Relatore: Professor Bruno OSIMO - Bruno Osimo, traduzioni ...

As think-aloud experiments cannot be defined as ‘situated activity
systems’ in the same sense as surgical operations, the manifestations of role
distancing in the present data seem to be connected to the function of role
distancing as a form o psychological self-defence. Conspicuous displays of role
distancing were observable only in the new data, and in the non-professional
subjects’ behaviour in particular. There are two potential reasons for the
apparent absence of displays of role distancing in the students’ translation
processes. First, Goffman maintains (1961: 139f.) that learners are granted
certain liberties in the period of learning, i.e. in the period of ‘role-taking’. The
role-taker is allowed to make mistakes which would otherwise be considered
discreditable, because ‘he has a learner’s period of grace in which to make
them – a period in which he is not yet quite the person he will shortly be, and,
therefore, cannot badly damage himself by the damaging expression of his
maladroit actions’ (1961: 139). It seems possible that the students of
translation see themselves as learners and, therefore, do not feel threatened by
exposing themselves to observation n the experimental situation. Second,
Goffman argues (1961: 109) that ‘immediate audiences figure very directly in
the display of role distance’. In the two parts of my experiment, the immediate
audience, i.e. the experimenter, may have occupied a slightly different role. In
the first sessions, which were organised to collect data for my pro gradu thesis,
the experimenter was ‘just a fellow student’ and, as a result, did not pose any
kind of thereat to the students acting as subjects. In the new sessions, in
addition to all the subjects having more firmly established roles in society, the
experimenter as ‘a researcher’ might also have occupied a slightly different
position, which, in turn, might have created a more face-threatening situation
favourable to expressions of role distance.
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