In a league of their own? Conference interpreters viewed through the prism of elite sociology

Authors:

• Antony Hoyte-West

Abstract

Conference interpreters are often active at the highest echelons of international affairs, and using theories taken from elite sociology, this study examines whether there are good grounds to state that conference interpreters can be said to constitute an elite. Building on previous research on the historical and contemporary development of the conference interpreting profession, the framework of elite resource areas (political, economic, social network, cultural and knowledge-based) as posited by Khan (2012) is outlined and subsequently applied to the domain of conference interpreting.