ABSTRACT
This chapter explores interpreters' means of managing interaction order and how the efficiency of these means depends on the primary interlocutors' activity. In a communicative pas de trois, the interpreter's task is to do a certain part of others' sense-making, which includes the task of coordinating their communicative activities. As an interpreter one also needs to learn how to support the establishment of communicative interaction between quarrelling antagonists, and how to perform as an interpreter without denying the parties their right to be angry with one another. One is the situation where primary interlocutors display competing expectations towards the interpreter's alignment, and another is the situation where competing activities, conversational and otherwise occur. With training, interpreters can gain greater insight into the dynamics of conversational participation framework, and flexibility in shifting from one participation status to another in relation to what is heard and said.
