what one
does not understand.
The data for this discussion were collected during six months of ethnographic
fieldwork at a multilingual outpatient clinic at a large, public county hospital in
Northern California (see Davidson, 1998 for details). Because of this, all of the
examples cited will come from a specific form of interpreted speech, that is, cross-
linguistic diagnostic medical interviews. It could be truthfully said that medical dis-
course is itself a specialized form of communication (cf. Cicourel, 1983; Kleinman,
1988; Mishler, 1984; West, 1984; Wodak, 1996, among others); as such, findings
based upon this form are not necessarily generalizable to the wider scope of inter-
preted discourses. It is important to note, however, that the interpretation of dis-
course happens for a reason (cf. Rafael, 1993). The overwhelming majority of
modern-day situations in which interpreters are called upon to exercise their offices
deal with institutional or explicitly defined, goal-oriented discourses, such as court-
room discourse (Berk-Seligson, 1990; Edwards, 1995; Hewitt, 1995) or financial
negotiations (cf. Seleskovitch, 1978).
1276 B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300
To understand what is being said, then, an interpreter must understand first why it
is being said. This is true for studies of interpretation as well. To understand what
the interpreter is doing when interpreting one needs to understand why, in this
situation, he or she is doing it (Davidson, 2000, 2001; Wadensjö, 1998). There must
be goals to be achieved by the verbal interaction, even if the goals are as vague as
‘‘establishing contact’’, or no interpreter would be used at all.
Interpretation can, in this view, be said to be the linguistic mediation of social
interaction. While medical discourse is a specific form of institutional interaction,
the patterns of cross-linguistic communication that take place are determined only
in part by this institutional context. The discourse processes that are described in
this article reflect a much deeper level of linguistic action, and as such they are an
attempt to describe a universal fact about interpreting, which is that it must follow
certain conversational rules if it is to be carried out at all. Interpreters can interpret
in many different ways, but they cannot interpret by simply saying whatever comes
into their minds at any given moment. They must participate in the conversation, to
the degree possible, in order to interpret successfully, and their participation is con-
strained by rules of human communication and comprehension. Therefore, the
possible patterns of communication that are described will hold for any interpreted
conversation, and I will use the examples of naturally-occurring interpreted medical
discourse to illustrate larger truths about the nature of interpretation, the role of the
interpreter, and the course of interpreted discourse itself.
This criterion allows speakers and hearers to continue their discourse even when
they are unsure if the other shares exactly the same view of the common ground that
is being constructed, as long as both are satisfied that they share a view that is
similar enough for ‘‘current purposes’’. While ‘‘current purposes’’ may be admit-
tedly vague for speakers and hearers, and also as a descriptor, it provides an analytic
tool that helps explain why some conversations seem to be full of overt acknowl-
edgment turns, while others seem virtually devoid of them. As we will see in the
interpreted excerpts below, acknowledgment or acceptance turns are not easily
found or identified. This is a crucial difficulty for conversing across languages.
We will turn now to the central issue of this article, the analysis of the processes of
the construction of conversational common ground and the negotiation of meaning
in interpreted discourse. Most manuals of interpreting tend to assume that the main
problems facing an interpreter are those of ‘‘linguistic’’ (semantic) representation (cf.
Barik, 1973, 1975; Kussmaul, 1995; Nicholson, 1992; Seleskovitch, 1978; Weber,
1984). It is widely, possibly universally, accepted that it is impossible to translate an
utterance or a text from one language exactly into another; the different relation-
ships between the words and meanings in different languages, as well as the different
1
It should be noted here that ‘‘acceptance’’ is not the same as ‘‘agreement’’.
1278 B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300
social and historical facts surrounding each communicative code, prevent this
(Bendix, 1988; Berk-Seligson, 1990; Nicholson, 1992; Rafael, 1993; Roy, 1999;
Wadensjö, 1998).
The interpreter is faced, then, with the inescapable dilemma of choosing between
‘quality’ of interpreting and ‘quantity’ of interpreting (Cartellieri, 1983). That is to
say, interpreters and translators are constantly choosing which part of a message (a
text, an utterance,...), which of the many possible aspects of language, is to be given
primacy in a translation or interpretation, and the basis of this choice is largely
determined by the perceived goals of the communication. The choice of whether
alliteration is more important than meter, or literality (morpho-semantic faithful-
ness) more important than conceptual fidelity (what Adair et al., 1958 refer to as
‘‘conceptual transfer’’), will be determined by what the text or talk is intended to do.
Essentially, the problems are dialogic in nature: how to inspire the exact same reac-
tion, the exact same type and moment of comprehension, in a reader/hearer whose
world and worldview are shaped by a different series of linguistic and social corre-
lations than those initially formulated in another language by the original author,
working within the original social and linguistic context?
