POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE AND POWER

IN DISCOURSE IN COMMUNITY INTERPRETING:

THE EFFECT OF INSTITUTIONAL POWER
ASYMMETRY ON INTERPRETER STRATEGIES

Mette Rudvin
Università di Bologna

ABSTRACT

This paper assumes that ideology, discourse and power are intimately connected, and that
discourse is the mouthpiece of ideology. Power is thus negotiated, manipulated, expressed,
rejected and challenged interpersonally through discourse in settings defined by institu-
tional power asymmetry. This paper examines the issue of power as a governing factor in
community —and public service interpreting by using Fairclough’s distinction between
power behind discourse and power in discourse, that is, hidden power that guides the inter-
preter’s status and role, guiding the interpreter’s discourse and interpreting strategies. Three
categories of institutional relationships are examined: relations between actors in any insti-
tutional setting, these same relations in cross-cultural encounters, and these same relations
in interpreter-mediated public service encounters. Lastly, the paper discusses power in rela-
tion to the interpreter’s role.
KEY WORDS: Community interpreting, public-service encounters, interpreter, power, cross-
cultural communication, interpreter competence.

POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE AND POWER IN... 159

RESUMEN

Este artículo defiende que ideología, poder y discurso están íntimamente conectados y que
el discurso es la voz de la ideología. El poder se negocia, manipula, expresa, rechaza y se le
reta interpersonalmente en espacios definidos por una asimetría de poder institucional.
Este trabajo examina el poder como un factor determinante en la interpretación comunita-
ria y para los servicios públicos, utilizando la distinción de Fairclough entre poder detrás del
discurso y poder en el discurso; esto es, un poder oculto que conduce el discurso del intér-
prete y las estrategias de interpretación. Se examinan tres categorías en las relaciones insti-
tucionales: relaciones entre actores en cualquier contexto institucional, relaciones en en-
cuentros crosculturales, y relaciones en encuentros mediados por intérpretes en los servicios
públicos. Por último, se aborda la relación entre el poder y el papel del intérprete.
PALABRAS CLAVE: interpretación comunitaria, encuentros para servicos públicos, intérprete,
poder, comunicación croscultural, competencia del intérprete.

REVISTA CANARIA DE ESTUDIOS INGLESES, 51; noviembre 2005, pp. 159-179

09 Rudvin.pmd 159 14/12/2005, 8:46

 Compared to other sites of translation activity (conference interpreting and
translation), community interpreting is so visibly guided by power asymmetries
that it serves as a useful test case against which to examine how context functions as
a field of power play between interlocutors in language-mediated communication.
This paper explores ways in which power is manifested and negotiated (linguisti-
cally, culturally, institutionally, ethnically) in interpreter-mediated communication
for public services and how power asymmetries lead to the construction of power-
governed identities which are in their turn informed by the wider socio-cultural
context. Such power asymmetries are played out more subtly at the individual level
(class, gender, ethnicity, individual political positioning) and more blatantly at the
collective level (institutional: client vs. service provider, and socio-political: host
country representative vs. migrant).1 The paper argues that the manner in which
each actor brings his/her (multiple) socially and historically constructed identity/ies
in relation to power asymmetries in public service encounters is manifested and
negotiated through pragmatic discourse features. Despite the general assumption
that the interpreter is exclusively the mouthpiece for and voice of both interlocu-
tors, this paper sees the interpreter an active, meaning-creating agent in this proc-
ess, bringing to the encounter her own voice and identity. Another presupposition
of this paper is that “interpreter competence” is traditionally assessed according to
the parameters set by the host institution rather than the migrant’s own cultural
parameters. This communicative asymmetry reflects a clear power hierarchy in the
migrant-institution relationship which may affect communication effectiveness.
Furthermore, the consequences of culture-specific interpretations of communica-
tion strategies, such as politeness markers, by the service provider (judge, police
officer or immigration officer) may be very grave indeed for a defendant, witness or
METTE RUDVIN 160

asylum applicant. I also argue that the higher the degree of politeness negotiated
through self-lowering and face-saving techniques in traditionally individualist, less
hierarchical Western societies, the interlocutor who is at the higher end of the po-
liteness scale is inevitably at a disadvantage. Communication failure and the conse-
quences of communication failure for patient, defendant, petitioner etc. may thus
be profoundly exacerbated by the prevailing power asymmetry.

1. TAXONOMIES. DIALOGUE INTERPRETING

AND COMMUNITY INTERPRETING

Although the nuances and complexities of taxonomy will not be addressed

in this paper, it might be useful to define, very roughly, what is meant by “commu-
nity interpreting”2 in this paper: Namely face-to-face interpreting in the public,

1
I would like to thank Mona Baker for her comments on a preliminary version of this paper.
2
Although somewhat dated now, Gentile et al. provide a useful discussion on terminology
in this field. The FIT (International Federation of Translators) prefers to use the term “community-

09 Rudvin.pmd 160 14/12/2005, 8:46

 semi-public or private institutional sector, such as hospitals, police stations, immi-
gration offices, welfare, business and commerce, etc. For the purposes of this paper,
I also include court interpreting in this category. I would like to divide the areas of
application of face-to-face interpreting into two main sectors: one pertaining to the
private commercial world in which professional ethics are guided by a relatively
arbitrary market-governed set of rules, and the public institutional half in which
professional ethics are guided by very specific rules, conventions and hierarchies
mandated by the state (and ultimately, in theory, by democratic vote). I would
include in the second category all community-based interpreting (e.g. for volunteer
organizations) which, even when they are not state-funded or mandated, are acces-
sible to the general public. Although the issue of power is relevant in the private
sector also, this paper will focus primarily on the public domain, using business
interpreting as a case of comparison rather than an object of investigation in itself.
The issue of power is profoundly relevant to community interpreting for
reasons which pertain both to the area of application and mode. I think it might be
useful to illustrate the division of application and mode by drawing upon Fairclough’s
distinction between “power behind discourse” and “power in discourse,” respec-
tively (43). For Fairclough, “power behind discourse” is the social order which exer-
cises hidden power (55) and governs how and how effectively the power-holders in
the institution are able to police the shared conventions, how these are enforced
and which sanctions are taken against the actors if they are infringed (61). The
manifestation of such conventions would be for example the codification of stand-
ard languages and socio-lects (e.g. the class and ethnicity based “Received Pronun-
ciation” socio-lect in the UK).

POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE AND POWER IN... 161

2. WHAT DO WE MEAN BY “POWER”?

Before embarking on a discussion of power and language, however, it might

be useful to clarify what exactly we mean by “power.” I would suggest that the
following description could be broad enough to use as a working tool for the pur-
poses of this paper, and also broad enough to avoid unnecessarily negative connota-
tions: A relationship of power between A and B, where A and B might be individu-
als or groups, is any asymmetry (both arbitrary and non-arbitrary) that allows party
A to take decisions concerning B that B might not agree with, that B is not aware
of, that is damaging to B, or that is advantageous to B but which B him/herself is
not in a position to implement.
It must not be forgotten, however, that asymmetrical relationships are an
intrinsic part of the social and possibly biological fabric of human society, and

based interpreting,” which differs only in name from what has been described above; see www.fit-
ift.com. Although an important area, and one in which a great deal of research has been done, I will
not be considering Sign Language Interpreting in this paper.

09 Rudvin.pmd 161 14/12/2005, 8:46

 although the abuse of such asymmetry could be said to be the one mechanism
which is most destructive to that same society, it is also a fundamental prerequisite
for the effective functioning and management of any society from the small group
level to the national and supra-national level. It might be useful to make a further
distinction between constructive power and damaging power, or power that em-
powers the interpreter positively and power that hinders effective communication.
The distinction between institutional and state-sanctioned power versus “private”
more arbitrary power is more relevant in the present context. Institutional power is
precisely that power by which an individual is mandated by a public body to take
decisions for other individuals. That power is enacted partly according to strict
conventions and in part the subjective interpretation of those conventions.3 The
focus of this paper, then, will be not only how this power imbalance is translated
into discourse strategies, but also how the interpreter addresses, confronts, tackles,
and negotiates these imbalances.

3. CONTEXT AS INSTITUTIONAL POWER

If discourse is a mode of social production, as anthropologists and socio-

linguists have been demonstrating since Malinowksi,4 it is the right to control that
discourse which is most pertinent to the study of power and interpersonal asymme-
try in verbal communication. Numerous studies on institutional discourse (legal,
health, academic) and discourse in the workplace setting governed by both coop-
erative, corporate and hierarchical networks in the media and in politics have illus-
trated how that right is exercised and how institutions appropriate and monopolize
METTE RUDVIN 162

discourse forms, creating a “secret” privileged group of individuals with access to

goods, commodities, services and decision-making potential to which access is lim-
ited. An example from the everyday lives of individuals in most modern societies
today is that of the bureaucratic language of public institutions creating barriers of
comprehension and access to information and services to those unacquainted and
unfamiliar with this particular type of formal register, not least to those whose na-
tive language is not that of the country in question. The wider political framework

3
Arbitrary power-defining contexts are harder to define: illness for example (and resulting
physical and possibly social and economic weakness) might be considered to be an arbitrary factor,
and yet it is well-known that illness and socio-economic (and therefore class and gender) factors
impact on individual health. Likewise, in the context of legal interpreting, the state of being witness
to a crime might seem arbitrary, and yet here too socio-economic factors impacting on where an
individual lives and works will statistically affect the likelihood of him/her being involved in the
scene of a crime, especially the more public and visible forms of petty crime.
4
Books such as by Joseph et al. with a chronologically organized collection of essays by
anthropologists, language philosophers, linguists and socio-linguists, give a useful idea of the devel-
opment of context-based communication studies.

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 sustaining the power base is in essence the context that sets the stage for the enact-
ment of the dialogue. Power issues in monolingual service encounters have been
studied extensively in terms of the larger contextual issues governing discourse (the
institutional, ethnic, economic and racial traits of each participant) and in terms of
the enactment of that power asymmetry in discourse.5 However, very few studies
have been conducted on bi-lingual service encounters where the language asymme-
try naturally becomes a significant and often insuperable obstacle exacerbating the
already underlying and defining hierarchical structure. Even fewer studies have been
conducted on how power impacts such cross-cultural encounters when they are
mediated by interpreters and to what degree the interpreter is affected by and af-
fects the encounter in terms of power negotiating strategies.
It might be useful at this point to isolate the power-generating factors as
they pertain to institutional authority per se, as they pertain to institutional au-
thority in institutional bilingual and cross-cultural encounters, and as they pertain
to interpreter-mediated institutional encounters:

– power in public service encounters

– power in cross-cultural public service encounters
– power in interpreter-mediated public service encounters

For each category, I will address first the issue of power as a hidden ideo-
logical force governing discourse in the public domain (power behind discourse)
and then discuss the way in which these power factors are played out and enacted in
discourse (power in discourse).

POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE AND POWER IN... 163

3.A. POWER IN PUBLIC SERVICE ENCOUNTERS
Power behind discourse

The first category, in which the interlocutors would be of the same national
language and culture but not necessarily the same discourse group at the moment
of contact, includes the default power asymmetry between institution and indi-
vidual. I would suggest that there are five important context-based power factors
behind discourse, all of which consolidate the institution’s/representative’s role in
their “gate-keeping function” (Fairclough 47). The first and most important would
be the fact the client/individual is seeking a service from an individual or institu-

5
Philip Riley has addressed the issue of identity formation —highly relevant to power
asymmetry in service encounters in France. A plethora of literature exists on the socio-economic and
ethnic factors impinging on illness as well as on the access to health care and also some on discourse
asymmetry as a power base in health care and in social services. A number of sociolinguistic studies,
such as Lakoff, do address issues of power in legal discourse however.

