ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the literature on how the notion of norms could be applied to (conference) interpreting research. It reflects a search for concepts that would guide the author's own translatorial behaviour as, then, a practicing conference interpreter for the EU institutions. It is interesting that the mediator, who displays an expert view of how to use the interpreter's range of skills to keep the interaction going, then resorts to a rather 'default' statement as to what a proper translation is when he wants to reassure the participant, who is arguably less used to working with interpreters. The chapter argues that there is nothing strange or even particularly 'wrong' in the fact that linguists' norms or codes of practice are shaped by a variety of other actors in the institution they serve. It concludes the mediator setting the code of professional practice for the interpreter, who is "integrated as a fourth element" in the otherwise triadic exchange.
