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© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html

An Interpreted Focus Group Interview as a Type of Interpreter-Mediated Event

Danuta PRZEPIORKOWSKA

University of Warsaw

Abstract

This paper provides a brief overview of the use of interpreting in social research, specifically in interview-based research. It then goes on to examine one particular method applied in cross-cultural social research, a focus group interview, describing its characteristics (such as a ‘clandestine’ nature of interpreter’s intervention, heavy cultural embeddedness, unidirectionality, hybrid and multimodal input, non-mother tongue output, semi-structured conversation) as a distinct type of interpreted event in light of an existing parameter-based typology of interpreter-mediated events.

Introduction

Interpreting as a form of interlingual and intercultural mediation has been “instrumental in

human communication since the earliest times” (Pöchhacker and Shlesinger 2002: 1) and, as

an activity with such a long history, it has been present in an innumerable variety of events

throughout the ages. As the study of interpreting evolved and Interpreting Studies (“IS”)

began to emerge as a separate (sub)discipline, many authors attempted to map the subject

area of IS by using various classifications and taking a range of aspects into account. Some

of those efforts attempted to capture the rich variety of situations involving an interpreter by

developing typologies of such events.

The goal of this paper is to present one specific category of events which may involve an

interpreter: a focus group interview (“FGI”) in cross-cultural social research, and to position

it among other interpreter-mediated events based on an existing typology. In contrast to

conferences or court sittings, public service or medical settings, FGIs have rarely been

examined by IS scholars (this claim was confirmed during my informal conversations with

two prominent IS scholars in August 2009).1 While the existing literature on types of events

1 I would like to thank the teaching staff and tutors of CETRA Doctoral Summer School 2009 for their inspiring comments and encouraging feedback on my work.

Danuta PRZEPIORKOWSKA. “An Interpreted Focus Group Interview as a Type of Interpreter-Mediated Event” 2


two prominent IS scholars in August 2009).1 While the existing literature on types of events

involving an interpreter does not explicitly mention FGIs, such interviews do possess certain

distinctive characteristics which may earn them separate status as a distinct (sub)type within

interpreter-mediated events.

This paper has been written as part of a PhD project on mediated communication in cross-

cultural social research that employs interview-based, qualitative methods, specifically

focus group interviews. Apart from literature review, this paper is based on autoethnography

(my own experience of focus group interpreting in Poland for 15 years) and on interviews

conducted to date with focus group interpreters and researchers from over ten countries

(work in progress).

The Use of Interpreting in Social Research

For the purposes of this paper, ‘social research’ is defined as research work that “focuses on

gathering information about society and social issues” (Adams and Brace 2006: 6). This

kind of research may be performed in a broad range of disciplines, such as sociology,

cultural/social anthropology, social policy, political science, social psychology, marketing

etc., and for a variety of purposes, e.g. academic, policy-related or commercial (especially

market research). Throughout this paper ‘social research’ (and, consequently, ‘interpreting

in social research’) will be used as an umbrella term, without making any further

distinctions as they are of little relevance to the analysis. Moreover, the borderlines between

various subfields of social research are blurred, with many research projects spanning across

two or more disciplines or having multiple goals while relying on similar methodologies:

“although the aims of projects may differ, both market and social research are based on the

same principles and share many techniques” (Adams and Brace 2006: 6). Therefore,

‘interpreting in social research’ is delineated by a particular sphere of human activity (rather

than other factors such as, e.g., mode of delivery, product, setting etc.), in this aspect

resembling terms such as ‘medical interpreting’ or ‘healthcare interpreting’ (cf. Angelelli

2004a; Pöchhacker and Shlesinger 2007). For greater precision, ‘interpreting in social

1 I would like to thank the teaching staff and tutors of CETRA Doctoral Summer School 2009 for their inspiring comments and encouraging feedback on my work.



research’ in this paper covers situations which involve either immediate or remote presence

of an interlingual (and intercultural) mediator, whether in real time or post factum, who

renders a verbal output (whereas the input may be auditory, visual or mixed).

Social research may be monocultural or cross-cultural. This distinction is by no means

clear-cut as there are almost countless definitions of culture. For the purposes of this paper

‘cross-cultural research’ will refer to research endeavours that involve i)

participants/subjects from different countries who speak different languages, or ii)

participants from minority groups in the researcher’s own country who speak a language

different from that of the researcher (SAGE Encyclopaedia, “Cultural Context”). By its very

nature, cross-cultural research where researchers do not speak the language of the

populations studied will necessarily involve some kind of interlingual (and intercultural)

mediation such as translation and/or interpreting. In anthropology, where researchers would

spend months or even years watching the lives of other people ‘in the field,’ mastery in the

local language is strongly recommended: “fieldwork usually requires learning a language,

and learning it in depth” (Metcalf 2005: 10). However, this approach is neither realistic nor

feasible in contemporary cross-cultural projects where the area of social research requires

(verbal) data to be gathered from a few countries within weeks or, at best, months.

