Abstract
This paper aims to identify the roles that interpreters play in the arena of professional baseball,
and hence to explore the expectations held of sports interpreters in general. This study reveals that more importance is attached to interpersonal or social roles than cognitive or linguistic roles in baseball interpreting. It also demonstrates that many baseball interpreters, after performing an invisible role to support players, desire to play a visible role by assuming different posts inside or outside the baseball world. One of the implications stemming from this research for sports interpreting is that interpreters should be prepared to shift their “footing” from being an “animator” to an “author” or at times to a “principal” in order to create an optimal environment for the players. In addition, sports interpreters need to adopt various interpreting strategies according to different situations, such as at post-game victory interviews and/or press conferences.
