BSL Interpretations

For many interpreters, particularly during training, the question of role can initially appear quite straightforward. The interpreter is there to interpret, should not become part of the conversation, should not influence what is happening and should remain neutral.

The reality of interpreted interaction is more complicated than that. Interpreters make decisions throughout an assignment that affect how an interaction progresses. We decide whether to ask someone to pause, whether clarification is needed, whether a cultural reference needs adjustment, whether the positioning of participants is causing an access problem, whether a misunderstanding is linguistic or interpersonal, and whether we need to make our own intervention visible. Choosing not to intervene is also part of that decision-making process, because it can affect what happens next.

Role-Space Theory, developed by Peter Llewellyn-Jones and Robert G. Lee, offers a useful way of thinking about this. Rather than trying to define one fixed role for the interpreter, it looks at what interpreters actually do within particular interactions and how their behaviour can change depending on the situation.

This makes it especially useful for reflective practice. Instead of reducing a discussion to whether someone was "too involved" or "not neutral enough", it allows us to look more closely at what was happening, what the interpreter did in response and what effect that response had on the interaction.

The Problem with a Fixed Interpreter Role

Descriptions of interpreting have often relied on ideas such as neutrality, impartiality and invisibility. These concepts have been important in establishing professional boundaries and in making sure interpreters do not take responsibility for decisions that belong to the people using the service.

However, if these ideas are applied too rigidly, they can create an unrealistic picture of interpreted communication.

An interpreter is physically, linguistically and socially present within an interaction. In BSL-English interpreting, the interpreter is also usually very visually present. Participants may orient towards the interpreter, wait for the interpreter to finish, adjust the way they speak because an interpreter is present, or change how they take turns.

The interpreter is also managing two languages, different discourse patterns, gaze, turn-taking and timing. Depending on the setting, they may also be managing technology, positioning, visual access or several people trying to speak at once.

Metzger's work on ASL-English interpreting challenged the idea that interpreters could simply operate as neutral conduits, showing that interpreters inevitably affect the interaction they are part of. Wadensjö also described interpreters as carrying out both a relaying function and a coordinating function. In other words, interpreting involves more than transferring utterances from one language into another. It also involves some level of coordination of the interaction itself.

Role-Space develops this further by looking at interpreter behaviour across three connected dimensions:

Presentation of Self

Interaction Management

Participant Alignment

The position an interpreter occupies across those three dimensions at a particular point creates what Llewellyn-Jones and Lee describe as their role-space. This is not something that remains fixed for an entire assignment. It can change between different types of work and can also change several times within the same interaction.

Presentation of Self

Presentation of self concerns how visible the interpreter is as an individual within the interaction.

In some situations, the interpreter may make very little reference to themselves. Their presence is understood, but they remain largely outside the content of the conversation. In other situations, however, the interpreter may need to become more visible.

For example, an interpreter arriving at a workplace meeting where several hearing participants have never worked with a BSL-English interpreter before might briefly explain that everything said will be interpreted and that participants should speak directly to each other rather than through the interpreter.

The interpreter might also need to say things such as:

"I didn't catch the last part of that."

"Could you repeat the name?"

"I need to move because I can't see the signer from here."

These are not interpretations of somebody else's contribution. They come from the interpreter and are intended to deal with a problem that is affecting the interpreting process.

The fact that the interpreter has made themselves visible does not automatically mean that they have stepped outside appropriate professional boundaries. The more useful thing to consider is why they needed to intervene and whether that intervention improved or changed the interaction in a useful way.

An interpreter who constantly inserts themselves unnecessarily into a conversation can take up too much communicative space. At the same time, an interpreter who refuses to acknowledge their own presence, even when there is a genuine access problem, may create difficulties of a different kind. The challenge is being able to judge when becoming visible is useful and when it is not.

Interaction Management

Interaction management concerns the things interpreters do to help coordinate communication.