One of the key distinctions in the methodology of social research (one that is also relevant

for Translation and Interpreting Studies (T&IS) and for the typology of interpreter-mediated

events) is that of quantitative and qualitative methods. Without going deeper into those

methods and their underlying epistemological stances, we may generally say that

quantitative research seeks to quantify the data and typically applies some form of statistical

analysis whereas qualitative research is “based on small samples and provides insights and

understanding” (Malhotra 1996: 164).

Interlingual (and intercultural) mediation in quantitative cross-cultural research mostly

involves translation of written materials (research briefs, survey questionnaires,

interviewing instructions, sampling frames, research reports etc.) while the use of

interpreting is rare (apart from various project meetings, interpreting is used mostly for pilot

surveys: questionnaire-based interviews are often conducted in special research labs



equipped with one-way mirrors).2 On the other hand, cross-cultural projects involving

qualitative research rely heavily on interpreter mediation due to the nature of methods

applied (first and foremost, various types of interviews, as well as observation) and data

generated (verbal data playing a crucial role in qualitative research).

Another important distinction which seems relevant to the typology of interpreter-mediated

events within social research is that between primary and secondary research. The former,

also known as field research, is concerned with collecting data that does not, at the time,

exist and needs to be elicited (e.g. through surveys, interviews, experiments etc.) whereas

the latter, often referred to as desk research, focuses on analysing existing data, records and

findings, the vast majority of which is available in written format. While desk research may,

and very often does, rely on translation of various genres of texts, the use of interpreter

mediation is not very common. An interpreter may be invited to perform (recorded) sight

translation (itself being a hybrid between translation and interpreting, as demonstrated, e.g.,

by Biela-Wołońciej 2007) or to interpret (in a simultaneous or consecutive mode) some pre-

recorded audio or video material. Of those, only the latter seems reasonably specific to

social research (although one might also imagine live interpreting of pre-recorded

sound/video files in other spheres, e.g. in the media). On the other hand, primary research in

cross-cultural projects will often involve interpreters in the process of data collection, most

notably during various kinds of interviews.

2 A questionnaire-based interview in a quantitative survey is traditionally held in a face-to-face setting. While telephone and online interviewing has become very common in recent years, these two modes do not lend themselves to observation as easily as a face-to-face interview. However, an interpreter may be used for any of these surveying modes (although a translation may be more convenient in the case of online surveys). When a face-to-face interview is observed by a researcher or a client who does not speak the local language, the setting (a research lab with a one-way mirror) and participant roles are similar to those of a qualitative interview. The main difference lies in the degree of spontaneity in communication: a substantial part of a survey interview consists of reading a pre-prepared text (survey questionnaire). The interviewer needs to follow the questionnaire closely, reading out instructions, questions and answer options to the respondent. The respondent either chooses from a set of pre-defined options (close-ended questions) or provides a spontaneous answer (open-ended questions). The research tool (i.e. the questionnaire) will often be made available to the interpreter beforehand. Therefore, a large portion of the interpreter’s work in this setting may be classified as “simultaneous interpreting with text” (Pöchhacker 2004: 19). While a survey interview is certainly a distinct research tool from a social researcher’s perspective, an interpreted survey interview bears numerous similarities to focus group interpreting discussed in this paper.



The aforementioned distinctions in social research and the use of interpreting in events

specific to social research (i.e. excluding business meetings between researchers and their

clients, or conferences where research results are disseminated etc.) may be summarised as

in Table 1.

Table 1. Interpreted events specific to cross-cultural social research

Methods

Quantitative Qualitative

Mod

e of

dat

a co

llect

ion

Prim

ary

1.

– questionnaire-based interviews in pilot studies (face-to-face,

telephone, online)

2.

– interviews (various types, in various settings)

– observation (participant and non-participant)

Seco

ndar

y 3.

– none

4.

– consecutive/simultaneous interpreting of pre-recorded audio/video data [may be applied outside

social research]

Table 1 may also serve as a starting point for identification and classification of interpreter-

mediated events specific to social research. Further on in the paper we will examine one of

the events that falls into Cell 2 of Table 1: a focus group interview.