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 tion who is in a position to grant or deny that service (see the definition of power in
2. above), even to decide over the other person’s life, according to parameters that
follow shared, authorized state-sanctioned parameters but are subject nonetheless
to individual interpretation.6 This would hold true not only in a court of law but
also in the health sector, especially in such delicate areas as the administration of
life-altering treatment. Because the service provider is at that moment a public
body, a professional subject rather than a “private subject,” s/he is in that moment
not generally personally accountable for or responsible for any mistakes, delays,
misinterpretations, damage that his/her service or lack of it might have for the
other party. This may profoundly affect his/her motivation in providing service and
the speed and quality with which it is done.7 Furthermore, the numerical relation-
ship alone (individual client versus group institution) is a source of significant ac-
tual and psychological strength for the service provider. Secondly, the relationship
is asymmetrical due to the service provider’s position as expert versus the client’s
status as non-expert in which the service provider has access to a limited pool of
expert/technical knowledge from which the client is excluded, even when they im-
pinge on non-technical aspects of the client’s life (e.g. euthanasia). Thirdly, in many
professions the service provider (judge, doctor, bureaucrat) not only represents an
institution, and thus the country as a whole, but also statistically (see Lakoff ) rep-
resents the dominant classes, either by birth or by acquisition through adhesion to
that particular professional group as a result of training and experience. The fourth
factor would be the situational vulnerability of the client versus the service pro-
vider: the client is not only seeking a service or a commodity, but is doing so be-
cause s/he is in a particularly vulnerable situation (health, crime, financial stress,
application for residence permit or migration, application for basic services with-
METTE RUDVIN 164

out which the quality of the client’s life would be impoverished). The last issue that
I would propose also has to do with the vulnerability of the client, namely that the
subject-matter is always “high-status” for the service provider professional and so-
cial group: the nature and interpretation of the country’s Laws, the challenge of
understanding and applying the laws of Science/Medicine, the application and in-
terpretation of immigration laws, being in a position to offer monetary benefits,
etc. For the client, however, the subject matter is the exact reverse, and low-rather
than high-status: infringing the Law and illegality, illness/disease/weakness, seek-
ing/requesting services and money. Foucault’s notion of “patriarchal gaze” might
here be aptly referred to the “institutional gaze.”

6
If not in the actual granting of the “commodity” —applications, treatment, benefits,
sentence, etc.— then in the manner and the rapidity or slowness with which it is done.
7
The issue of speed may seem trivial, and yet if one considers the fact that those service-
seekers who have continuously stood in queues for hours at a time to acquire basic services to which
they are entitled often have to take unpaid time off professional work, this will often strain the rela-
tionship with their employers —from official reprimand or economic punishment to general irrita-
tion— and put them at a disadvantage in yet another professional domain marked by power asymmetry.

09 Rudvin.pmd 164 14/12/2005, 8:46

 Power in discourse

The social and political relationship that defines institutional encounters is

played out discursively —i.e. power in discourse— by the use of a limited discourse-
strategy pool to which only that restricted, elite discourse community (which consti-
tutes a social as well as a professional class) has access. This of course is part of the
intrinsic nature of professional relationships, it is unavoidable, necessary and not
necessarily “damaging” as such. One of the most visible/audible class group-
membershipping strategies in the Anglo-Saxon world is that of sociolect —the use of
a standard dialect identifying one’s membership in the dominant group, either in-
born or acquired successively— Riley uses the term “membershipping” in adhering
to different groups simultaneously. Other strategies are more immediately situational
and context-based: in the legal setting where tension is often high the client’s vulner-
ability is increased through strategies such as aggressive language —tone of voice,
semantic choice, aggressive turn-taking— by the institutional parties. His/her own
inappropriate use of the same strategies will lead to a reprimand by the judge and
possibly a source of discrimination by the evaluating expert —judge or jury. The
courtroom in particular is essentially the site of a power struggle enacted predomi-
nantly through face management and other discourse strategies. “Discourse” as Ralph
Grillo says, is a “semantic space in which social meanings are produced or chal-
lenged” (12). In the public institutional domain, however, rather than a struggle it is
often such a blatant unilateral display of hegemonic power played out so effectively
that it hinders the interlocutors from actively engaging in any real reciprocal strug-
gle. I have argued that the display of identities enacted in that struggle is both
situational (the tense situation, the defendant being evaluated) and social (class-

POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE AND POWER IN... 165

based). Linguistic competence, both as a professional and social group-identifying
strategy, is part of the individual’s social/cultural capital.
Formal situations are of course more intensely governed by face co-ordina-
tion than “everyday” situations because the stakes are so much higher. Although
both politeness and aggression can be used as power-generating distancing tech-
niques (e.g. Lakoff ), politeness and distancing are perhaps even more effective than
aggression as they prevent the interlocutor from engaging in open “battle.” A com-
mon interrogation strategy used by police investigators and magistrates is that of
verbal aggression, manifested through strategies such as tone of voice, intonation,
syntax, body language and eye-contact. According to one judge I interviewed infor-
mally in Bologna in 2002, the interrogation technique is built on the presumption
that fear-inducing aggression will draw out the truth from the interlocutor more
effectively than more collaborative communicative tactics. I would suggest that
interviewees who are paralysed by fear, given the range of factors mentioned above
that exacerbate their vulnerability, are equally likely to say nothing at all rather than
tell “the truth” for fear of saying the wrong thing and damaging their case.
Turn-taking too is an effective empowering or disempowering strategy. In-
terruptions and overlaps can be used both collaboratively to confirm, acquiesce, con-
fer face, or to openly challenge and/or demonstrate control —for example Fairclough’s
doctor who interrupts his medical students during the hospital rounds in a blatant

