Home Linguistics & Semiotics 14. Intersubjectivity in interpreted interactions: The interpreter's role in co-constructing meaning
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14. Intersubjectivity in interpreted interactions: The interpreter's role in co-constructing meaning

  • Terry Janzen and Barbara Shaffer
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The Shared Mind
This chapter is in the book The Shared Mind

Abstract

Introducing an interpreter into a discourse event affects the very nature of the interchange because in addition to the interlocutors’ intersubjective approach to each other, the interpreter necessarily bases her interpretation on assumptions she makes about each of the interlocutors’ shared and non-shared knowledge. Recently, many American Sign Language (ASL)-English interpreters have espoused what have been termed “expansions”, claimed to be grammatically required in ASL. But ASL has no such “explicitness” requirement; instead the interpreter must attend to the intersubjective domain of discourse interaction in order to attempt to more accurately represent what is in the minds of the interlocutors. This chapter examines triadic intersubjectivity in interpreted discourse and the role that “contextualization” plays in managing others’ shared and non-shared knowledge.

[C]onversation is highly contextualized, filled with subtle cues at all levels marking the relation of utterances to contexts of prior discourse, to situational and cultural contexts, to contexts of social relations between speech event participants, and even to the mutual cognitive context within which the dialogic interaction is embedded. John Du Bois (2003: 52)

Abstract

Introducing an interpreter into a discourse event affects the very nature of the interchange because in addition to the interlocutors’ intersubjective approach to each other, the interpreter necessarily bases her interpretation on assumptions she makes about each of the interlocutors’ shared and non-shared knowledge. Recently, many American Sign Language (ASL)-English interpreters have espoused what have been termed “expansions”, claimed to be grammatically required in ASL. But ASL has no such “explicitness” requirement; instead the interpreter must attend to the intersubjective domain of discourse interaction in order to attempt to more accurately represent what is in the minds of the interlocutors. This chapter examines triadic intersubjectivity in interpreted discourse and the role that “contextualization” plays in managing others’ shared and non-shared knowledge.

[C]onversation is highly contextualized, filled with subtle cues at all levels marking the relation of utterances to contexts of prior discourse, to situational and cultural contexts, to contexts of social relations between speech event participants, and even to the mutual cognitive context within which the dialogic interaction is embedded. John Du Bois (2003: 52)

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword. Shared minds and the science of fiction: Why theories will differ vii
  4. 1. Intersubjectivity: What makes us human? 1
  5. Part I. Development
  6. 2. Understanding others through primary interaction and narrative practice 17
  7. 3. The neuroscience of social understanding 39
  8. 4. Engaging, sharing, knowing: Some lessons from research in autism 67
  9. 5. Coming to agreement: Object use by infants and adults 89
  10. 6. The role of intersubjectivity in the development of intentional communication 115
  11. 7. Sharing mental states: Causal and definitional issues in intersubjectivity 141
  12. Part II. Evolution
  13. 8. Evidence for intentional and referential communication in great apes? 165
  14. 9. The heterochronic origins of explicit reference 187
  15. 10. The co-evolution of intersubjectivity and bodily mimesis 215
  16. 11. First communions: Mimetic sharing without theory of mind 245
  17. Part III. Language
  18. 12. The central role of normativity in language and linguistics 279
  19. 13. Intersubjectivity in the architecture of language system 307
  20. 14. Intersubjectivity in interpreted interactions: The interpreter's role in co-constructing meaning 333
  21. 15. Language and the signifying object: From convention to imagination 357
  22. Author index 379
  23. Subject index 383
https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.12.18jan

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword. Shared minds and the science of fiction: Why theories will differ vii
  4. 1. Intersubjectivity: What makes us human? 1
  5. Part I. Development
  6. 2. Understanding others through primary interaction and narrative practice 17
  7. 3. The neuroscience of social understanding 39
  8. 4. Engaging, sharing, knowing: Some lessons from research in autism 67
  9. 5. Coming to agreement: Object use by infants and adults 89
  10. 6. The role of intersubjectivity in the development of intentional communication 115
  11. 7. Sharing mental states: Causal and definitional issues in intersubjectivity 141
  12. Part II. Evolution
  13. 8. Evidence for intentional and referential communication in great apes? 165
  14. 9. The heterochronic origins of explicit reference 187
  15. 10. The co-evolution of intersubjectivity and bodily mimesis 215
  16. 11. First communions: Mimetic sharing without theory of mind 245
  17. Part III. Language
  18. 12. The central role of normativity in language and linguistics 279
  19. 13. Intersubjectivity in the architecture of language system 307
  20. 14. Intersubjectivity in interpreted interactions: The interpreter's role in co-constructing meaning 333
  21. 15. Language and the signifying object: From convention to imagination 357
  22. Author index 379
  23. Subject index 383
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