The interpreter and the spectacle of confrontation

Televised formats such as talk shows and news interviews often include foreign guests whose participation requires the services of interpreters. Several studies have illustrated how, in media interpreting settings, interpreters are active participants in the interaction, rather than simply ‘revoicing machines’. Most of these studies have concerned themselves with ‘infotainment’ shows, i.e. with a setting (usually) characterised by the physical presence of the interpreter, who becomes a ratified participant in the interaction. In this article, we wish instead to focus on the actions of interpreters in confrontational talk shows, i.e. media interpreting contexts characterised by the staged production of confrontation, where interpreting takes place off-camera in the simultaneous mode. Using examples from two Italian political talk shows featuring foreign guests, we show that also in this simultaneous interpreting context interpreters actively participate in conversational exchanges and are instrumental in the accomplishment of the confrontational practices which characterise such events.