There is a second set of problems, however, that is only recently beginning to be
addressed. Interpreting conversations requires, as Roy (1999) points out, the nego-
tiation of turn-taking as well as the negotiation of meaning. I would argue, as might
others (cf. Boden and Zimmerman, 1991; Moerman, 1988; Ochs et al., 1996; Psa-
thas, 1995), that the two processes, the negotiation of turn-taking and the negotia-
tion of meaning, are inseparable. But while interpreting for conferences, or
translating texts, is implicitly dialogic, interpreting conversations is both implicitly
and overtly so. Most theories of interpreting are concerned with the interpretation
of monologues, and are not interested in dialogue. They, therefore, resort to a
combination of, on the one hand, product-oriented approaches to the analysis of
language use (that is, interpretation as the one-way conversion from one language or
code to another) and process-oriented approaches on the other (interpretation as the
product of the implicit dialogue between the interpreter and the message, and
between the recipient of the newly coded message and the message itself). The
interpretation if discourse is all of this, and more.
To make this point more clearly, it is worth returning to the analysis of the func-
tion of adjacent utterances in same-language conversation. One can turn to the work
of Conversation Analysis, which concerns itself with the creation of conversational
meaning through the sequential ordering of turns-at-talk. Starting with Sacks et al.
(1974), there has been an approach that holds that conversations progress as a
sequence of consecutive turns, in the course of which speakers negotiate and convey
linguistic and meta-linguistic information. A modified version of this analysis is
shown in Fig. 1.
Each of the utterances (A)–(D) represents a turn-at-talk, numbered (1–4). These
turns can be of any sort, but given the conditions set on the ‘‘acceptance’’ of utter-
ances that were discussed earlier, the turns will all have one thing in common: to be
felicitous, they will address the prior utterance, and add to the dialogue that is
unfolding between Speakers 1 and 2. That is to say, these turns can be overt accep-
B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300 1279
2
It is not my intent here to uniquely represent turns-at-talk as non-overlapping, immediately tempo-
rally adjacent utterances; for the purposes of this article, however, this simplified model will suffice.
1280 B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300
this is the type of model implied by Clark (1996), Goffman (1981), and Hymes
(1972), among others, when they posit the role of the interpreter as that of conveyor
of content in a new form.
This model is not, however, adequate for representing interpreted discourse, and
an examination of naturally-occurring interpreted data will reveal few, if any, stret-
ches of talk that resemble this ideal. Upon closer examination, there are three pro-
blems with this model, which will prove fatal to the model itself and which will
require the construction of a new, more complex model capable of dealing with
actual interpreted data. They are:
(1) there is no way of determining, from this simplified model, the functional
nature of cross-linguistic turns-at-talk;
(2) in the model, interpreters are relegated to the status of ‘‘overhearers’’;
(3) the model does not take into account the difficulty in monitoring the com-
prehension of hearers across languages, which in turn threatens the normal
construction of ‘‘conversational common ground’’.
Addressees and overhearers are forced to adhere to very different criteria for
understanding. Addressees can always understand as well as they need to.
3
Setting and Scene; Participants; Ends; Act sequence; Key; Instrumentalities; Norms; Genre.
4
This is exactly the model of interpreting that physicians and judges are espousing when they express
the desire for interpreters to be uninstrusive, and to restrict their input so that they are nothing more than
input-output machines (Berk-Seligson, 1990).
1282 B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300
Overhearers can only ever understand as well as they are able to- and that may
not be very well at all. The reason is that addressees are intended to recognize
the speaker’s intentions. Overhearers can only conjecture about them. (1992:
105–106.
Looking again at Fig. 2, we see that in turn 1 Speaker 1 produces A(). In turn 2
the interpreter, having supposedly understood A() as (A) produced in language
(), simply repeats (A), or that immutable part of (A) that is transferable to lan-
guage (), as A(). But given our model, it is actually more precise to say that the
interpreter has understood, not A(), but A0 (), and the interpreter will thus pro-
duce, in turn 2, A0 (). Moving forward, if the interpreter produces A0 (), Speaker 2
will understand, not A0 (), but rather A00 ().
Crucially, what Speaker 2 understands, (A00 ), may be too different from (A) to be
acceptable to a criterion sufficient for Speaker 1’s present conversational purposes.
Speaker 1 will never know either way, for two reasons. The first reason is the lack of
direct conversational access to Speaker 2’s reply, meaning that Speaker 1 cannot, as
with the interpreter’s turn, infer comprehension from the reply’s relevance. The sec-
ond is the fact that Speaker 2’s reply will undergo the same incremental shift in
meaning while being conveyed, through the interpreter, to Speaker 1.
