Changing roles and identities of interpreters in the past four decades. An analysis of Chinese discourse on interpreting through the lens of social practice theory
This paper examines how interpreting and interpreters are perceived and represented in by practitioners, trainers and researchers in the changing environment during the past four decades in China. The focus of analysis is how the economic, socio-political and technological developments in China’s ‘Reform and Opening-up’ have been conditioning the social practice of interpreting, particularly the roles and identities of interpreters. Based on an analysis sifting through about 800 articles on interpreting published in quality (CSSCI/CORE) journals in China published in the past 40 years, two major questions are examined: 1) How have the social practice of interpreting and the roles and identities of interpreters been represented and perceived by practitioners, trainers and researchers? 2) How have they evolved with the changing environment during the past four decades? Viewing interpreting as a social practice, this study employs an adapted three-element model from social practice theory as the analytic framework. Through content analysis of the published discourse on interpreting, the ‘competences’, ‘meanings’ and ‘practitioners’ of the interpreting activity in different periods are identified. By doing so, the meta-discourse on the roles and identities of interpreters is highlighted, the pattern of evolution is identified and the role of economic, socio-political and technological developments in shaping interpreting as a social practice is revealed.