09 Rudvin.pmd 165 14/12/2005, 8:46

 display of power and control (44-45). Equally the right to ask and answer questions
and the obligation to reply is a power-negotiating strategy in all public service en-
counters. By the same token the right to shift frames at will is also a power —and
identity negotiating technique. Paediatric medical consultations are frequently quoted
to illustrate how doctor and parent shift frames from professional to private when
they address the patient (Rosenberg, Tebble, Fairclough). The permission to shift
frames —crack jokes, talk about weather, shift frame— will depend on the institu-
tional hierarchy in that particular culture and discourse community. The selection of
text too, is a display of power: on various occasions I have interpreted for judges who
request that I disregard or summarize a defendant’s narrative (these narratives are
often told to motivate or justify and contextualise the criminal act and to show the
criminal act was committed for a higher and more noble motive, for example the
illness or death of a close relative and the need to earn money to look after siblings).The
judge interrupts the defendant’s emotionally-charged narrative and asks the inter-
preter to summarize or simply skip the narrative. Both in content and tone of voice
(indicating its lack of importance and admissibility as relevant context and thus a
mitigating factor) s/he is in effect selecting which text (i.e. which part of the defend-
ant’s narrative) should be interpreted to be used as an authoritative text (presented in
court, submitted for evaluation, transcribed in records). In the same way the doctor
in the Western health system disregards figurative and metaphorical illness descrip-
tions and general description of life-situation for “factual” ones.8

3.B. POWER IN CROSS-CULTURAL PUBLIC SERVICE ENCOUNTERS

Power behind discourse
METTE RUDVIN 166

In this category the two key factors governing the power asymmetry in cross-
cultural relations, I would argue, are that of ethnic status and ethnic identity. By
ethnic status I mean the fact that the client in this type of situation has a temporary
status (until s/he has acquired host-country citizenship), a migrant status, and the
status of a non-citizen, or “second-rate” citizen. By ethnic identity I mean the cul-
tural identity of the client. Culture difference will include differences in the basic
premises and understanding/interpretation of illness, disease, health, body-aware-
ness, gender differentiation, crime, legality, patronage, truth, right to basic services
and commodities, to an infinite range of discoursal strategies —the issue of culture
difference in community interpreting settings is clearly too wide to be discussed ad-
equately in this paper; I have addressed these issues in more depth in Rudvin, “Cross-
cultural”. When the client’s culture and health/legal system is not compatible with or
simply has a different epistemological basis with respect to the dominant host cul-
ture, it is the client who will be at a disadvantage rather than the service provider.

8
Kleinman is an excellent guide to non-Western, so-called traditional health systems.

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 Power in discourse

Limited access to a restricted discourse code shared by a limited group of

people significantly complicates an already complex culture-differentiated com-
municative relationship. Where ultra-formal bureaucratic language is an obstacle
to accessing public services efficiently for same-group members, it may have very
serious consequences for out-group members: getting the wrong information, not
enough information, coming back again and again each time with long queues,
etc. In my own experience with immigration services in Italy (especially when
applying for residence permits, the service most crucial for new migrants and one
which is particularly fraught with administrative hurdles), bureaucrats do not ad-
equately simplify the language when explaining administrative procedures and
will show openly their frustration when the interlocutor does not understand.
This reifies the interlocutor’s position of inferiority in that relationship (irritation,
not having the information needed, not being able to get or know how to get a
service s/he desperately needs, not being able to question or challenge the system).
Discussing the situation with co-applicants in the queue I have frequently found
that many pretend to understand out of a sense of politeness, respect and/or ac-
cepting of the prevailing cultural hierarchy even when they do not —thus having
to return yet again for more information and start the entire procedure again if
they have not in the meantime been able to acquire the relevant information from
co-nationals and/or other peers, or perhaps from private voluntary organizations.
Along the same lines, from my own work in the courts I have noticed that certain
ethnic groups tend to use the “I don’t know/remember” hedging formula much
more frequently than Italians, even when there seems to be no real need to avoid

POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE AND POWER IN... 167

answering. I would suggest that this may be simply a form of respectful indirect-
ness, a standard politeness marker, rather than non-cooperation, which may of
course negatively affect the Italian judge’s impression of the client and potentially
the final outcome of the legal proceedings. A strong sense of politeness, deeply
embedded in many non-Western cultures and exacerbated by the position of infe-
riority, also prevents the interlocutor from complaining or insisting on getting the
right information. The interlocutor with the stronger sense of politeness —em-
ploying self-lowering strategies and face-enhancing strategies in favour of the coun-
terpart— will always be at a disadvantage in a system (institutional or cultural)
that privileges aggressiveness. (Interlocutors from more aggressive cultures on the
other hand, who speak the language well or whose inbred understanding of insti-
tutional hierarchy does not accept the bureaucrat’s professional and ethnic superi-
ority will not be disadvantaged in the same way and may resort to a number of
repair strategies: complain, resist, ask, insist, use indignation as power leverage). A
good example of politeness as a potentially damaging factor is reported by Storti
in the business context.

Mr Williams: We agreed the building would be completed by the middle of

October.
Mr Papas: Yes. That’s what it says in the contract.

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 Mr Williams: But now there’s not enough time. You’ll need at least two more
months.
Mr Papas: Oh yes. At least.
Mr Williams: The only way you could finish in time is if you hire twenty-five
more workers.
Mr Papas: Yes. There’s no question. The only way we could meet the con-
tract as it is now written is if we hire more workers.
Mr Williams: But if you hire more workers, you won’t make a profit. In fact,
you’ll lose money.
Mr Papas: Very true. We can’t afford to hire more workers.
Mr Williams: Then you can’t possibly meet the terms of the contract.
Mr Papas: We must honour the contract. We are an honourable company.
(Storti 90-91)

Politeness may be used as a source of power through social distancing, but

more often it is a means to which relinquish power, especially in hierarchical socie-
ties. In commenting on this dialogue, Storti suggests that Mr Papas is hoping that
Mr Williams himself will suggest that the contract be modified, but cannot himself
threaten Mr William’s face by suggesting it —a request which Mr Williams himself
might not necessarily have deemed face-threatening and may gladly have complied
with. If Mr Williams does not suggest this, Mr Papas will have two options: lose
honour and jeopardize his company’s reputation by not respecting the deadline, or
lose money by hiring more workers and work at a loss. Unless Mr Williams helps
him save face, Storti suggests that Mr. Papas will choose the second option. (108)
In the majority of encounters reported in this collection of samples it is politeness,
METTE RUDVIN 168

expressed through distance, indirectness, formality and hedging techniques, which

is the differential variable. For example, not saying “no,” answering indirectly, avoid-
ing eye-contact, interrupting or staying silent, understating or overstating physical
or emotional pain, etc. are all politeness markers in a host of cultures, but often
construed according to Western discourse norms as indications of “shiftiness” or
even “untruthfulness/dishonest.”9 Politeness, especially self-lowering strategies and
indirectness in hierarchical “vertical” communities are easily misconstrued as weak-
ness in more egalitarian, “horizontal” communities. Although this will not be the
case in all situations, in the context of service encounters in Western societies and

