2025 Volume 24 Pages 213-231
The present paper investigates changes in the perception of interpreters in Japanese society between two epoch-making international events, the Tokyo Olympic Games of 1964 and those of 2021. The research questions are, first, whether any changes occurred, and second, what those changes are. The investigators looked at newspaper articles and four successive editions of a how-to book for aspiring interpreters. In the newspaper, instances of the term ‘interpreter’ were counted and analyzed. In the book, the cover illustrations and the table of contents of the four versions were compared. Changes were observed and categorized according to the following three aspects: 1) increased awareness of interpreters, 2) perception as a highly specialized profession, and 3) rearrangement of the role of interpreters among other means of interlingual communication. Further research is required to explore the images English learners in a wide range of generations have of interpreters.
