Interpreters’ Decision-making In Case of Ethical Dilemma in Media Interpreting

Abstract

The intention of the current study was to investigate the ethical cases and interpreters’ strategies in translating them. The data used in this study was collected from some interview sessions, speeches presented by foreign, and Iranian high-ranking officials. Among the data only those interview sessions and speeches for which interpreting was available, were selected. To extract the most common strategies applied for ethical issues, a thorough analysis of 42 interview sessions and speeches was done and then compared to the original dialogues with their corresponding oral translation. In this study, different strategies based on Gile’s classification were investigated, among them only few strategies were seen to be applied to ethical matters. Moreover, some further strategies were observed by the researcher that could be added to Gile’s classification (2009). In the final analysis, the results also indicated that omission and deletion were the most frequently used strategies applied by interpreters. The use of the other strategies depended on many other factors like the cultural gap between the two languages and also conservative policies, which led the interpreters to choose a certain strategy or solution in order to avoid any misunderstanding and conflict between two parties in a political sphere.