Language Assessment for Court Translators and Interpreters

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the work of legal interpreters and translators and of the broader professional context, and then surveys qualification instruments, including testing. It describes typical courtroom terminology and registers, and the three main interpreting modes used—consecutive, simultaneous, and sight. It outlines the methodological peculiarities of legal interpreting in relation to other interpreting fields, notes the philosophical dilemma posed by the reality gap between jurisprudential principles and the actual performance of interpreters, and reviews the applicability of prominent translation theory models to the legal domain. It surveys modes of professional qualification from various countries, noting both procedural diversity and the importance of historical circumstances and sociocultural frames. It explores the scientific literature on interpreter and translator competences and on relevant testing methodology, and it describes several existing tests. The appendices provide artifacts from three tests.

Integration of a web-based rating system with an oral proficiency interview test: argument-based approach to validation

“…Other uses of language testing are inseparable from governmental policy, as in testing for immigration and citizenship (e.g., Kunnan, 2012) or court translators and interpreters (e.g., Armstrong, 2014). Language testing also serves different purposes in higher education, such as university admissions (e.g., Xi, Bridgeman & Wendler, 2014) and speaking assessments of international teaching assistants (e.g., Farnsworth, 2014).…”