This can include dealing with turn-taking, asking for repetition, managing overlapping speech, responding to pace, adjusting positioning or dealing with other barriers that make interpreting difficult.

Imagine a meeting involving one Deaf BSL user and six hearing participants. The chair asks a question and, before the interpretation has been completed, another person starts to answer. Someone else then speaks over them.

In a monolingual meeting, this might simply result in several people competing for the floor. In an interpreted meeting, the interpreter may still be producing the first contribution while trying to retain two or three additional contributions at the same time.

At some point, a decision has to be made about what to do. The interpreter might raise a hand and ask for one person at a time. They might complete the interpretation and then try to recover the overlapping information. They might decide that the overlap was brief enough to manage without intervention.

None of these responses is automatically right or wrong. The appropriateness of the response depends on the context.

The interpreter may need to consider how much information has been lost, whether it can be recovered, whether the Deaf participant has a realistic opportunity to contribute, whether the meeting is continuing at a pace that is making access increasingly difficult, and whether the group has already been asked to avoid speaking over one another.

Looking at the interaction in this way is more useful than simply asking whether the interpreter should or should not have interrupted. The focus moves instead towards the reason for the intervention and whether it addressed the problem effectively.

Participant Alignment

Participant alignment can sometimes be misunderstood because alignment is not the same as agreeing with somebody, liking them or taking their side.

It refers more broadly to the ways in which an interpreter's behaviour may appear to orient towards particular participants or groups within an interaction.

Language choices can contribute to this. For example, a professional may use terminology that is entirely familiar within their field but unfamiliar to the person receiving the service. The interpreter may need to move away from the professional's exact wording in order to produce an equivalent and understandable message in BSL.

This does not mean that the interpreter is siding with one participant against another. It may simply be what is required to produce an effective interpretation.

Similarly, imagine a Deaf professional delivering specialist training to a hearing audience through an interpreter. The interpreter may need to reflect the presenter's register, confidence, technical language and professional authority in the English output. The interpretation should represent the person presenting, rather than sounding like the interpreter is cautiously explaining what they think the presenter might have meant.

Alignment can also be visible through gaze, body orientation, humour, acknowledgement and other conversational behaviours. These things are sometimes subtle, which means interpreters may create an impression of alignment without intending to.

For example, a hearing professional may repeatedly look towards the interpreter rather than the Deaf participant. If the interpreter continually responds to that gaze, answers procedural questions directly and gradually becomes the conversational focus, the interaction can start to shift. This may happen without anyone consciously deciding that the interpreter should take on that role, but the effect can still be significant.

Recognising this gives the interpreter an opportunity to change their behaviour and redirect the interaction back towards the participants.

How the Three Dimensions Work Together

The three dimensions are easiest to understand when they are considered together rather than separately.

A decision made in relation to one dimension can easily affect the others.

Suppose an interpreter stops a meeting because several people are speaking simultaneously. By doing this, the interpreter increases their level of interaction management. They also increase their presentation of self because they are now speaking in their own professional capacity rather than interpreting somebody else's contribution.

The way the intervention is phrased may also affect how participants perceive alignment.

An interpreter who says, "Can everyone slow down? I can't keep up," places the emphasis on their own ability to manage the pace.

An interpreter who says, "There are several contributions happening at once, so not everyone currently has access to the discussion. Could we go back to one person at a time?" is addressing the same problem in a different way.

The second version frames the issue as one of access to the interaction rather than simply the interpreter's capacity. Both involve interaction management and presentation of self, but they create a slightly different role-space.

This is one of the strengths of the theory. It allows us to look closely at small decisions that might otherwise be passed over as routine.

Role-Space in Remote Interpreting

Role-Space is particularly interesting when applied to remote interpreting.

Lee later applied the model specifically to Video Relay Services and Video Remote Interpreting, looking at how these same dimensions operate when communication takes place through technology.