9
Linguistic anthropologists such as Foley or Duranti have conducted numerous studies on
cultural difference in socio-linguistic models of communication, and cross-cultural studies by socio-
linguists abound. Another rich area of research in cross-cultural differences in politeness forms, the
use of indirectness and hedging formats is in the literature on cross-cultural business management.
The large-scale cross-cultural business studies co-conducted by Fons Trompenaar and Charles
Hampden-Turner are probably the best known, along with those by Gerd Hofstede. In addition to
these well-researched and statistically backed studies, more popular books on cross-cultural manage-
ment, with titles such as “When “no” means “yes”” are becoming increasingly popular in a wide
range of workplace settings.

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 encounters with individuals from groups with a hierarchical communicative sys-
tem, the latter will be disadvantaged rather than the former.
For what concerns power in language specifically related to cross-cultural
institutional dialogue, the underlying power-generating factor, I believe, is that the
host language is considered to be the default language: The interpreter has been
called in for the client, not the service provider: the judge requires that the entirety
of the interlocutor’s utterances be interpreted to him/her or what the judge him/
herself selects as relevant (this is at least frequently the practice in Italy), and not
vice versa. The non-native speaking client does not, in practice, have a legal right to
understand the proceedings, but the judge needs the information s/he possesses to
arrive at a verdict. The interpreter is called in to put the judge in a position to
understand that information. An amusing anecdote related to interpreting and trans-
lation students in Norway (miscellaneous personal communication) is that of the
Lapp defendant charged with illegal strike activity and sit-in demonstrations pro-
testing against the building of a dam in Lapp territory in northern Norway. When
he opens his address in the Lapp language the judge interrupts the monologue and,
addressing the courtroom generally, says “this man needs an interpreter.” The bilin-
gual Lapp answers calmly “No, Your Honour, you need an interpreter.”
John Gumperz’s essay (163-195) describing the Filipino Tagalog mother-
tongue doctor with perfect English who was accused of perjury in a child-abuse
case where the child under his care died shows precisely how it is standard British or
American that is considered to be the default language, not colonial/international
varieties. This case had very serious consequences indeed: it turned out that it was
the difference between the Filipino-English use of tense and standard American
usage that had largely led to misunderstandings about the chronology of the case

POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE AND POWER IN... 169

and in particular how the doctor had diagnosed the child’s symptoms initially and
how he later evaluated his own diagnosis.
The first of these three categories is perhaps, to some extent obvious (dis-
cussed in more detail in Rudvin forthcoming. As the basic structural fabric of most
modern societies it is obvious that institutions must function according to some
kind of hierarchy and that they use power strategies to implement this hierarchy; if
that hierarchy were ignored the system would be ineffective. The display of power
is often covert, mitigated in an attempt to emphasize the democratic basis of the
state and its representatives (the institutions). What interests us here in this discus-
sion is not only how this power is enacted through discourse in a cross-cultural
situation —the norm-based constraints that govern discourse (category 2), but how
the interpreter negotiates the power negotiating strategies, along which lines she
aligns herself in coordinating these strategies, and how the power asymmetry and
power-governed discourse governs her interpreting strategies.10 These issues will be
the focus of the following section.

10
“She” will be used consistently in reference to “the interpreter.”

09 Rudvin.pmd 169 14/12/2005, 8:46

 3.C. POWER IN INTERPRETER-MEDIATED PUBLIC SERVICE ENCOUNTERS
Power behind discourse

According to the tenets of traditional mainstream interpreting theory, which

envisions and prescribes the interpreter roughly as an invisible non-intrusive and
non-pro-active participant, the entry of a third person onto the scene does not and
should not upset the power balance or any other kind of balance in the interaction.
I do not intend to recapitulate the discussion that has been taking place both in
Translation Studies over the last two to three decades or in Interpreting Studies
more recently, but it might be useful to distinguish between what might be called
the endogamous and exogenous reasons for this: the interpreter cannot be “a pane
of glass” because of the essentially interactive nature of language. Being both a
reflection of and a vehicle of expression for a particular culture —or set of cul-
tures— a language is unique to that culture and cannot overlap fully with another
language, the expression of another culture or set of cultures.11 Furthermore, the
interpreter as an individual and unique subject interprets any utterance or text with
an unspecified degree of subjectivity. Thus, the very act of translating cannot be
mechanical because of the fluid nature of its vehicular mode. The “exogenous”
reason is related to the externalisation of language and the enabling of communica-
tion: the interpreter in a face-to-face encounter will be drawn into that encounter
actively by the other participants.12 She is, therefore, also in a position to affect and
be affected by the power symmetry inherent in the communication encounter. What
concerns us here is that the second exogenous category’s positioning is pro-active;
the interpreter is a participating subject rather than the inert language machine of
earlier mainstream theory.
METTE RUDVIN 170

The social, psychological and ultimately ideological parameters governing

power behind discourse relating to the first category mentioned above (3.a.) remain
unchanged as the basic and generally hidden power-governing features “behind the
scenes” and need not therefore be repeated here. Although the interpreter is in a
very different position from the client, I would suggest that frequently the same
power asymmetry applies between interpreter-service provider as between inter-
preter-client. This affirmation should however not be over-generalized as it touches
upon the basic professional ethics and role of the interpreter, and is also restricted
geographically. Indeed, the following assumptions are based on my work and expe-
rience in Italy, which is a country of recent immigration and as yet highly unstruc-

11
This has been stated rather simplistically. There are of course numerous other issues here
too, beyond the scope of this paper, such as sub-cultures, specific languages, register, field-specific
language, youth language and not least diachronic change in language etc. that complicate the lan-
guage = culture × equation.
12
Even traditional prescriptive studies and linguistic based studies examining exclusively
interpreter omissions and additions such as that of Jakobsen and Jekat demonstrate these same prin-
ciples.

