(IN)visibility of the interpreter in consecutive interpreting: A discussion of norms against actual performance

Studies on conference interpreting have revealed conclusions whichimply that theories on conference interpreting do not always overlap with reallife situations. In order to discuss norms of interpreting and the interpreter?sinvisibility, it is necessary to explore interpreter behavior in actual interpretingevents.The study, which concerns consecutive interpreting as a mode ofconference interpreting, aims at conducting a research on the discursive(in)visibility of the interpreter in consecutive interpreting. In this context, with aview to provide a comparative study, norms in consecutive interpreting havebeen identified, first. To this end, discourses of professional interpreterorganizations and information gathered from academics working at interpretertraining institutions in Turkey, through a questionnaire prepared for thepurposes of this study, have been utilized so as to identify the norms concerningthe (in)visibility of the interpreter in consecutive interpreting. It is an integralpart of the research to discover whether these norms are compatible with theinterpreter performance observed in a real-life setting. Therefore, the normswhich had been identified were compared with a real-life consecutiveinterpreting performance recorded in an authentic conference setting.Conclusions and discussions based on this comparative study of the micro andmacro- contexts of interpreting have been presented in the thesis.