Interpreting in the media : organisational, interactional and discursive aspects of dialogue interpreting in radio settings. A study of Spain's Radio 3.

Abstract

This thesis aims to uncover and explain how interpreter-mediated live interviews work in radio broadcasting, from organisational, interactional and discursive points of view. The methodology I use in order to fulfil my aims and objectives involves a mixed model which is applied to five interpreter-mediated interviews broadcast on Radio 3's El Séptimo Vicio (ESV) (from the Spanish State Broadcasting Company, RNE). This model includes a descriptive framework of types of interpreter-mediated interviews, to which Conversation Analysis (CA) is applied, in order to shed light on the organisation of such events, as well as specific interactional phenomena and patterns arising in this particular type of interpreter-mediated event. AV recordings of one of the broadcasts and a semistructured interview with the host of ESV are used as corroboration for the CA. Findings and concluding remarks of the thesis focus on the “unique fingerprint” (Heritage and Greatbach, 1991:95-96; Heritage and Clayman, 2010:18) of practices and interactions analysed in my data. Within the limits of what can be generalised from the analysis of a specific (and to a certain extent always limited) set of data, avenues for future research are sketched, and implications for public engagement in the form of training and knowledge exchange activities which help to consolidate the study and practice of radio interpreting as a discipline in its own right are discussed. Likewise, future training and practice possibilities emerging from a deeper and critical knowledge of this media interpreting context are suggested.