ABSTRACT
In her groundbreaking study, Monacelli (2009) puts forth convincing evidence of distancing, de-personalization and the mitigation of illocutionary force in moves by professional conference interpreters in their struggle for professional survival. This involves subjects in a position of detachment with respect to both the source text and their own text. The overarching trends prevalent in her data are based on the analysis of personal reference, patterns of transitivity and the attribution of agency, mood and modality, and the interpreter’s behaviour in relation to threats to face. This overriding trend, however, does not emerge in other settings. Interpreters employed in legal contexts, for example, often work behind closed doors in confidential settings and are required to adhere to a completely different set of norms. For example, Kalina (2015: 66) discusses norms and ethics in varying contexts and highlights the marked difference among professional settings:
In some settings, such as court and medical interpreting, codes of practice are established by providers, i.e. the authorities that are responsible for the functioning of the service and/or for the accreditation of interpreters; this is the case in the U.S. and some other countries.
