The figure of the interpreter and the role of the legal interpreter: attempts to assert a profession

The research aims to understand and analyze the figure of the interpreter, starting from its origins and attempting to understand their role in today’s society. To gain knowledge about this, a detailed analysis of the role of the interpreter is conducted starting from its birth and highlighting every aspect that concerns it, that is its skills, rights, duties, responsibilities and the different fields in which the presence of the interpreter is required arriving to the explanation of a fundamental fact: the conception of the interpreter and the translator as two completely different roles. The first part of the study (the Literature Review) is based on existing research in the field while the second one is based on an interview with interpreters. The interview aims to give a detailed definition and description of the interpreter’s role in everyday society, to compare the theoretical framework in interpretation with the practical reality experienced by an interpreter in society, with the various and complex situations which an interpreter is called on the deal with and with the challenges the interpreter has to face. The research starts from three specific questions: Which is the function of the interpreter? How can one become an interpreter? How is the figure of the interpreter received by society? The first two questions aim to give a practical idea of such profession, while the last one aims to know the level of knowledge about this figure by community. The study has been conducted through individual interviews for five interpreters. The first four interpreters have given voice to the interpreter’s actual figure in different fields of interpretation, such as industrial, fashion, social communication sectors; while the fifth has given a detailed explanation of the figure of the legal interpreter in the Italian society. The data obtained confirm the importance of the presence of the interpreter in each different situation in which it can be required, but at the same time highlight the unawareness of our great majority of society about such role. In a particular way, the information collected about the specific figure of the legal interpreter shows the dramatic Italian reality in with it is situated: an unprotected, undervalued and underpaid profession.