In my own research, a framework has begun to emerge for analysing the role of interpreters in relation to norms. While it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss this framework in any detail (for a full elaboration, see Inghilleri, 2003), I would like to draw attention to its components and briefly allude to the macro-social theory that informs it in order to further explain the approach I am taking with respect to interpreting activity more generally. The framework is comprised of four interlocking components. It draws on Gideon Toury's (1995) distinction between initial, preliminary and operational norms in order to identify the explicit or implicit norms for interpreting found in particular settings and the relationship between translational norms and non-translational norms within this. This comprises the first component of the model. The second is the examination of the sources of the generation of norms. The third component involves locating both official and unofficial discursive sites in which norms may be realised or may even originate. The final component is the text itself - the micro-interactional event.

In addition to drawing on the body of theoretical work from within norms and systems theory, the model incorporates Pierre Bourdieu's (1977) social reproduction theory in order to address the second component more adequately -the sources of the generation of norms. Within translation theory, limitations have been perceived in norm-based, descriptive approaches, including Toury's work, for lacking an adequate conceptualisation of the social nature of communicative practices. A role for Bourdieu's social reproduction theory has been suggested (Hermans, 1996; Simeoni, 1998; Gouvanic, 1997), directing attention to the construction of fields, the impact of a 'translatorial habitus' on translational activity and, in particular, to the role of the translator in producing and/or maintaining normative practices within such activity. In my own research, Bourdieu's notions of field and habitus lend important theoretical support to the view of interpreting as a norm-based, socially constituted activity. The interpreting norms that appear to be operating in asylum interviews, for example, can be seen to be informed by a cultural, linguistic and political habitus derived from the wider social context. These habitus, or sets of dispositions to act in particular ways, constitute and are constituted by educational, economic, legal and political fields in which attitudes toward language rights, policies of social inclusion/exclusion and a 'rhetoric of nation' become legitimised. It is these dispositions that are the sources of the generation of both the initial and preliminary norms found operating in interpreted asylum contexts.

The third component of the model suggests a relationship between the interrelated habitus observable within social institutions and individuals and the operational norms (or performance instructions) realised in both official and unofficial discursive practices. Norms will be evident, for example, in practices informing the professional differentiation of interpreter status as well as in the pedagogic content of formal interpreter-training programmes. It is also at this

level that interpreters' own theories of best practice may be evident - in both how they talk about and understand their roles in a variety of interpreting contexts, as well as in how they perform these roles in specific exchanges, i.e. the actual texts produced.

The framework is intended to provide a means to conceptualise the relationship between the interpreter and the social world and to consider how sociological and ideological determinants function within interpreting contexts. It attempts to explicate the generative status of norms, viewing them as both sociocultural constructions and as constructive of social practices. At the same time, however, it seeks to avoid the over-determinism that norm-based and social reproduction theories tend toward. It does not presume an ingrained subservience and passivity on the part of interpreters with respect to the normative practices of their profession and their real or perceived invisibility with respect to interpreting activity. It suggests that while a 'translatorial habitus' may impact fundamentally on interpreting activity, playing a crucial role in what counts as 'legitimate' interpreting behaviour, observable gaps are evident between norms and their enactment in local, interactional practices. Such gaps illustrate the embodiment of distinctive, contradictory and/or conflicting habitus amongst the participants despite their dependency on the same macro-institutional context(s), that can disrupt the power and control that any one organisation or participant may have over the proceedings. This suggests that at these points - where the sayable and the unsayable can be either challenged or maintained - interpreters often do play a pivotal role.

It would be unproductive to characterise sociolinguistic, micro-interactional approaches to interpreting research as being concerned exclusively with locating change primarily with social actors and macro-level approaches with the social structure. Despite significant (and potentially unresolvable) differences in their epistemological orientations, sufficient theoretical and empirical overlap remains with which to explore the discursive probabilities and/or possibilities of interpreting activity in a range of contexts. It seems preferable to view any differences as a catalyst for the type of dialogue that Daniel Gile suggests and to which this chapter hopes to contribute.

責(zé)任編輯：admin