In other words, the problem of exactness in interpretation is not (merely) a pro-
blem of linguistic representation, but also of the degree to which ‘‘common’’ ground
is in fact identifiably common. It is likely that Speaker 1 may still assume that
Speaker 2 understands (A), and also assume that the two both hold this as conversa-
tional common ground; Speaker 2 will assume that Speaker 1 understands (A00 ), and
holds it as common ground. These divergent views of the common ground are what
form the context for all subsequent talk. As the dialogue progresses, the accumulation
of misconceptions and misunderstanding about what exactly the common ground is
means that there may be a growing misunderstanding of the context of talk. Thus,
what is being talked about is not necessarily shared information.
There are, in sum, three problems with interpreted speech as represented in the
model depicted in Fig. 2. First, the model makes no distinction regarding the specific
nature of interpreted turns, not all of which can be considered to be analogous to
same-language turns at talk. Second, the model assumes interpreters will understand
contributions without having to engage in the conversation. Finally, it ignores the
magnification of misunderstanding that happens when turns-at-talk are taken
through an interpreter, due to the opacity of the common ground being constructed.
A new model will need to be constructed to accurately depict, and predict, the nat-
ure of interpreted discourse.
1. Any working model of interpreted discourse must take into account the fact
that participants in the discourse are not passive recipients of meaningful
utterances, but rather agents actively involved in the co-construction of these
meanings.
2. Any working model of interpreted discourse must recognize that there is not
a singular conversational common ground being constructed, but rather two
separate sets of common ground, between the interpreter and each of the two
interpretees.
the interpretee. They are stretches of same-language discourse, which typically do not
figure in analyses of interpreted conversation. Turns 1 and 10 represent the end of a
same-language discussion and the beginning of another; while turn 1 represents the
conclusion of one same-language conversation between the interpreter and Speaker
1, turn 10 represents the beginning of a new one between these same speakers.
Finally, the shaded boxes (turns 4 and 10) represent what I will call ‘‘liminal’’
turns, in that they occupy a unique position within the interpreted dialogue. Not
only do they signal either the end of same-language conversation and the beginning
of interpretation, or vice-versa; they also represent a switch from one language to
another. As we shall see, the interpreter often marks these turns with the use of
phrases and expressions that are comprehensible in both languages. All of these
features will be discussed below.
The same-language turns, those taken between Speakers 1 and 2 and the inter-
preter (turns in parentheses: turns 2–3, 5–6, and 8–9) are optional. The interpreter
and interpretee may discuss what has been said, or may not. This is determined by
the interpreter—if he or she converts what has been said without comment, then
these turns have been skipped. However, these turns, while optional in interpreted
discourse, are also optionally recursive, in that they may stretch from two turns into
20 or more as the interpreter and the speaker work to construct common ground
and achieve some contribution to their discourse.
Returning to the three sets of turns exhibited in Fig. 3, we see that the first set,
turns (1–4), is essentially a mini-dialogue between Speaker 1 and the Interpreter,
identical in form to the same-language exchange represented in Fig. 1. In turn (1),
Speaker 1 utters A, in language (). In turn (2), the interpreter actively engages
Speaker 1, in order to ensure comprehension of Speaker 1’s attempted contribution
to the discourse. In turn (3) Speaker 1 replies to the interpreter. At this point
Speaker 1’s contribution has been achieved, and in turn (4) the Interpreter then
conveys, as closely as language and the interpreter’s understanding allow [that is, as
A0 ()], the message A() originally conveyed by Speaker 1 in turn (1).
Turn (4) is interesting, and poses a problem. On the one hand, turn (4) may be
considered to be part of the first meta-turn, in that it is intended to be the closest
approximation possible, in meaning and reception, to the message expressed by
Speaker 1 in turn (1). On the other hand, it is unintelligible to Speaker 1, and as such
is not the same type of consecutive, decipherably relevant adjacent turn that turns
(1–3) represent sequentially to each other. For this reason, turn (4) is a pivotal turn,
one which exists within the structure of both the first meta-turn and the second,
turns (4–7). We will return to the issue of these pivotal, or ‘‘liminal’’, turns below, as
they form a critical part of interpreted discourse, occupying as they do a potentially
nebulous region, not only between sets of speakers, but also between languages as
well.
The second meta-turn, represented by the turns surrounded by a double-border, is
made up of a sequence between the interpreter and Speaker 2 in which the inter-
preter attempts to convey (A0 ), his or her understanding of Speaker 1’s contribution
(A), to Speaker 2, in language (). The turns (5 and 6) are analogous to turns (2 and
3) in the first meta-turn; they are optional, but their possible presence is required to
1286 B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300
allow the interpreter and Speaker 2 to collaborate in the achievement of the con-
versational offering. Once Speaker 2 and the interpreter are satisfied that Speaker 2
shares the common ground (A0 ), that is, once the interpreter and Speaker 2 have
achieved the interpreter’s (ostensibly, Speaker 1’s) contribution to the discourse and
have met a criterion ‘‘sufficient for present purposes’’, and once Speaker 2 under-
stands (A00 ), then Speaker 2 responds with B() in turn (7).