Remote interpreters regularly make decisions that affect how an interaction works. A Deaf person may have a clear view of the interpreter but not of the hearing participant. The interpreter may be able to hear one person clearly but not another. Participants may not know who else is physically present in the room.

Someone may speak while looking away from the microphone, a presentation may be shared on screen and reduce the size of the interpreter window, chat messages may appear that one participant can access and another cannot, or there may be a delay between audio, video and interpretation.

These situations mean the interpreter is not simply transferring language through a camera. They are working within an interaction that is being shaped by the technology being used.

This can require quite a high level of interaction management. The interpreter may need to say that the audio has been lost, that the shared screen is covering the interpreter window, that they cannot identify who is speaking, or that somebody needs to pause while the previous contribution is interpreted.

These are all interpreter contributions rather than interpretations, but they may be necessary to restore effective communication. Remaining silent in these situations would not necessarily make the interaction more neutral. It could simply mean that participants do not realise that part of the communication has been lost.

Remote interpreting is therefore a useful example of why the role of the interpreter cannot realistically be reduced to the idea of simply passing language backwards and forwards.

A Practical Example

Imagine a remote workplace meeting involving a Deaf employee and their manager.

The manager says:

"Obviously we talked about the restructure last time and, as I said then, nothing's decided, but we're looking at moving some of the responsibilities across to the regional team. Anyway, you know how these things work."

There are already several interpreting decisions within this short contribution.

The interpreter has to consider what "obviously" is doing in the sentence, what previous knowledge is being assumed and what is meant by "you know how these things work". Depending on tone and context, this could suggest resignation, reassurance, shared organisational knowledge or something else.

The phrase "moving some of the responsibilities" also needs to be considered carefully. It may be straightforward administrative language, or it may be functioning as a softer way of talking about a significant change to the employee's role.

These are primarily translation decisions.

Now imagine that, while the interpretation is being produced, the manager looks at another screen and says:

"Yes, exactly."

The Deaf employee signs:

"Exactly what?"

The issue has now changed. The participants are no longer sharing the same visual and conversational information.

The interpreter now has several options. They might explain that the manager appears to be responding to something on another screen. They might ask the manager to clarify what they are responding to. They might wait to see whether the meaning becomes clear from the next contribution.

Each of those responses creates a slightly different role-space. The theory does not give the interpreter a fixed answer about which option to choose. Instead, it gives them a way of examining what is happening and why one response may be more appropriate than another.

Role-Space Does Not Mean Anything Goes

One possible misunderstanding of Role-Space is that if an interpreter's role can change, then almost any intervention can be justified.

That is not what the theory suggests.

Professional boundaries, ethical principles, competence, confidentiality and accountability still apply. Role-Space simply asks interpreters to think more carefully about the decisions they are making and the reasons behind them.

For example, saying "I felt I needed to step in" is only the beginning of a reflection. It is more useful to consider what problem the interpreter believed they were responding to, whether it was genuinely an interpreting issue, who held responsibility for dealing with it, what alternatives were available and what happened as a result of the intervention.

Sometimes this type of reflection will confirm that the intervention was appropriate. At other times, it may show that the interpreter took responsibility for something that could have remained with the participants.

Both outcomes are useful because the purpose of reflection is not simply to justify what we did. It is to understand our decision-making well enough to make more informed choices next time.

Role-Space and Ethical Decision-Making

Role-Space can be particularly useful in supervision, mentoring and interpreter education because ethical discussions can easily become focused on identifying one correct response.

Real assignments are rarely that simple, an interpreter may have several defensible options, each with different consequences.

For example, a Deaf participant might repeatedly ask the interpreter privately:

"What do you think I should do?"

The interpreter could respond in a number of ways. They could offer an opinion, refuse without explanation, explain their professional role, interpret the question to the relevant professional, or check whether the person is actually asking for clarification rather than personal advice.

Each response creates a different role-space and each carries different consequences.

The useful part of reflection is looking at why one option was chosen, what happened afterwards and whether another response might have produced a different outcome.

