Ethics and the role of the interpreter

Issues of ethics have always attended interpreting, as practitioners will often be privy to complex or highly privileged information - whether related to national security, or personal trauma or difficulty, or sensitive business negotiations. Trust in those doing the interpreting is paramount for participants who lack command of the other language, and recognition of ethical practice is fundamental to recognition as a profession. Moreover, unlike other professions where there is a direct relationship between a practitioner and client, interpreters always work between two parties - either a speaker and listeners (as in conference interpreting) or between two interlocuters in liaison situations; ethical issues can crucially arise for interpreters from the behaviour and disposition of either party, and trust has to be obtained from both. This chapter first looks at how ethical considerations and resulting codes of ethics have arisen in diverse interpreting settings; it then goes on to examine often unresolved ethical issues over role and ethics, linking debates in interpreting to cognate debates in translation studies.