What has happened, up to the completion of turn (6) in the model, is that there
have been two dialogues, representing the co-construction of two sets of common
ground between two sets of speakers: the common ground [A()-A0 ()] between
Speaker 1 and the interpreter, and the common ground [A0 ()-A00 ()] between the
interpreter and Speaker 2. Speaker 2’s contribution B() in turn (7) in the colla-
borative model represents, on a meta-structural level, the response to Speaker 1’s
utterance A() in turn (1). Speaker 2 must now produce, and Speaker 1 must
receive, a contribution that is recognizably and decipherably related to Speaker 1’s
contribution, in this case, some form of the original B().
Notice also that it is the interpreter who is charged with the responsibility for
determining both the ‘‘criterion of mutual belief’’, that is, what the relevant thresh-
old of accuracy in reciprocity will be, and also with judging that it has been met.
Speakers 1 and 2 can only impart information concerning their intentions regarding
this criterion and its evaluation, but they cannot directly determine this criterion,
nor judge if it is being met, because they cannot judge the others’ contribution
directly. Again, one aspect of speaking through an interpreter is the interpretees’
unavoidable loss of control over the course and content of their discourse.
From turn (7) to turn (10), Speaker 2 and the interpreter jointly achieve Speaker
2’s contribution B() to the discourse, ending up with a shared common ground of
[B()-B0 ()], which the interpreter then conveys as B0 (). This third meta-turn is
analogous to the first meta-turn, turns (1–4). Notice again that turn (10) represents a
frontier between the interpreter’s linguistic engagement with Speaker 2 and the
interpreter’s (presumably imminent) engagement with Speaker 1, just as turn (4)
represents the opposite side of the same boundary. What happens after turn (10), as
assumed by the model, is that the interpreter and Speaker 1 achieve the Interpreter’s
contribution [B0 ()-B00 ()], to which Speaker 1 eventually will add C(), analogous,
in terms of conversational function within the model, to A().
Turns (4) and (10) represent the boundary between languages () and (). These
‘boundary turns’ are frequently marked by the use of words that are ‘bivalent’, to
use Woolard’s (1998) terminology; that is, words that have meaning in both lan-
guages, and which are ambiguously classed as belonging to both codes of commu-
nication (such as the nearly ubiquitous ‘okay’, or paralinguistic expressions such as
‘uh-huh’ or ‘mm’). Excerpt 1, below, allows us to examine more closely the exact
nature of these liminal turns, and also to examine how well the collaborative model
of interpreted discourse works in practice.
The data that are presented in Excerpt 1 are taken from an actual stretch of
interpreted medical discourse. Both the patient and the physician are male; the
patient is a Spanish-speaking, elderly rural immigrant, the physician a middle-aged
Anglo. The interpreter, a native Spanish-speaking female who immigrated to the
B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300 1287
US from an urban environment, is roughly the same age as the physician. The
patient’s elderly sister has accompanied the patient on this visit, and I was also pre-
sent during this interaction; however, she and I both remained silent throughout the
interview:
Excerpt 1:
dicts (so far) the nature of interpreted discourse and interpreted discourse processes.
The comparison of the data to the model is carried out below.
The physician’s first turn, lines 337–339, would begin the interaction as turn 1, and
the content of the turn (‘‘Are you taking...?‘‘) would be represented by A(English),
where (English) instantiates the Greek letter () in our formula. The next turn,
taken by the interpreter in line 340, is analogous to turn 4, and would be represented
by A0 (Spanish). Notice that the optional turns 2 and 3 have not been taken; the
interpreter does not engage the physician in any form of dialogue concerning the
latter’s contribution, but rather interprets it directly. Thus there is no way for the
physician to know that the interpreter has changed his utterance in small, but still
noticeable, ways, specifically changing the non-specific ‘‘aspirin’’ to the specific ‘‘the
aspirin’’, and omitting the reference to when the aspirin is taken, in line 340.
