The birth of conference interpreting is closely related to important diplomatic meetings in modern history and congresses of major international institutions. Nowadays, with the intensification of globalization, however, an increasing number of encounters with the purpose of sharing personal interests and knowledge are held within less formalized contexts. In such circumstances, notwithstanding conference communicative norms still exist, mutual understanding can be achieved between speakers and listeners through multiple interactional channels, including both verbal and non-verbal ones.
Setting off from Discourse Analysis and Multimodal Communication, this thesis aims to investigate whether interpreters’ presence modifies the interpersonal relationship of reciprocity between speakers and listeners, and if so, which type of communicative dynamics emerges accordingly. To this end, video recordings of Italian-Chinese consecutive interpreting from nine conferences characterized by a minor degree of formality were found online. Based on these data, two preliminary assessments were carried out thereupon, namely the examination of the background information concerning the above-mentioned events and participants involved, and a contrastive description regarding Italian and Chinese linguistic-cultural systems. Relying on contextual information and resources, the interaction between interpreters and other participants were analyzed qualitatively, including both verbal and non-verbal activities. In spite of the variety of dynamics observed, a tendency emerges, whereby interpreters attempted to establish dialogical relationships respectively with participants on stage (speakers and moderators), and audiences who attend the conference.