ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a reflection on the position of the interpreter as a third party in communication settings which were originally designed for two. For this reflection it proposes to take the work of the German sociologist Georg Simmel on the Third and the Stranger as a conceptual framework. In order to ground this positioning of the interpreter as the Third, it begins with a comparison of the interpreter with the ethnographer. The chapter also introduces the idea to regard the interpreter as a professional participant observer — that is an ethnographer in earlier publications which were largely inspired by the work of the German cultural sociologist and translation scholar Gohring. Sociological and ethnographical concepts fruitful for reflections on interpreter positioning is not only the author's enthusiasm for the sociology of the stranger and poststructuralist thinking on ethical issues. Washbourne discusses the need to include training in ethical reflexion and decision making for translators into the education of translators.
