抄録
This paper aims to investigate how users with a certain level of knowledge of English
language, in addition to learning motivation, receive and utilize the presence of an
interpreter and the corresponding translations provided by said interpreter, and hence to
reveal the roles granted to the interpreter by the users. Six people in their 50s, 60s and
70s participated in this study, in which semi-structured interviews were conducted. The
results revealed the users’ different stances toward the interpreter: dependent and
independent positions, each of which represented participants’ dual identities as English
learners and as group members. The interpreter became not only a linguistic assistant
for learning materials, but also provided support for creating harmony among the users.
This suggests that the users’ individual or group characteristics can make their
understanding of interpreters’ roles varied and even unpredictable, thus raising
interpreters’ awareness of their unexpectedly wide-ranging possibilities as a
communication facilitator.