09 Rudvin.pmd 170 14/12/2005, 8:46

 tured language services. Migrants enjoy very low status, especially those we find in
the “typical” community interpreting settings described at the beginning of this
paper. Official policy in training and hiring culture brokers (who are frequently,
indeed almost always, used as interpreters in the health and social services domain)
is that they belong to the same ethnic group as the client. Demographic parameters
are different in Italy compared to most other Western countries where language
services are more structured, and as such the following claims may not be repre-
sentative for countries in a more advanced stage of intercultural integration and of
professional organization of language services (see Rudvin, “How Neutral”; “L’inter-
prete medico” for details on the situation in Italy).
In Italy, the interpreter tends to be recruited from the same ethnic group as
the client. Because service providers often do not require extensive training or cre-
dentials and —unless trained culture-mediators are used— they are recruited on an
ad-hoc basis and therefore do not enjoy the prestige of highly trained professionals
in the eyes of the service provider, but would be seen as someone who has come
along “to help us out so that we can understand what the patient is saying.” The
interpreters often tend automatically to be “lumped” together with the client and
subject to that same superior, condescending, hostile or patrician gaze reserved for
most migrants in this country. Conference interpreters, of course, enjoy a signifi-
cantly higher status, reflected in their generous pay scale. Furthermore, the very
setting of the type of encounters we are dealing with (social services, crime, illness,
foreigners applying for services) are conducive to stigmatising not only the client
but, I believe, also the interpreter. The fact that interpreting is a relatively low-
status job and extremely poorly paid, exacerbates then this underlying attitude of
condescension. Moreover, an interpreter reduced to such a low-status profile will

POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE AND POWER IN... 171

be given less leeway for active participation and manoeuvring in the communica-
tion encounter. The strict hierarchical nature of Italian society and specifically of its
legal institutions has repercussions on the interpreter’s performance: it renders it
extremely difficult for the interpreter, let alone the client, to challenge or question
the magistrate/judge’s authority and not follow his/her instructions.
The interpreter’s source of power in the interpreting session derives exclu-
sively from the fact that she is the only interactant in that situation (in a simple
bilingual triadic configuration) who can understand what all participants are say-
ing, what is being said in the room at all times. This is an enormous, even daunting,
source of power considering the possible settings and decisions made in such set-
tings (high risk health, big politics, the court). It might in fact be interesting to
study why service providers have not been at pains to control and limit this source
of power rather than trust the interpreter’s loyalty blindly. I would suggest that this
might have something to do with the interpreter’s low status and also to do with the
prevailing mechanistic view of language transferral that does not acknowledge the
interactive role of the communicating subjects. I have heard anecdotes but read no
studies demonstrating that this power has been deliberately and systematically
abused.
I would argue that access to the most effective and tangible power leverage
tools rest with the service provider. Indeed, the second source of power that is basic

09 Rudvin.pmd 171 14/12/2005, 8:46

 to the interpreter’s task and role is that of her access to both cultures, her capacity as
a “cultural expert.” As Inghilleri reminds us, however, her positioning in and be-
tween those two cultures is not an unambiguous, simple or neutral position, but
construed by her own experience and by her own interpretation and understanding
of both cultures, as well as her own current agenda. Here it is the interpreter who
has exclusive access to a restricted pool of expert technical knowledge —language
and culture— in the same way that the service providers have monopoly over field-
specific technical knowledge: it is her cultural capital. As a “mediator,” the inter-
preter has the potential power to smooth out misunderstandings, conflict and ten-
sion deriving from cross-cultural differences. The degree to which this is effective is
related of course to each party’s understanding of the interpreter’s role and active
participation and limited to the degree to which the service provider and the insti-
tution allow her to exercise it. This issue is particularly pertinent in countries such
as Italy where the role of “interpreter”/“language mediator” versus “cultural media-
tor” has not yet been clarified. Cultural mediators have tended to have an impor-
tant role and the whole largely neglected issue of the basic notion of “mediation” in
the sense of mediating in controversies, between opposing parties has weight.13

Interpreter vulnerability and manoeuvring potential

Factors that affect the interpreter’s ability to manoeuvre and control the
situation are the fact that she is visually and tactilely exposed to the other parties,
unlike a conference interpreter who is safely hidden at the back of the room in a
booth. Although this increases her vulnerability, it also increases the ability to con-
METTE RUDVIN 172

trol and coordinate non-verbal communication strategies. Other factors which in-
crease the vulnerability of the community —as opposed to the conference inter-
preter is affect. The settings in which such interpreters work, as mentioned above, is
marked by a high situational stress factor (i.e. not only the stress of language trans-
ferral). Little work has been done so far on affect-related interpreter stress —one
brief study is that of Baistow— but it is clear that emotivity, anger and tension in
health, welfare and crime related settings is experienced by all of the interlocutors.
Baistow’s study suggests that the interpreters experience this stress vicariously. In
times of stress she may indeed be drawn into the interaction to function either as a
buffer or as a scapegoat. Gerri-Ann Galanti, in reporting case studies of cross-cul-
tural miscommunication in American hospitals, describes how an Arab woman’s
mother-in-law, acting as her ad-hoc interpreter after the patient’s recent delivery,
deliberately omits in her translation the nurse’s health teaching information to the
patient on the use of contraception in the hope that she would become pregnant

13
In Italy this is due I believe to the fact the migration is recent, intercultural integration
very low, and the idea of assisting, aiding and mediating for migrants still predominant.

09 Rudvin.pmd 172 14/12/2005, 8:46

 again soon (22). Although it will not be discussed here, I think the use of ad-hoc
versus trained interpreters in relation to their power or controlling potential is in-
teresting. Loyalty to the client and loyalty to the professional dictum of impartial-
ity affects how freely they feel they are “allowed” to interpret, to omit or add infor-
mation at will.

