Abstract
The aims of the present paper are to examine, on the basis of semi-structured interviews, translators’ awareness of their own roles in providing language support to foreign residents and to illustrate the relationship between the translators and both the users and the recipients of the service they provide. This paper specifies case studies of public service translation used to support the Thai community in Japan, with the translation being that of information related to public services into Thai. This results show that it is necessary for both translators and users to free themselves from the boundaries of a particular area. Recipients, too, will probably redefine the meaning of “community” and expand it to such virtual communities as Facebook. I believe that the day when translators will be able to form more harmonious relationships with users and recipients, instead of ones often characterized by distress, is not very far ahead.
https://ror.org/035t8zc32 
