ABSTRACT
Consumer capitalism and popular television are the two main ideologies moulding an interpreter’s performance on television. These two apparently invisible forces form the base layer of an iceberg model, and are creating significant changes in the interpreter’s traditional habitus. Gatekeeping opportunities and constraints are provided at every level of the submerged part of the iceberg. The more visible layers of the iceberg illustrate how the interpreter’s strategies and performance are regulated and evaluated by norms which result from these ideologies, and are significantly at variance with the traditional prescriptive conference interpreting norms based on the traditional interpreter’s identity and status. One overriding norm we call ‘the comfort factor’: the degree to which the TV audience is entertained. Examples are given of how broadcasters and hosts may – logically, according to this model – control the translation process before, during and after the interpreted event. Finally, from examples taken from our corpus, we sketch what we see as an emerging prototype of the media interpreter, one who is able to manage the interpretation in the new habitus. The media interpreter is, thus, a highly professional and visible performer, able to embody the values of the two main ideologies, and match the expectations of both broadcasters and viewers.
