Speaker positioning in interpreter-mediated press conferences

Abstract

This article investigates potential effects which (the recontextualisation of) interpreted discourse can have on the positioning of participants. The discursive event which forms the basis of the analysis are international press conferences which bring politicians and journalists together. The dominant question addressed is: (How) do interpreter-mediated encounters influence the positioning of participants and thus the construction of interactional and social roles? The article illustrates that methods of (critical) discourse analysis can be used to identify positioning strategies which are employed by participants in such triadic exchanges. The data come from press conferences which involve English, German, and French as source and target languages.