International Journal of Research Studies in Education 2017 October, Volume 6 Number 4, 3-14 © The Author(s) / Attribution CC BY How interpreters tackle with cultural gaps in interpretation process: A descriptive study Vasheghani Farahani, Mehrdad Islamic Azad University, Science & Research Branch, Tehran, Iran (Mehrdadfarahani1365@gmail.com) Najafabadi Farahani, Mohammad Islamic Azad University, Science & Research Branch, Tehran, Iran (mohammed.farahani@yahoo.com) Received: 8 September 2016 Revised: 5 October 2016 Accepted: 14 October 2016 Available Online: 19 October 2016 DOI: 10.5861/ijrse.2016.1635 ISSN: 2243-7703 Online ISSN: 2243-7711 OPEN ACCESS Abstract The current study sought to determine the solutions by which interpreters and/or mediators handled cultural gaps in translation process. In other words, the current study examined how consecutive interpreters worked as cultural mediators in political contexts. To this end, Dirk Delabastita's model (1993) was exploited to see what strategies Iranian consecutive interpreters adopted to handle cultural gaps in interpretation process. Thus, fifteen interpreters took part in the research and two five-minute audio files were administered in English and Persian followed by a consecutive interpreting task from English into Persian and vice versa. After the interpreting sessions were recorded, the strategies employed by interpreters were analyzed and tabulated according to Delabastita's model and SPSS software. As the data represented, substitution was the dominant strategy used by interpreters in both Persian and English. Keywords: interpretation; translation; Delabastita's model; consecutive interpretation; interpretation strategies; cultural gap