The next turn, taken by the patient, could be designated as analogous either to
turn 5 or to turn 7, depending, in part, on whether or not the interpreter chooses to
transmit the content of the turn directly to the physician, or if she instead responds
back to the patient in Spanish. In the actual discourse, the patient’s contribution is
perhaps best analyzed as an unsuccessful attempt to take the floor from the inter-
preter, in order to respond to her question. The interpreter concurrently repeats her
first question in a slightly different form; for this analysis, then, the interpreter’s turn
4 will be said to consist of the entire stretch from lines 340–342, and the patient’s
attempted reply will be considered an unsuccessful initiation of the turn he takes in
line 343.5
Line 343, then, represents the patient’s first unchallenged turn-at-talk, and the
content of this turn appears to be a fuller elaboration of the turn he attempted to
take in line 341. Again, this turn could be designated either as turn 5 or turn 7 in the
collaborative model, depending in part on its reception by the interpreter and her
reaction to the utterance. In this case the interpreter chooses not to convey the
utterance directly to the physician, instead engaging the patient in conversation with
a response to his contribution to the discourse (‘‘You’re not taking aspirin...?’’, line
344). Thus the patient’s first turn in line 343 can be designated as turn 5 in the col-
laborative model, and its content specified as furthering the establishment of com-
mon ground and reciprocity between the interpreter and the patient, but not the
patient and the physician. The interpreter’s reply, in line 344, can be designated turn
6, and the content would be seen, structurally, as serving a function identical to that
of turn 5.
The patient’s next turn, in lines 345–349, can be said to occupy the position of
turn 7 in the collaborative model, and its content designated as B(Spanish). While
the patient’s turn in line 343, ‘‘which aspirin?’’, was both relevant and easily inter-
pretable as a coherent reply to the physician’s question, and thus could have been
designated as turn 7, the fact that it is not passed on to the physician precludes this
5
Alternatively, one could designate each of the turns in lines 340, 341, and 342 as separate entitles; in
this case, line 340 would represent turn 4, line 341 the patient’s turn 5, and line 342 turn 6 for the inter-
preter.
B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300 1289
analysis. Rather, it is the turn in 345–349, which forms the basis of the eventual
reply that the interpreter passes on to the physician, which occupies this slot in the
model.
The interpreter’s turn, in line 350, can be designated as turn 8 in the collaborative
model, although one could also argue that the paralinguistic ‘‘o:h’’ does not, in and
of itself, constitute a full turn. If one chooses to call line 350 a turn, then the
patient’s final turn in line 351 should be designated as turn 9 in the model; if one
chooses not to call the interpreter’s ‘‘o:h’’ a turn, then line 351 should be designated
as the conclusion of turn 7 in the model. The choice between these two analyses does
not seem crucial here.
The interpreter’s final turn in Excerpt 1, from lines 352–357, occupies the position
of turn 10 in the collaborative model, for two reasons: the first, because it represents
a switch from Spanish to English; and the second, because its semantic content is
roughly equivalent to that of the patient’s utterance in turn 7, and thus may be
designated (B0 ).
Returning to the issue of the liminal nature of the turns in which the interpreter
initiates a switch from one language to another, we notice that the turn itself is
begun, in lines 352–353, with the bivalent expression ‘‘okay, okay’’. As stated ear-
lier, these expressions are quite frequent in the discourse, at the point where the
interpreter initiates a switch from one language to another, and also from one mode
(conversational engagement) to another (interpretation). The bivalent6 expression
‘‘okay’’ appears to be signaling, in these cases, that the interpreter has heard and
assimilated the information in the prior utterance, and that she will now begin to
transmit this information to the principal recipient. These expressions both accept
the turn into the discourse (for the benefit of the immediately prior speaker), and
serve, in a linguistically transparent way, to give notice to the party who has not
been able to follow the recent discourse (because it is in a language he does not
understand) that he should now attend to the conversation. ‘‘Okay’’, then, functions
in three ways: it signals that the interpreter has understood what the interpretee has
said; it signals that she is about to switch modes, from one in which she engages in
collaborative conversation with the interpretee to one in which she reports what has
been said by the interpretee; and it signals that, to do this, she is about to switch
languages.
I will now perform a similar analysis on the continuation of the Excerpt, starting
immediately where we left off in line 357. There are two full sets of interactions in
this Excerpt, along with the beginning of a third, that map onto the collaborative
model.
The first set stretches from line 358 to line 379, and the second from line 380 to
line 410; the position of each of these turns within the model of interpreted discourse
is labeled in bold to the left of each turn. Notice that there is absolutely no discus-
6
Essentially, words, phases, or paralinguistic gestures that are identical or serve similar functions in
two languages; the notion is useful both for studies of interpreting and of code-switching (cf. Woolard,
1998).
1290 B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300
sion between the physician and the interpreter about the nature of the patient’s
reply, reported by the interpreter in line (357) in the prior Excerpt; the achievement
of the patient’s contribution is made without discussion on the part of the inter-
preter and the physician. As we shall see, the same cannot be said about the
achievement of the physician’s conversational offerings to the patient, which routi-
nely engender same-language discussions between the patient. This will be discussed
more fully below. Notice also the near-categorical use of bivalent expressions, most
notably ‘‘okay’’, by the interpreter in all of the liminal turns:7
Excerpt 1, continued (with turns in the model signaled at left):
7
The words appearing in all capital letters represent significant increases in volume of speech, that is,
conversational shouting: the patient is somewhat deaf.
