Applying Ethics in Interpreting: Investigating Attitudes and Strategies in an Iranian Context

Subject Areas : All areas of language and translation

Shahla Ebadi ¹ , Alireza Ameri ²

1 - Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran
2 - English Language Studies, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University

Received: 2018-07-11 Accepted : 2018-07-11 Published : 2018-01-01

Keywords: strategy, Attitude, Interpreting, Ethics,

Abstract :

Ethics is a crucial issue in the different dimensions of human life; hence, there seems to be a dire need for research to be conducted on ethics in different domains including translation studies and interpreting. This qualitative-exploratory research aimed at investigating the attitudes and strategies of applying ethics in in- terpreting through employing a triangulation method. Twenty interpreters sat for an interview and a ques- tionnaire, and the contents of three video clips were analyzed to detect ethical codes through axial coding in Grounded theory. Twenty-four detected codes were divided into three groups of pre-task (in-built) attitude (six codes), while-task (delivery) strategy (15 codes), and post-task (three codes) of dynamism of ethics in interpreting, and then the percentage of the participants who had pointed out each of these codes was calcu- lated. Since 15 codes out of these 24 codes were allocated to while-task strategy and seven out of these strategies were pointed out as very important codes of ethics, it was concluded that ethics in the while-task process of interpreting plays a more significant role than in pre-task and post-task during a task of interpret- ing. Also, 12 effects of considering professional ethics in the quality of interpreting were extracted from participants' words. Alongside designing a course of study named ethics in interpreting and establishing an interpreting syndicate are the most important implications of this research.

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