Focus Group Interviews: A Brief Introduction

History

A focus group interview (also called a focus group, a focus group discussion, or a group

interview) is one of the most widespread methods used in qualitative research for collecting

primary verbal data. While various forms of group interviewing had existed earlier, this

particular mode of interviewing dates back to Merton and Kendall’s seminal paper The

Focused Interview, published in 1946, where they described the birth of this method of



social inquiry. However, after a short period of interest this method was largely forgotten for

a number of decades only to later be embraced by the market and become “the primary

qualitative method in marketing research” (SAGE Encyclopaedia, “Focus Groups”). This

fairly unusual history is remarked upon in Morgan’s paper written in the mid-1990s: “…the

past decade has produced a remarkable surge of interest in group interviews generally and

focus groups in particular. Much of this interest first surfaced in the mid-1980s” (Morgan

1996: 129). During the 1980s focus groups reappeared in social sciences and are now

commonly used in cross-cultural research in a variety of fields, e.g. academic, policy-related

or marketing research. An expert in the latter field once remarked: “Focus groups are the

most important qualitative research procedure. They are so popular that many marketing

research practitioners consider this technique synonymous with qualitative research”

(Malhotra 1996: 166). Even though this statement refers to the mid-1980s in the USA, it still

has relevance today, although the arrival of new techniques, among them online focus

groups, has certainly changed the overall picture.

Topics and participants

The list of topics that have been, and may be, explored through focus group interviews is

virtually unlimited and so is the range of target groups invited to participate. Some examples

are: people’s experience with natural disasters, coping strategies of HIV-positive mothers,

people’s perception of law and legal professionals, men’s shaving and grooming habits,

women’s perception of beauty product advertising, mothers’ ideas on how to feed their

babies etc. Focus groups have also been employed by Translation Studies scholars to

explore a range of relevant topics, one of the most recent examples being Koskinen’s study

of in-house translators working for the Finnish Unit of the Directorate-General for

Translation at the European Commission (Koskinen 2008: 82–118).

Definition, characteristics and procedure of FGIs

There are many definitions of focus group interviews which capture the key characteristics

of this communicative event. One of the most concise definitions was provided by Patton:



“A focus group interview is an interview with a small group of people on a specific topic.

Groups are typically 6 to 10 people with similar backgrounds who participate in the

interview for one to two hours” (Patton 2002: 385).

The interview may be more or less structured (and usually follows a general guide or set of

questions) and is conducted by an interviewer (also known as a moderator or facilitator)

whose role is manifold: to ask questions, stimulate discussion and encourage all participants

to become involved, “prevent single participants or partial groups from dominating the

interview and thus the whole group with their contributions” (Flick 2009: 195). However, it

is also stressed that the atmosphere during a focus group interview needs to be relaxed and

permissive in order to elicit the most open and spontaneous responses. The participants are

instructed that they need not agree with each other or reach a consensus (Patton 2002: 386),

which has a facilitating effect and encourages spontaneous responses.

Another factor which helps to ensure smooth and spontaneous interaction during FGI

sessions is that they usually consist of people who share some characteristics relevant to the

topic studied (for instance: age, sex, motherhood, usage of a particular brand or product

type, experience of the same health problem, the same occupation etc.). Esterberg puts it

simply: “What’s most important in forming a focus group is finding a group of people who

will feel comfortable interacting with one another and who will express their opinions

freely” (Esterberg 2002: 110).

A brief summary of focus group characteristics is provided by Malhotra:

Table 2. Characteristics of focus groups

Group Size: 8–12

Group Composition: Homogeneous; respondents prescreened

Physical Setting: Relaxed, informal atmosphere

Time Duration: 1–3 hours

Recording: Use of audiocassettes and videotapes [nowadays mostly digital recording – D.P.]

Moderator: Observational, interpersonal, and communication skills of the moderator

(Malhotra 1996: 167, Table 5.2)



While an FGI session is usually semi-structured or relatively unstructured, there are some

elements which tend to be repeated in a large number of groups (as shown in my own

experience and PhD research conducted to date). At the beginning of a session, the

moderator introduces himself/herself and the research firm/team. Then comes a ‘technical’

introduction about anonymity and confidentiality, audio/video recording, intended use of

data (research purposes only) and rules of discussion (no right or wrong answers, no need to

reach a consensus, spontaneous and frank responses are welcome). This is usually followed

by a round of participants’ introductions (e.g. first name, family status, hobby etc.) and

subsequently a warm-up (a short verbal game or a brief general discussion related to the

main topic of the session). This leads into the core part of the session which varies greatly

depending on the topic, purpose and target group of the study. At the end the moderator

often sums up the results, thanks participants for their contributions and invites them to

collect incentives, sign receipts etc.