This is why Role-Space also works well alongside consequence-based approaches to ethical decision-making. Codes of conduct and professional standards remain important, but the interpreter also considers what their choices actually did within the interaction.

Using Role-Space in Reflective Practice

One of the strengths of the model is that it can be used after an assignment without needing a full transcript or recording.

A useful starting point is to choose a moment when you were particularly aware of making a decision. Reconstruct what happened immediately before that point and think about how visible you became as an individual, how much you managed the interaction and whether your behaviour may have created or appeared to create alignment with one participant.

Then look at what happened afterwards.

For example, you might begin with:

"I asked the chair to pause because the interpretation was falling behind."

That gives you the basic event, but the reflection becomes more useful when you look further into the reasons.

Why was the interpretation falling behind? Was the speaker's pace unusually fast? Was the content conceptually dense? Was the terminology unfamiliar? Were several participants speaking over one another? Could preparation have reduced the difficulty? Was stopping the meeting the least intrusive option available? Did the pause actually improve access?

These questions produce a much clearer picture of what happened than simply concluding that you need to get better at keeping up.

The reflection becomes specific to the situation and gives you something more useful to take into future work.

What Role-Space Can Teach Us About Professional Practice

Perhaps one of the most useful aspects of Role-Space is that it allows us to move away from the idea that professional interpreting should always look the same.

A highly visible interpreter is not automatically being unprofessional, just as a quiet interpreter is not automatically being neutral. An interpreter who manages turn-taking is not necessarily being controlling, while an interpreter who chooses not to intervene is not automatically protecting participant autonomy.

The behaviour only makes sense when it is considered within the context in which it happened.

Two assignments that appear almost identical on a booking form may require quite different interpreter behaviour. Even within one assignment, the interpreter may need to move between different levels of visibility and interaction management depending on what is happening at that moment.

This places a significant responsibility on interpreters because there is no simple checklist that can cover every situation. Good judgement depends on linguistic competence, cultural knowledge, situational awareness, ethical reasoning and the ability to recognise how our own behaviour affects the interaction.

For experienced practitioners, this can be particularly useful because many of these decisions become instinctive over time. Role-Space gives us a way of slowing them down and examining what sits behind them.

For trainees, it can help move reflection away from learning a set of fixed rules and towards understanding why different situations may require different professional responses.

Final Thoughts

Interpreters cannot remove themselves entirely from interpreted interaction. Their presence changes the communicative environment before the first piece of interpretation has even been produced.

Because of that, it is more useful to think about the effect we have on an interaction than to try to pretend we have no effect at all.

Role-Space Theory gives us a practical way of looking at those decisions. It encourages interpreters to notice when they become more visible, when they begin to manage the interaction and when their behaviour may create a sense of alignment with one or more participants.

None of those things is automatically right or wrong. The context, purpose and consequences all need to be considered.

Rather than asking only what the interpreter's role is supposed to be, Role-Space encourages us to look more closely at what a particular interaction requires from the interpreter at a particular moment, and whether the choices we make are helping the participants communicate effectively while still respecting professional boundaries.

References

Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday.

Lee, R.G. (2020) 'Role-space in VRS and VRI', in Salaets, H. and Brône, G. (eds.) Linking up with Video: Perspectives on Interpreting Practice and Research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 107-125.

Llewellyn-Jones, P. and Lee, R.G. (2013) 'Getting to the Core of Role: Defining Interpreters' Role-Space', International Journal of Interpreter Education, 5(2), pp. 54-72.

Llewellyn-Jones, P. and Lee, R.G. (2014) Redefining the Role of the Community Interpreter: The Concept of Role-Space. Carlton-le-Moorland: SLI Press.

Metzger, M. (1999) Sign Language Interpreting: Deconstructing the Myth of Neutrality. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

Wadensjö, C. (1998) Interpreting as Interaction. London: Longman.