ABSTRACT
Conversation analysis, or the study of social interaction, is an interdisciplinary approach that has been applied to the study of naturally occurring conversation in family, social, and institutional settings. It looks at the ways in which participants collaborate in the construction of actions in conversation, which are appropriate to the achievement of particular goals – from sharing compliments to purchasing goods or providing healthcare or legal services. It has increasingly been applied to plurilingual conversation, including dialogue interpreting. The chapter deals with studies based on the analysis of naturally occurring interpreter-mediated interactions. It highlights that while interpreters are expected to participate in interaction with the sole purpose of translating interlocutors’ turns, there is a lot they do to coordinate participants’ contributions, clarify meanings and purposes, and make items explicit. Such coordinating activity is inevitable in dialogue interpreting in that it contributes to interaction construction and its meaning-making.