Power in discourse

How then are interpreting strategies affected by power asymmetries and

how is power enacted through discourse? The basic assumption that I am working
with here is that the interpreter takes control of the situation, in particular the floor
management, with the aim of establishing communication between the parties con-
cerned. I would suggest that power relationships are marked in discourse primarily
through extensive floor management but also other factors such as social deictic,
body language (distancing, inclusion), tone of voice, and formality of register.

Mode and Floor-management

In the courtroom, shifting between the simultaneous (chuchotage) and

consecutive mode is acknowledgement of inherent power asymmetries: if the inter-
preter uses chuchotage it will be for the client (defendant or witness) rather than
the judge, who will hear a consecutive interpretation. I would also suggest that the
length of chunks an interpreter is willing to accept before interrupting is a further

POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE AND POWER IN... 173

indication of the inherent power balance: the higher the speaker is on the hierarchy,
the more reluctant the interpreter will be to interrupt, and the more she will make
an effort to remember the entire chunk. This would apply more to inexperienced
interpreters rather than veterans who would have built up more professional self-
esteem to challenge authorities. Various studies (Wadensjö, Gentile) note how the
use of the 1st/3rd person vacillates as the interpreters are drawn into the encounter
as members/non-members (Garzone 94ff ), reflecting either the stress level or the
interlocutors’ understanding of the interpreter’s role —as a ratified participant and
listener/speaker (3rd person) or as an invisible, glass-like non-person (1st person;
the commonly accepted norm in mainstream interpreting theory and training).
Studies like Jakobsen’s and Jekat’s on interpreter renditions, omissions and addi-
tions show how interpreters control the course of the communication encounter
imperceptibly and unknowingly, but there are ways in which interpreters them-
selves take control of the situation to ensure effective communication, for example
to insist that the interlocutor slows down, that the interlocutors do not speak at the
same time, to ask for repetition or clarification, etc. In such moves her visibility and
identity as an active discourse participant increases. In another study, Garzone (102)
notes how in the floor management of interpreter-mediated sessions, it is usually
the interpreter who is most often interrupted and subject to overlaps, probably
because of her low status and because she is not considered to be an autonomous

09 Rudvin.pmd 173 14/12/2005, 8:46

 participant; she herself rarely interrupts. At the same time, however, she has the
potential to assert a “buffer effect,” reducing the impact of aggressive moves and
preventing abusive interruptions and overlaps between main interlocutors (102).
Videos produced for training purposes show how interpreters can ideally
use floor management and other strategies to project their role positively, exploit
their skills to the best of their ability and facilitate communication to the satisfac-
tion of all three parties. Real-life cases are probably less clear-cut than these, and
social and professional hierarchies will probably be far more invasive, but they do
show the potential for a positive and constructive use of the interpreter’s power
when circumstances allow it. In a pre-session meeting between an interpreter and a
psychiatrist in Robert Pollard’s Mental Health Interpreting: A Mentored Curriculum
video, the interpreter immediately takes control of the situation and affirms not
only her active participation but her decision-making power by statements such as
“You can speak...,” “You must understand that...,” “Let me tell you why...” and “I
will speak in the first person,” etc. in the imperative or in simple declaratives with
no hedgers and low modality. In another pre-session in which a Vietnamese woman
and her mother and grandfather are waiting in the waiting room before a mental
status exam, the interpreter pre-emptively takes control of the situation by asking
who will be accompanying the patient. Although moderately hedged for politeness,
the interpreter uses assertive declarative and interrogatives forms, or imperatives:
“What’s happening is that...,” “Who is out there?” and “Well, maybe you will get
into difficulties.” Upon hearing that her grandfather is present she suggests that the
doctor uses a range of communication strategies to facilitate what might become a
communication obstacle between doctor and patient, namely that she (the doctor)
avoids eye-contact with the grandfather, uses her first name, and lowers her tone of
METTE RUDVIN 174

voice. This is done to respect the prevailing gender and age hierarchy in the pa-
tient’s culture and thus ensure effective communication by allowing both parties to
save face. The interpreter effectively uses controlling strategies to harness the po-
tential and limit the possible misunderstandings and obstacles by immediately clari-
fying her role and requesting information about the participants in the meeting
that will put her in a position to help the service provider communicate effectively
with the patient (she is exercising her role as a cultural informant, a culture expert).
When the interpreter negotiates these discoursal strategies, she is positioning her-
self along a continuum of empowerment, participation, visibility and ratification
(in Goffman’s terms, see esp. chapters 1 and 3) according to the immediate needs of
the situation, according to the demands made on her by either interlocutor, and
according to her own understanding of the interpreter’s role.

3.D. POWER AND THE INTERPRETER’S ROLE

The most important, but also the most hotly disputed issue in the litera-
ture on community interpreting, is that of the interpreter’s role. The interpreter’s
role is closely tied to a number of factors: institutional infrastructure; the interpret-
er’s specific mandate and job-description; professional codes of ethics that are de-

09 Rudvin.pmd 174 14/12/2005, 8:46

 termined either at the state-public level; the professional association or the indi-
vidual institution as well as the development of the discipline and profession lo-
cally. It also affects and is governed by the power relations embedded in each insti-
tutional domain.
The interpreter’s most basic source of power derives from her monopolistic
position as knowledge-holder of both languages and cultures (language/culture A
and B, her cultural capital, at the level of power behind discourse) although of
course her knowledge of any culture, or language, can never be exhaustive and is
furthermore a representation of her own subjectivity. Her task, at the most essential
level, is to put individuals A and B in a position to understand each other. Her
ability to do this, however, hinges not only on her command of her cultural capital
and ability to convey this effectively, but also on her management of the communi-
cation process. She needs to be in a position to control that process verbally and
non-verbally. To be able to fulfil this task, her role as communication coordinator
must be acknowledged by the other parties —her authority must be recognized and
institutionally mandated— and she must herself proactively control and manage
the situation, especially if floor management gets out of hand. Her role and the
power to fulfil that role hinges on her ability to control the situation by asking the
interlocutors to slow down, to repeat etc. in order to hear and relay what she hears.
This skill is naturally a psychological skill as much as it is “technical,” and one that
is learned largely through experience. Interrupting and challenging a person in
authority, insisting that they slow down, clarify, repeat etc. requires maturity and
experience as well as terminology, memory and communication skills. Professional
and social hierarchies between service provider and interpreter, ethnic and cultural
hierarchies, experience and familiarity with the setting and dominant discourse,

POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE AND POWER IN... 175

low status and low pay are all factors which further exacerbate the situation and
which make it more difficult to challenge the service provider. We have seen in the
preceding section how her role is managed at the micro-level through discourse and
non-verbal communication strategies —at the level of power in discourse— but
also how she is actively participating as a cultural informant, an “expert witness”
(e.g. in the case of the Vietnamese patient and the American doctor) at the level of
power behind discourse.
If and when the interpreter’s mandate and role is challenged by an inter-
locutor who either restricts her ability to perform (the doctor or judge or police
officer not granting repetition or refusing to listen to the defendant’s or patient’s
utterance), or to go beyond her role by asking for opinions and advice (especially
when the interpreter knows the client), it is both her duty and her privilege to
safeguard her professional ethics, role and reputation by resisting the claims of a
bullying “superior” because she can fall back on national laws prescribing the duties
and limitations of her profession. In the private sector, however, this may change
somewhat as that prescription no longer holds: a client can draw up any manner of
contract with an interpreter, prescribing a very different role. Being paid by a pri-
vate party, she no longer enjoys that same level of protection. The public vs. private
factor will then also affect the interpreter’s own stance and group alignment and the
relationship with the service provider.

09 Rudvin.pmd 175 14/12/2005, 8:46

 4. CONCLUSIONS

This paper has attempted to show how power asymmetry affects inter-
preter-mediated discourse as a result of power asymmetries inherent in the client
—service-provider relationship in institutional encounters and as a result of insti-
tutional power asymmetries inherent in cross-cultural relations in Western coun-
tries. I have attempted to show how this power imbalance is translated into dis-
course strategies. The degree to which the interpreter takes control of the discourse
situation is indicative of the degree to which she is willing to wield the power
inherent in her professional role and her positioning in the general power struc-
ture. The degree to which she is able to overcome the obstacles that hinder her
ability to perform effectively —aggressive and non-collaborative turn-taking by
the other interlocutors— will affect, it has been argued, the resulting communica-
tive success. The paper has suggested that these formal constraints are subject to
the prestige and status of the setting and service provider —higher in the more
prestigious and authoritative institutions such as the courts and lower in the social
services or hospitals. Thus the judge’s utterance would be a text that was intrinsi-
cally authoritative and non-mutable “maximally protected from compromising trans-
formation” (77). This is due not only to the intrinsic authority of the text (“The
Law”), but also to the professional, political and social power asymmetry between
the interactants and to differential access to texts. We have also seen in the example
of the judge disallowing narrative passages in the defendant’s report, how the selec-
tion of texts/utterances for translation is both culture-bound and an example of
power leverage.
There are two areas which I believe are important to the issue of power and
METTE RUDVIN 176

interpreting which have only been alluded to here but which would be extremely
profitable avenues of investigation. One of these relates to the difference between
public and private settings and in what way the domain affects the interpreters’
strategies: i.e. in what way does the interpreter’s role change from the legal sector to
the health sector to large charity organizations to the social services sector to the
private business sector? Is her role more flexible, pro-active and empowered in the
lower-status sectors? Although communication is more rigidly coded in the legal
sector than in many other sectors, I would not wish to give the reader the impres-
sion that there is no room for active interaction or negotiation. Certainly in the less
strictly codified professional domains the negotiation process is fundamental and
continuous: a cooperative endeavour in which all parties are active “meaning-mak-
ers” constantly involved in speaker-identity realignment. Many service providers
are anxious to actively negotiate discourse and collaborate with both client and
interpreter to understand each other, to reach an understanding or agreement rather
than wield their power authoritatively and destructively over the weaker party. Tex-
tual production is a dialogic, dynamic process, not static. Institutional relations
should be seen as part of an on-going interactive process in which contextualization
cues are constantly re-negotiated. The public service encounter is indeed a negotia-
tion process, a site of struggle and constant readjustment and reaffirmation of roles
and identities at the collective and individual, private and public level.

09 Rudvin.pmd 176 14/12/2005, 8:46

 The second area that would profit from further research is that of the inter-
preter as a buffer, as a “positive power-broker” with the potential to smooth out
damaging power asymmetries between the primary parties that hinder effective com-
munication. This aspect of the interpreter’s role is a delicate one, however, touching
upon issues of advocacy and impartiality. It would be interesting also to see how and
under which conditions service providers accept or reject the interpreter’s pro-active
role and power base, whether they are willing to accept any deviation from the
norm of dominant discourse or the norm of the interpreters’ invisibility. In
Fairclough’s terms, we could ask how effectively the power-holders and institutional
gatekeepers are able to police the shared conventions, how these conventions are
enforced and which sanctions are taken against the actors if they are infringed or
affirmations given to those who abide by them (61). The degree of permissible
participation and/or advocacy role may also be a result of the acceptance or resist-
ance of the interpreter’s mandate to control her power base. The higher the advo-
cacy, the higher the dependency, it would seem, but also the threat of unwelcome
intrusion, encroaching on specialist territory. If interpreters are trained to deal with
power asymmetries in cross-cultural negotiation processes, this —as well as raising
awareness among service providers— could contribute to improving the level of
communication between migrant and institution in public services. Interpreters’
awareness of their role as “power broker” is, I believe, grossly underestimated, and
the potential it holds for constructively managing and coordinating language-medi-
ated discourse is highly undervalued. Increased awareness of this role in training
might also alleviate the frustration of role-ambiguity common to many interpreters.

POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE AND POWER IN... 177

09 Rudvin.pmd 177 14/12/2005, 8:46

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