Focus group interviews have many varieties, described at length in literature (for example,

see Morgan 1988 and 1993; Malhotra 1996; Bloor et al. 2001). They may vary in:

i) the number of participants (dyads with 2 people, triads with 3 participants, mini-

groups with 4–5 respondents, regular groups of 8–12 participants);

ii) the number of moderators (usually one, sometimes two);

iii) the type of moderation (sometimes a respondent is asked to moderate the group

temporarily to improve group dynamics or one of the clients joins a trained moderator

to ask questions);

iv) duration (regular, 1–2 hours vs. extended, lasting 3–4 or more hours);

v) degree of creativity required (regular focus groups vs. creativity groups which

generate ideas, product names, insights etc.);

vi) communication channel (face-to-face vs. remote with voice/sound transmission vs.

online groups where the respondents only communicate by typing on their computers

rather than by speaking);



vii) target groups (adults, teens, children, professionals, elites, parents, patients, minorities

etc.);

viii) degree of familiarity between the participants (groups of strangers, colleagues,

neighbours, fellow-students or friends – the latter known as ‘affinity groups’);

ix) access to other groups (normally, a group has no access to what happens in other

groups within the same project; however, in a so-called two-way focus group one

target group watches a related group and then holds its own discussion; for instance,

physicians may view a focus group of patients discussing a treatment and then take

part in a focus group to share their views) (Malhotra 1996: 171–172).

As for language of moderation/discussion (a factor which is of interest for IS), efforts are

usually made to ensure that the moderator and the participants speak the same, native

language. This is intended to facilitate discussion and avoid distractions (to make sure that

the participants concentrate on the topic of discussion rather than on speaking a foreign

language correctly). In international business settings focus groups may be conducted in a

widely spoken language (usually English) with participants from a variety of

linguistic/cultural backgrounds since other factors (e.g. their professional status, work

experience etc.) are considered more important than linguistic homogeneity.

Importantly, a focus group interview may involve much more than spoken interaction

between the moderator and a group of participants. In many FGIs the participants are

exposed to a variety of stimuli and asked to perform various additional tasks, whether

individually, as a group or in subgroups. For instance, they may:

a) watch video material (e.g. a TV commercial);

b) listen to a sound recording (soundtrack, radio commercial, narrative of a proposed TV

advert etc.);

c) look at pictures (photo sorts, mood boards, finished print ads etc.);

d) read written texts (new product concepts, advertising copies, newspaper headlines,

etc.);



e) write (complete a short questionnaire, write down spontaneous opinions);

f) use other senses (e.g. smell a new fragrance, taste new flavours of tea, touch new

packaging materials etc.);

g) manipulate real-life objects (e.g. arrange related products into groups in so-called

segmentation exercises, sort pack designs in order of preference etc.);

h) prepare a collage (e.g. tear out photos and texts from colour magazines and arrange

them on a large sheet of paper to reflect a theme, such as ‘the universe of brand X’)

etc.

Some tasks are even more complex than those included in the list above. For instance,

during a FGI for a technology company the participants were asked to set up a new inkjet

printer, connect it to a PC and print a few photos in colour, following the new user’s

manual. In another set of focus groups housewives were asked to cook a soup using culinary

products from a particular manufacturer. Table cookers were set up in front of a one-way

mirror so that the process could be viewed and heard from behind the one-way mirror (by

the clients and the interpreter).

This list of tasks is by no means exhaustive yet it illustrates the multimodality and enormous

complexity of focus group interviews as communicative events. If a focus group is held

under a cross-cultural project, an interpreter may be invited to provide either live

interpretation in real time or interpretation of a pre-recorded session (in which case the

interpreter’s voice is added onto the original video recording). As a result, a focus group

becomes an interpreter-mediated event and all of the aforementioned characteristics have a

direct bearing on the nature of this event and on the interpreter’s role, task and performance.

Technicalities of FGIs and their implications for interpreting

In the past, focus groups were conducted “in living rooms or rec rooms of ‘typical’ suburban

homes,” at least in the USA (Malhotra 1996: 418). In countries like Poland, where the free

market was only introduced after the fall of communism in 1989, prior to which there was

little room for unconstrained social research, focus groups are part of a new reality dating



back just 21 years. Consequently, interpreters have worked in this setting for only the past

two decades.

In most countries nowadays such interviews are conducted in advanced focus group

facilities by professional research firms which oversee the entire process: liaising with the

client, developing a discussion guide, appointing the moderator, recruiting the respondents,

conducting the interviews, outsourcing an interpreter (if required), recording the interview

on audio/video media, preparing transcripts, processing and analysing data, writing and

presenting the final report.

Such research firms use dedicated interviewing facilities (research labs or studios), each of

them consisting of four distinct areas and each of them serving different purposes (this

classification is based on my visits to 42 different facilities in various Polish cities):

1. reception area (where interviewees are greeted, asked to complete re-screening

questionnaires and sign receipts, and where they receive incentives after the

interview);

2. front room (the room where the moderator talks to participants; it is furnished with

flipcharts, TV/audio equipment, microphones and cameras for recording);

3. back room (with viewing and recording equipment, seating for clients/international

researchers and local researchers, and space for an interpreter);

4. administrative area (with recording equipment, office space, telephone lines for

telephone recruitment, kitchen and space for preparing food samples or other materials

for testing etc.).

