The negotiation of meaning in dialogue interpreting

Abstract

The objective of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the negotiation of meaning between the participants of a bilingual interpreter-mediated interaction by analysing the effects of the verbalization of the inferences by the interpreter. The conceptual tools of Relevance Theory were applied to three interpreted excerpts of Russian-French psychotherapeutic interactions. The results suggest that, by verbalizing inferences, the interpreter co-creates a shared cognitive environment, reinforces intra- and inter-discursive coherence, diminishes the cognitive efforts of the recipient, and encourages primary parties to cooperate. The analysis of the cognitive processes at work in the excerpts tends to show that what has so far been treated as the interpreter’s “additions” or “expanded renditions” enables the latter to exercise cooperative coordination of interaction, and could therefore be more precisely called collaborative renditions.