Locating translation and interpreting in a speech community: Locating the speech community in translation and interpreting studies

This chapter has as its starting point a linguistic group - speakers of a transposed, immigrant language in Australia - defined here as a speech community. This is a term widely used in sociolinguistics, but despite the social turn that occurred over 20 years ago, it is seldom used in Translation and Interpreting Studies. This chapter draws on a number of data samples from the Macedonian-Australian speech community in Melbourne to elicit the incidence of translation and interpreting in this speech community and to gain descriptions from protagonists of linguistic mediation. The data samples include: a survey completed by 60 first-generation and 38 second-generation speakers; interviews with a user, broker, dual-role mediator, bilingual employee and professional interpreter; a survey completed by 10 professional interpreters. Based on both quantitative data and an ethnographic approach, this chapter contextualises a speech community within Translation and Interpreting Studies, and proposes an expanded definition of the term to include translation and interpreting practices.