One very important aspect of the setting is that the front room is usually separated from the

back room with a special sound-proof, one-way mirror (the interview which takes place in

the front room can be watched live by people in the back room whereas nobody from the

front room can see or hear what is going on in the back room). In the absence of a one-way

mirror TV broadcasting is sometimes used (i.e. those in the back room can watch the

interview on a TV screen rather than through a one-way mirror). Some research providers



also offer live web streaming, which means that an interview held in a research facility may

be viewed live by authorised users from a remote location.

The (in)visibility of the interpreter in FGIs and its implications

The ICC/ESOMAR International Code on Market and Social Research, widely applied by

professional research firms, stipulates that “respondents shall be informed before

observation techniques or recording equipment are used for research purposes” (Article 8).

It is common practice in focus groups in Poland (and presumably in other countries) that

FGI participants are told that they are being audio/video recorded and that they may be

watched by someone in the back room. However, my own 15 years of experience as a FGI

interpreter as well as my interviews with other interpreters and researchers have shown that

interviewees are hardly ever informed that their words will be rendered into another

language by an interpreter in order to be understood by people from other countries/cultures.

This information is withheld from the respondents for a reason: in order to eliminate bias.

Eliminating bias is a very important concern in social research (in its striving for validity

and reliability) and efforts are taken to exclude any factors that may lead to bias. In

particular, a group interview situation may provoke what is called ‘social desirability bias’

i.e. “respondents will want to give the response that they think is socially acceptable”

(Esterberg 2002: 86). The fact that information about interpreter mediation and the

involvement of people from other linguistic/cultural backgrounds is withheld has an

important bearing on the communication which takes place in the front room, on the

interpreter’s task and on the overall nature of FGI as a type of interpreter-mediated event.

The respondents do not modify their manner of speaking (speed, pronunciation, pitch, etc.)

or the content of their utterances (lexical choices, cultural references, etc.) in order to

accommodate the presence of an interpreter or people from other cultural/linguistic

backgrounds. Due to this particular characteristic, focus group interpreting differs greatly

from more ‘traditional’ interpreting situations described in IS literature, where participants

in a communicative situation are aware of an interpreter’s presence, even if they make no

concessions in their verbal or non-verbal behaviour. As a result, focus group interpreting is

very similar to live dubbing (live voice-over) or certain instances of media interpreting



(those with spontaneous, unplanned speech where no text/script is available to the

interpreter beforehand).

Consequently, interpreting in focus groups shares a range of characteristics with those types

of events (as described, e.g., by Alexieva 2001 or Mack 2001), for instance:

a) hybridity of input (monologue, dialogue, polylogue, multi-party discussion, etc.)

combined with uniformity of output (voice of one interpreter, ‘equipped’ only with

prosody and, sometimes, reinforced by the interpreter’s body language: when the

interpreter is seen on screen (live TV interpreting) or when she/he has face-to-face

contact with listeners in the back room (FGI interpreting));

b) multimodality of input (auditory and visual stimuli, meaningful body language, incl.

gestures);

c) only a very rough idea as to how the communicative event (TV programme, FGI) is

going to proceed;

d) no control over the input and no access to speakers (as opposed to classic ‘triadic

exchanges’ or many conference settings);

e) directionality (in focus groups, the interpreter always works into one language; on live

TV events bidirectional interpreting is sometimes possible when, for instance, a foreign

guest is interviewed by a local journalist);

f) unusual working hours (late evenings) and cases of “virtually non-stop interpreting for

hours” (Mack 2001: 129);

g) technical difficulties (unsuitable equipment, high levels of noise, poor quality of sound

input, rare availability of interpreting booths, etc.);

h) no stand-by interpreters for emergencies (the usual practice being that the interpreter

works alone).

On the other hand, the communicative setting of focus groups and live interpreting in the

media is different: an interpreter’s output in an FGI is intended for a limited group of people

involved in the project and is never published due to confidentiality concerns and business



secrecy. As a result, focus group interpreters are less exposed to criticism and, at least

potentially, work under less stress than media interpreters. Another important difference is

that focus group interpreters, located in the back room, have a greater chance of getting

immediate feedback from their audience. The interpreter ‘belongs’ to the back room, staying

in direct vicinity of listeners, even if physically separated by a wall or a glass partition

(however, this does not apply to remote FGI interpreting).

