Towards a sociological redressing of interpreters’(in) visibility

Although it might be claimed that “invisibility” is not necessarily a descriptive tool researchers should recourse to in analyzing the interpreter’s role (Ozolins 2016), it can be usefully approached to extend interpreting scholarship and provide an additional angle to the debate. This chapter does so by connecting the epistemological position of sociological interpreting studies to the sociology of work. On the one hand, sociological interpreting studies have overturned the view of interpreters as mere language switchers, showing that interpreting is a socio-cultural practice where it is virtually impossible for interpreters to void their agency (Angelelli 2004). On the other hand, the sociology of work addresses how the practices and norms of work affect the recognition of individuals in wider structural systems, such as labor markets (Hart and McKinnon 2010; Pascale 2010). Through this integration, the chapter contributes to the theoretical framing of interpreters’ invisibility in academic discourse, renewing questions about its nature.