Applying Ethics in Interpreting: Investigating Attitudes and Strategies in an Iranian Context

Ethics is a crucial issue in the different dimensions of human life; hence, there seems to be a dire need for research to be conducted on ethics in different domains including translation studies and interpreting. This qualitative-exploratory research aimed at investigating the attitudes and strategies of applying ethics in in- terpreting through employing a triangulation method. Twenty interpreters sat for an interview and a ques- tionnaire, and the contents of three video clips were analyzed to detect ethical codes through axial coding in Grounded theory. Twenty-four detected codes were divided into three groups of pre-task (in-built) attitude (six codes), while-task (delivery) strategy (15 codes), and post-task (three codes) of dynamism of ethics in interpreting, and then the percentage of the participants who had pointed out each of these codes was calcu- lated. Since 15 codes out of these 24 codes were allocated to while-task strategy and seven out of these strategies were pointed out as very important codes of ethics, it was concluded that ethics in the while-task process of interpreting plays a more significant role than in pre-task and post-task during a task of interpret- ing. Also, 12 effects of considering professional ethics in the quality of interpreting were extracted from participant's words. Alongside designing a course of study named ethics in interpreting and establishing an interpreting syndicate are the most important implications of this research.