Critiquing and Deconstructing Metaphors: A Normative Ethical Framework for Community Interpreters

In 2000, Pym proposed that translators and interpreters adopt an approach of cooperation. In other words, practitioners should seek to enhance (or at least not prevent) the cooperation between interlocutors of other languages/cultures. Moreover, this proposition is in alignment with ideals from morality scholarship: Cooperation is the highest form of ethical reasoning. In community interpreting, this ideal is arguably evident in the frequently used metaphor of member of the team. This paper distills the “interpreter-as-team member” metaphor into a series of professional values to propose a framework that aligns with a cooperation-based, ethical framework for interpreters working in community settings.