B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300 1291
All of the turns taken in this continuation of Excerpt 1 fit reasonably well into the
model of interpreting outlined earlier, with two exceptions: lines 377–378, and line
396. We will examine these and other turns of interest in the remainder of this sec-
tion. What we will begin to see from these analyses is that, as we map consecutive
turns onto the collaborative model, a pattern of when and with whom the inter-
preter engages in conversation begins to emerge; that is, not only does the model
help determine the function of each of the turns taken in the interpreted discourse,
but by utilizing the model to analyze these turns we are able to make observations
about how the interpreter is interpreting, and what effect this has on the discourse.
The first completed series of turns runs from line 358 to line 379. In this stretch of
discourse, the interpreter has not chosen to engage either interlocutor in conversa-
tion, rather sticking to a model of strict utterance-interpretation. One could make
the argument, however, that the interpreter’s laughter itself, in line 379, forms a type
of conversational commentary on the patient’s immediately prior utterance, and in
this case her laughter, coupled with that of the patient, would occupy the position of
turns 8 and 9 in the collaborative model. Inasmuch as the interpreter engages either
of her interlocutors at all, then, she engages with the patient.
The turn taken by the physician in lines 378 and 379 is interesting, for two rea-
sons. The first is that it is perhaps the most salient example of an overt acceptance of
an utterance into the discourse by either of the principal interlocutors, and it is not
interpreted, or addressed, by the interpreter, in any way. The second interesting fact
is that this turn itself contains three such markers of overt acceptance, one of which
(‘‘okay’’) is bivalent, and the other two of which (‘‘good’’, ‘‘alright’’) are generally
understood by patients who speak even the most limited English. These items, then,
may have been directed at the patient himself, and may even have been understood
as a general form of conversational acceptance by him; the message contained in line
378 (‘‘We’ll do that, again’’), however, is not transparent to the patient, and is not
addressed. Here we can see an example of the difficulty in achieving reciprocity of
understanding between the physician and the patient in interpreted medical inter-
views; in this case, the difficulty stems from the fact that the interpreter simply does
not interpret the third turn (the overt acceptance of the reply) at all.
The next stretch of discourse, from lines 380 and 403, is the last that we will
examine in detail. The patient’s unintelligible utterance, in line 385, might perhaps
not fit the profile of a full turn, as there are no contextual cues as to what he might
have said (he may have been clearing his throat). It seems safest to either not cate-
gorize the utterance, or to designate it as occupying turn 5 in the collaborative
model; regardless, the interpreter’s continuation of her turn, in lines 388 and 389,
can be said to occupy either turn 4 (if the patient’s utterance is not counted as a
turn) or turn 6 (if the patient’s utterance is considered a turn, however truncated).
The patient’s response, in line 390, occupies the position of turn 5, again because the
interpreter does not interpret the utterance (which she could easily have done), but
rather replies directly to it. Her contribution, in lines 391 and 392, occupies turn 6 in
B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300 1293
the model. The next series of turns represents a rather extended dialogue between
the patient and the interpreter regarding the exact nature of the physician’s instruc-
tions, without, however, any input from (or feedback to) the physician himself.
What happens during this exchange, at line 396, is itself quite interesting, repre-
senting, as it does, a rupture in the linguistic barrier between the patient and the
physician, but one which does nothing to further the goals of the discourse itself.
The physician, who speaks a very small amount of basic Spanish (limited primarily
to fossilized lexical items, e.g. buenos dı´as, etc.), appears to have read, from the
patient’s use of ‘‘okay’’ in line 395, that his message has been conveyed by the
interpreter to the patient, assimilated by the patient, and understood; the physician
says, in Spanish, En la noche, ‘‘At night’’, and then adds his own use of the bivalent
‘‘Okay’’. It is not ‘‘okay’’, however, because the patient is still unclear as to which
medication the new schedule applies (both medications, or just the one?), and the
interpreter knows this; she jumps in, in lines 397–399, to correct the patient, and
also, perhaps, the physician’s wrongly-held assumption about what the patient has
understood of the interpreter’s report.‘‘No’’, like ‘‘okay’’, is bivalent; it functions
both to tell the patient that he is wrong in his assumption about the new medication
schedule, and the physician that he is wrong about his understanding of the patient’s
‘‘okay’’.
