ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some general ideas about how interpreters can complement one another in practice and in theory. Bakhtin in his essay on speech genres, suggests an interesting way to look at how words relate to meanings which escapes traditional oppositions such as 'literal' versus 'contextual' meaning and 'lexical' versus 'pragmatic' meaning. The chapter explores his view of the nature of words, and the relevance of this view in investigations of interpreter-mediated interaction. 'Translation studies' is a young academic discipline. Interpreters on duty understand themselves not only to be translating between two languages, but also to be performing on others' behalf various activities, such as persuading, agreeing, lying, questioning, claiming, explaining, comforting, accusing, denying, co-ordinating interaction. This links more to a dialogical view of language and mind. The chapter also discusses on the difference between monologism and dialogism, following the language philosophy of Mikhail M. Bakhtin and a few of his followers.