Another crucial difference between live TV interpreting and FGI interpreting is that while

the former is usually intended for the local audience and is done by local interpreters into

their mother tongue, FGI interpreting is usually performed for ‘visitors’ (researchers from

other countries, expatriates working on the local market etc.) by local interpreters who

usually work into their non-native language (mostly English). This arrangement stems from

practical reasons. As researchers in cross-cultural projects often travel to many countries in

order to supervise data collection and consult local teams, it is easier and more cost-

effective to hire local interpreters. While this may “challenge the traditional axioms” (cf.

Pokorn 2005), it is a fact of life and a very common practice. Apart from having some

weaknesses (just as with any interpreting performance into a non-mother tongue), this

solution has some very important advantages. Local interpreters may offer more expertise in

local habits, customs, attitudes, etc., which are of interest to social researchers. Moreover,

spontaneous and colloquial group discussions are not accommodated to the needs of a

listener ‘from outside’ and, due to the very nature of social research and this particular

method, are heavily embedded in local culture and realia. As a result, a considerable

proportion of the input might be inaccessible and unfamiliar to a non-local interpreter. This

claim was supported in my interviews with FGI interpreters. For instance, a highly

experienced Asian interpreter said she was far less comfortable interpreting focus groups

with Americans into her mother tongue when in the U.S. than interpreting similar interviews

in her home country into English. One Polish interpreter with over 10 years of experience in

focus group interpreting into English strongly asserted he would never dare interpret a focus

group interviewed in England with native speakers of English into Polish.



Typologies of Interpreter-Mediated Events

Literature in Translation and Interpreting Studies brings numerous attempts at mapping the

broad field of interpreting by using various classifications (by mode of interpreting, roles of

interpreters, institutional settings and many other criteria). Among them, typologies of

interpreter-mediated events have been proposed by some authors (for examples see, e.g.,

Alexieva 1997; Diriker 2004; Pöchhacker 2004; Tryuk 2006 and 2007).

The following section of this paper will draw on the often-quoted comprehensive typology

developed by Alexieva, trying to position interpreted focus group interviews within that

framework. This author reviews various parameters which had been used in literature to

classify interpreter-mediated events (“IME”) and argues that “it is more productive to adopt

the ‘multi-parameter’ approach… and that more parameters should be included to account

for a greater variety of interpreter-mediated events that take place today” (Alexieva 1997:

156). She also acknowledges that real-life IME are characterised by a great number of

variables, which means that any attempt to account for all or most of them poses serious

difficulties for a researcher. Moreover, Alexieva admits that the boundaries between the

phenomena to be captured by a typology “are likely to remain fluid and that we cannot

expect to delineate clear-cut categories” (ibid). Consequently, she proposes a prototype

approach where events are seen as ‘families’ which include central members (prototypes)

and peripheral members (blend-forms). Her typology uses parameters which can be grouped

under two headings: mode of delivery and elements of the communicative situation. In the

following section we will utilise Alexieva’s parameters to examine interpreter-mediated

focus group interviews in cross-cultural research.

Where do Interpreted Focus Group Interviews Fit In?

Based on the characteristics of interpreted focus groups described earlier, we will now look

at them in the light of Alexieva’s parameters of categorisation in an attempt to describe

them as a multi-parameter category:



Parameter 1: Mode of delivery and production

Nowadays, focus group interviews are interpreted in a simultaneous mode, with “non-stop

delivery of the source text and parallel production of the target text” (ibid 157) with the use

of special equipment (auditory input is received via headphones, visual input is received via

a one-way mirror or a TV and the interpreter’s output is usually recorded on digital media).

While there is no communication between the speakers and the interpreter, communication

between the interpreter and the listeners may be more or less direct, depending on the spatial

arrangement. If an interpreter works from a separate booth/room, communication is only

possible before/after the event. In many facilities in Poland, however, the interpreter sits

almost side by side with the listener, which reduces the physical distance and brings this

type of interpreting closer to liaison interpreting (proxemic and kinaesthetic factors) and to

chuchotage (simultaneous mode of delivery combined with physical proximity). In this

arrangement, interpreters may make use of gestures and body language to enhance their

performance and receive immediate feedback.

Parameter 2: Participants in interpreter-mediated events

According to Alexieva, this parameter may be analysed in terms of five factors, each of

them briefly discussed below in the context of interpreted focus group interviews.

a) Command of languages

The moderator and the participants in the front room need to have a good command of one

language (usually their mother tongue) in which the discussion is held. Their verbal and

non-verbal performance is not affected as they are unaware that cross-cultural

communication is taking place (as mentioned earlier, information about interpreting is

usually withheld from the respondents). As a rule, the interpreter is the only person who

knows the two languages involved (unless someone in the back room has a command of the

two languages allowing them to control the interpreter’s performance). Directionality is

another important feature of interpreted FGIs (mentioned in one of the preceding sections):

FGI interpreters usually work into their non-mother tongue (mostly into English, sometimes

into other widely spoken languages).



b) Involvement in the textual world

In most social research projects, the participants of an FGI are involved in the discussion as

text entities (the discussion usually concerns their lives, experiences, opinions and attitudes).