There is no position for the physician’s turn in line 395 that is available in the
collaborative model, which assumes a perfect and reciprocal absence of knowledge
of the other’s language by both of the principal interlocutors. Notice that the phy-
sician’s turn in line 396 is a departure from the collaborative model, in that the
physician skips over turn 10, the interpreter’s turn to report the patient’s last utter-
ance. This turn is not only a departure from the model, it also demonstrates the
physician’s inability to follow Spanish discourse to the degree necessary for fluent
conversation; it also increases the patient’s possible confusion (the interpreter is
saying no, the physician is saying yes), and demonstrates the collaborative model’s
predictive ability still further, in that real-life departures from the hypothesized
model have predictable consequences for the course of the conversation.
The interpreter’s turn, in lines 397–399, is not easily classifiable, precisely because
it appears to be directed at both the patient and at the physician, and also because
there is no turn available in the model that occupies the position of a response to an
unsuccessful breach in the linguistic barrier. The patient and the interpreter go on to
engage in a continuing discourse about the new schedule for the patient’s medica-
tions, in lines 400, 401, 402 and 403. In the penultimate turn, line 402, the patient
demonstrates verbally that he has finally understood the exact nature of the physi-
cian’s instructions. This turn could be said to occupy, again, either turn 5, or turn 7;
in the latter case, its content may be designated as B(). The interpreter’s next turn,
in line 403, could be said to represent either turn 8 or turn 10; what is most inter-
esting about this turn is that it does not contain any of the semantic content of line
B(), only the bivalent affirmation ‘‘okay’’, which the physician then takes to mean
that his contribution to the discourse has, finally, been achieved (i.e. the patient now
understands, through the interpreter, which medications to take when), although he
makes no attempt to determine if this is in fact the case. In other words, the inter-
1294 B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300
preter does not appear to feel the need to convey the patient’s final contribution B,
and the physician apparently is satisfied with the interaction, even without learning
what (the interpreter’s version of) B might have been.
The examination of Excerpt 1 shows clearly, then, that the collaborative model of
interpreted discourse provides an adequate template into which actual turns in
naturally occurring interpreted discourse can be placed and analyzed. From this
perspective, we can view the transcribed data taken from the larger study of medical
interviews as concrete instantiations of the abstract model presented in this article,
as both a viable representation of how interpreted conversations progress, and also
as a valuable heuristic for analyzing the discourse processes at work within inter-
preted conversations.
The whole of Excerpt 1 is also illuminating in another way; it shows that the pat-
terns of conversational engagement or interpretation displayed by the interpreter are
not random, but are rather systematic within the discourse. That is, we can not only
use the model to illuminate the types and functions of turns in interpreted dis-
courses; another important aspect of the model is that it provides us with a tool with
which to examine exactly how the interpreter carries out her duties as linguistic
intermediary. In this case, she interprets for the physician in a straightforward,
almost deferential manner, and she works extensively with (in some cases against)
the patient to shape his contributions to the discourse. For interpreted medical
interviews specifically, we have only looked at patterns of turns as they appear in the
discourse. Were we to match, for example, patterns of interruption, examining who
the interpreter interrupts and in what language (cf. Davidson 2000, 2001), we would
find a similar pattern: the interpreter almost never interrupts the physician, and
interrupts the patient in a consistent manner.
We can then match these patterns of conversational engagement and interpreta-
tion to the social and contextual roles occupied by the conversational participants,
and from this determine how the interpreter goes about facilitating the achievement
of the conversational goals of the speech event (a very different task than merely
transmitting information). The nature of the interpreter’s role in discourse has
become a fertile study for studies of the exercise of power through conversational
interaction, because, as one observer noted, interpreters ‘‘are always placed in this
contested arena between being providers of a service and being agents of authority
and control.’’ (Candlin, in the introduction to Wadensjö (1998): xvii; italics in the
original). Wadensjö (1998: 68–69) writes:
For the form of institutional medical discourse we have been examining, the con-
trol aspects of the interpreter’s role are visible in the patterns of interpretation
highlighted by the turn-structures uncovered. The turns that were labeled
B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300 1295
could contribute B(), and the interpreter could contribute B0 (), and the discourse
could proceed just as laid out in Fig. 2. From here to achieve true conversational
reciprocity, however, Speaker 1 would need one turn to convey comprehension to
the interpreter (such as the turn taken by the physician in Excerpt 1, lines 377 and
378); the interpreter could convey this to Speaker 2; and Speaker 2, by the nature of
his reply, could both convey comprehension and begin a new contribution. In such a
case, only seven turns would be needed, and some of those turns, such as the last
turn taken by Speaker 2, would serve the purpose of both achieving a prior con-
tribution and adding to a new one.
It is impossible, however, to predict when such a string of turns might take place,
and, even if it did, the underlying process would still be that represented by the col-
laborative model. More important, however, is the cumulative effect of divergent
views of exactly what has been contributed (Speaker 1’s A, or Speaker 2’s A00 ?).
