Tolkens roll och uppdrag : Ett passivt vittne eller en aktiv agent

Abstract. The aim of this study is to examine the role of the interpreter and see how the interpreter thinks of his or her role in interpreted meetings. What kind of difficulties and opportunities does interpreters experience in their professional role and what can they describe as factors to a successful interpreted meeting. Above that we were interested in what kind of support if any, interpreters get from their employers or outsourcers when they are a part of an interpreted meeting where difficult and psychological hard matters is interpreted. The method chosen to examine and answer those questions are a qualitative method with semi structured interviews. Our interview persons were six interpreters with various work experience and degree of education. The theories chosen for this study have been parts of symbolic interactionism, sociocultural theory and communication theories in form of the barrier-model and filter-noise model. The results show us that our informants meets all kinds of difficulties on a day to day basis, however was this something that our informants expected and said to be a part of their job-description. We found in our previous research that some interpreters said that it can be a difficult matter to talk in a first-person way when the interpreted person disguise tough situations such as sexual abuse ore murders for example. This could both verifies and problematize by our informants. Most of them said that they were met with respect from other professions, but one voice distinguished from the others and talked in terms that the interpreter was seen as an idiot and definitely not was respected. One thing that they all could agree about was the lack of information they got to prepare themselves prior to the interpreted meeting, if this was a problem were however not a common thought.