Non-involvement is often explicitly discouraged (one of the moderator’s roles is to make

sure that the participants talk about their own experiences and opinions rather than those of

the ‘general public’). This will naturally result in a greater cultural embeddedness of FGIs.

c) Status

In Alexieva’s typology, status is related to the power relationships within an IME. In the

front room, the moderator has the discursive power over the event (may decide about turn-

taking and grant the floor to participants or take it away from them). On the other hand, the

participants have the power in the sense that if they refuse to co-operate, the entire FGI will

be considered unsuccessful. The interpreter’s power is of a discursive and linguistic nature

(discursive gate-keeping), yet it lends itself to control by other people in the back room

(those who have a command of the interview language and the language into which it is

interpreted). International researchers/clients will have a status and power which

corresponds with their institutional/business affiliation and their role in each particular

research project.

d) Role

The role of the interpreter has been discussed in IS literature by many authors (to name just

a few: Anderson 2002; Angelelli 2004a and 2004b; Kopczyński 1998; Roy 2002; Wadensjö

1998). In focus group interviews, the role of the interpreter is, indeed, very complex and

deserves a separate study which is beyond the scope of this paper. On the other hand, it is

interesting to examine an interpreted FGI in the light of Goffman’s participant roles (as

summarised in Wodak and Krzyżanowski 2008: 206). The moderator and the respondents in

the front room will interchangeably act as primary speakers and hearers (ratified

participants) but the moderator may also be an author (and so may be an international

researcher/client in the back room). The international researchers/clients in the back room

will usually be the principals (the ones who initiated the FGI interaction), with some other

principals being physically absent but perhaps watching the recorded FGI interaction at a

later date as secondary participants. The interpreter and listeners in the back room are



ratified participants but also eavesdroppers (not acknowledged as present by the respondents

in the front room yet in a position to receive the message). The staff of the research facility

may be seen as bystanders who ‘happen to be around’ and can witness portions of the

spoken interaction.

e) Number of participants

The number of participants in a focus group interview rarely exceeds ten, which helps to

create a cosy atmosphere and encourages speakers to apply less self-monitoring. According

to Alexieva, smaller gatherings tend to elicit a higher incidence of culture-specific verbal

and non-verbal behaviours, and this is certainly true of FGIs. On a scale of formality, focus

groups are often placed somewhere in the middle (semi-public, as opposed to public and

semi-private, cf. Wodak et al. 2009) but research firms often make efforts to reduce the

degree of formality in the way they manipulate the setting (by using special, ‘home-like’

furnishing in interview studios, by taking focus groups outside studios, e.g. to restaurants,

participants’ homes etc.) or moderate focus groups (using informal forms of address,

creating a friendly atmosphere).

Parameter 3: The topic of an interpreter-mediated event

In Alexieva’s typology, topics discussed during an IME can be placed along the ‘universal’

versus ‘culture-specific’ continuum. In qualitative social research, topics are usually closely

related to participants’ everyday experience, their opinions and attitudes. This means that

they are necessarily culture-specific and the discussion has a high degree of subjectivity

(something that is expected of FGI participants and strongly encouraged throughout the

session). The respondents are considerably involved in the textual world where they “figure

explicitly or implicitly as text entities” (Alexieva 1997: 164).



Parameter 4: Text type and text-building strategies

While interpreting is associated with the spoken mode of communication, IME may involve

varying degrees of orality/literacy. When discussing this parameter, Alexieva draws on

Shlesinger’s five criteria of orality vs. literacy (Shlesinger 1989):

a) Degree of planning

While the bulk of communication during an FGI is spontaneous and unplanned, bringing it

closer to the oral end of the continuum, the moderator often uses a pre-prepared written

guide and in some cases there are specific, pre-formulated questions that need to be asked

during a session. Moreover, written stimuli are sometimes used (product concepts, print

adverts, summary political programmes etc.) which affect the speakers’ and interpreter’s

delivery, influence the coherence and semantic density of spoken interaction but also shift it

towards the literacy end.

b) Shared knowledge

The primary addressee, i.e. the moderator, brings a high degree of shared, culture-specific

knowledge into the event in order to facilitate the interview successfully. As a conscious

facilitating strategy, the moderator will sometimes ‘play ignorant’ but the level of shared

knowledge needs to be high even if not revealed to the respondents. On the other hand, the

secondary addressees (those who listen to the interpreter’s output) will inevitably have much

less shared knowledge and, consequently, will need support (from either the interpreter or

local researchers, or both).

c) Lexis

Given the semi-formal setting and the nature of issues discussed in FGIs, the participants

tend to use colloquial lexis and culturally marked imagery. This is also the case (although to

a lesser extent) in FGIs with professionals who are invited to discuss issues related to their

work rather than private life.



d) Degree of involvement

Spoken interactions during FGIs tend to feature increased involvement due to the face-to-

face nature of the encounter, the semi-formal setting and the nature of the topics discussed

(must be familiar to the respondents and, usually, related to their personal lives).