One problem with interpreted discourse, then, is that the structural properties of a
cross-linguistic discourse make such conversations quite unwieldy; this flaw is not
merely a representational quirk that finds no analog in naturally-occurring inter-
preted discourses. Often, turns in interpreted discourse do not follow an orderly
pattern where participants wait for turns to be taken in each language, to be then
conveyed by the interpreter. In my own experience and in the data set from which
Excerpt 1 is taken, in every single interpreted medical interview there were stretches
of talk, sometimes several minutes0 worth, where both the physician and the patient
would speak to the interpreter at the same time, in two languages, a situation in
which not even the most gifted of interpreters is able to function well. When this is
happening, there is virtually no way for the participants0 contributions to the dis-
course to be fully acknowledged, because they are not even being heard, and the
participants are not waiting to hear what the other has said. For this reason, the
optional turns in which the interpreter engages the primary interlocutors fulfill
another crucial role: they allow the interpreter to act as a conversational ‘‘traffic
cop’’ (cf. Roy, 1999), negotiating with the interlocutors so that they do not talk
simultaneously or out of turn.
Even when interpreted discourses do follow a reasonably well-structured format
of non-overlapping turns, as in Excerpt 1, interlocutors do not wait thirteen turns in
order to establish reciprocity, and then move on to their next contribution. New
contributions are added, by both principal participants in the discourse, before prior
contributions can be fully achieved. Interpreted conversations are difficult to con-
duct precisely because reciprocity is so difficult and time-consuming to accomplish,
and once it has been achieved, there is still no real guarantee that the common
ground is common enough to meet the speakers’ criteria.
A second implication of this model is that analyses that allow for a possible split
between the speech-generator and the contribution’s originator, like Hymes’
‘‘spokesman’’ and ‘‘source’’, or Goffman’s ‘‘animator’’ and ‘‘author’’, become the-
oretically difficult to sustain. This is not to say that the interpreter becomes con-
fused, in the patient’s eyes, with the physician, or that the King’s Messenger is
necessarily confused with the King, but these analyses miss the point when it is said
that a person can be ‘‘merely’’ the voicebox for a message in a language he or she
B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300 1297
7. Conclusion
In this article I have outlined a basic theory of conversation that stresses the col-
laborative nature of dialogue, both same-language and interpreted. A simple model
of interpreted discourse, based on certain assumptions and common analogies from
same-language discourse, was developed that was mapped directly onto a colla-
borative model of same-language discourse, but which did not treat the interpreter
as a true conversational participant. Upon analysis, this model, in which the inter-
preter occupies the position of ‘‘overhearer’’ rather than ‘‘participant’’, in analogy to
the popular ‘‘interpreter-as-voicebox’’ theory of interpretation, was shown to be
faulty. A second, complex model of interpreted discourse was constructed, called the
collaborative model of interpreted discourse, which led to a structural analysis of the
functions of turns within interpreted discourse. Finally, the model was applied to
stretches of naturally-occurring interpreted discourse, which in turn showed the
viability of the model as a valid representation of interpreted conversation; I also
8
It should be noted, however, that patients frequently do regard professional interpreters as medical
experts, and physicians often treat family-member interpreters as full-fledged representatives of the
patient.
1298 B. Davidson / Journal of Pragmatics 34 (2002) 1273–1300
pointed out that interpreters act very differently in medical interviews with regard to
the ways in which they transmit information from patient to physician and from
physician to patient. The collaborative model was also shown to be accurate, if
cumbersome, as a model for mimicking same-language discourse; in addition, it
establishes that the difficulty in conducting conversations through an interpreter is
precisely the cumbersome process of constructing reciprocity in cross-linguistic dis-
course.
This chain of reasoning implies that participants in interpreted discourse can never
fully know what the other knows; can never, in fact, be sure that they know what the
conversation has even been ‘‘about’’, because to be successfully constructed, such a
contextual frame requires the knowledge and support of all speaking parties. In
addition, the supposedly ‘‘neutral’’ stance of the interpreter within the discourse she
interprets was shown, through a detailed analysis of a stretch of interpreted medical
discourse, to be false; if such a neutral position is possible, it is hardly inevitable, and
perhaps, in institutional settings at least, not even likely.
The analysis of interpretation is, admittedly, based on the interpretation of one
form of institutional discourse, medical discourse, and of that form of discourse a
specific form in itself, that is, ‘‘medical interviews’’ (as opposed to, say, genetic
counseling sessions, or preoperative meetings). It is my hope that further research
will utilize the model presented in this article to examine other forms of interpreted
discourses, institutional or otherwise, to determine the role of interpreters in fur-
thering (or hindering) the goals of the speech events within which they are working,
to analyze the primary interlocutor’s approach to the use of interpreters, and to
illuminate the underlying social and institutional frames that inform the ways these
speech events are conducted.
Acknowledgements
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