Homogeneity of participants is another factor which enhances involvement.

e) The role of non-verbal behaviour

As mentioned in one of the previous sections, focus group interviews rely heavily on non-

verbal behaviours and use a wide variety of non-verbal stimuli. This characteristic positions

them very close to the oral end of the continuum.

Parameter 5: Spatial and temporal constraints

In the vast majority of cases, interpreted FGIs are located in the speakers’ home country

(however, migrants living temporarily in a country may also be interviewed, e.g. for public

policy purposes). This means that speakers’ output will contain more culture-specific lexis

and communicative strategies than (hypothetical) communication outside their home

country. Such embeddedness is also enhanced by the fact that FGI respondents are hardly

ever aware of interpreting or a foreign audience.

While the presence of secondary participants (interpreter, international researchers, data

analysts) may be inferred from the interview setting, interviewees tend to focus on the

immediate situation (a semi-public discussion in a small group), applying less self-

monitoring and speaking in a more culturally-marked way. In contrast, those present in the

back room are highly aware of the modalities of the communicative situation and,

consequently, are likely to behave in a less culturally-marked manner (however, this does

not influence the interpreter’s task directly because of the unidirectional nature of

mediation).



Parameter 6: The goal of an interpreter-mediated event

As mentioned earlier, the primary goal of social research is to gather (discursive) data about

various aspects of life in society (with possible further implications such as development of

effective advertisements, formulation of policy guidelines, facilitation of decision-making,

etc.). This would broadly fit into Alexieva’s ‘knowledge exchange’ although discussion

participants would probably define it in terms of sharing views and attitudes. Importantly,

apart from the overtly formulated goals of FGIs (e.g. explore consumer’s attitudes towards a

new product concept, gather opinions on a candidate’s electoral programme, etc.), there are

usually numerous hidden agendas (just as in any other social encounter) which may

influence listeners’ expectations of interpreter’s performance and lead to ethical dilemmas,

challenging the interpreter’s own ideas of professionalism and neutrality.3 In this context,

Alexieva talks about the location of an IME on a scale between ‘conflicting goals’ and

‘shared goals’ as this shapes the internal structure of the event, creates stress and influences

the nature of the tasks that the interpreter is asked to perform. Depending on the nature of a

specific research project, an interpreted FGI may be closer or further away from shared

goals.

Conclusion

This paper has attempted to demonstrate that an interpreted focus group interview is a

distinct type of interpreter-mediated event, with specific characteristics that sometimes span

across categories that have been previously analysed in detail in Interpreting Studies. One

might look at an interpreted FGI as a highly complex event, with hybrid, multimodal input,

a complex communicative setting, specific spatial and temporal constraints and a high

degree of cultural embeddedness. The analysed parameters have a bearing on the roles of all

participants, including the interpreter, within this category of events. As interpreted focus

group interviews have received relatively little attention in Interpreting Studies and,

surprisingly enough, in also literature on methodology of cross-cultural research, there is 3 For instance, one interpreter interviewed for my PhD project was once asked to highlight positive opinions expressed by FGI participants and ‘play down’ negative ones. Another one was asked to transform any mention of ‘youth’ or ‘teens’ by the FGI participants into a phrase ‘young adults’ in order to help the client avoid the risk of non-compliance with relevant legal regulations.



ample room for further investigation. However, empirical studies of interpreted focus

groups are very difficult to perform due to problems with access to real-life data (recordings

or transcripts of interpreters’ performance) caused by confidentiality constraints which

apply to both commercial and academic settings (as has been the author’s experience).

Hopefully, more research on various aspects of interpreted FGIs (notably on interpreters’

roles but also cultural mediation, linguistic shifts or user perceptions) will become available

in the near future.



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About the author:

Danuta Przepiórkowska holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics from the

University of Warsaw and has also studied sociology at the University of Warsaw and

cognitive science at the University of Edinburgh. She is working on a PhD thesis on

mediated communication in cross-cultural social research (with a focus on interview-

based qualitative methods). She is an experienced translator, interpreter and a

translator trainer. Over the past 15 years she has interpreted in more than a thousand

FGI sessions.

Email: [email protected]

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