The use of reported speech by court interpreters in Hong Kong

Abstract

This is a corpus-based study that investigates instances in which court interpreters in Hong Kong deviate from using direct speech and the first person, notwithstanding the requirement to use both of these when rendering statements made by witnesses or defendants. Quantitative data indicate that court interpreters do adhere to this requirement when interpreting Cantonese into English, but deviate from it when interpreting English into Cantonese. These data suggest that the use of reported speech and/or of the third person has identification functions that help Cantonese-speaking witnesses and defendants follow court proceedings and serve the pragmatic function of adding illocutionary force to interpreted utterances. Data from interviews with interpreters and legal professionals suggest that some latitude is exercised and tolerated when interpreters deviate from using direct speech and/or the first person when the target language is Cantonese. The findings indicate that court interpreters in the corpus observe strict professional guidelines by using direct speech most of the time, but occasional deviation from the direct approach suggests that court interpreters are able to make discretionary decisions to facilitate communication.

Orality and authenticity in an interpreter-mediated defendant’s examination

“…In the extensive literature on language and the law, it has been argued that what characterises legal interaction is the structure of the interpersonal exchanges between professional and non-professional participants: though displaying many of the features of everyday face-to-face interaction, these exchanges are often constrained by specific formal and functional requirements of discourse production and bureaucratic processing, such as consistency, facticity and the use of a standard language variety (Haviland 2003). Moreover, analysis of legal-lay interaction has demonstrated the tendency amongst institutional representatives (case workers, police officers, examining magistrates) to reframe lay discourse in the direction of institutional rules and conventions (Conley & O'Barr 1990;Coulthard 2004;Heydon 2005;Sarangi & Roberts 1999). As they are transformed into written statements by officials (police, court), oral testimonies undergo a series of alterations; the final version of the testimony is thus "collaboratively created" (Hale 2007: 67), creating a fuzziness about its authorship.…”

“…Speakers may lack the necessary contextual background or preknowledge to infer implicit pragmatic meaning. Discrepancies between interlocutors' frames for understanding social and linguistic behaviour have been the subject of several studies in the field of language and the law (Conley & O'Barr 1990;Drew & Heritage 1992). These studies have shown that legal representatives rely on particular pragmatic mechanisms and criteria of textual production (consistency and factuality expressed in a monolingual standard code; Maryns 2012), which are part of the "institutional literacy" of their profession, showing a tendency to assume that lay participants too share this knowledge.…”

The use of reported speech and the perceived neutrality of court interpreters

“…In actual practice, studies have shown that interpreters, both professional and novice, often deviate from the direct speech convention (Angermeyer 2009;Bot 2005;Cheung 2012;Dubslaff & Martinsen 2005;Johnen & Meyer 2007;Takimoto & Koshiba 2009;van de Mieroop 2012). It has even been argued that interpreter neutrality suffers less when reported speech is used, since the use of direct speech implies that the interpreter identifies more closely with what is being said (Wallmach 2002).…”

“…In this case, disambiguating the authorship of the interpreted utterance can serve to emphasize its official status (Johnen & Meyer 2007). This authority-enhancing function may be particularly important if the interpreter finds it necessary to increase the illocutionary force of the rendition (Cheung 2012), reinforcing attribution (i.e., the message that the interpreted utterances originate with the speaker) and giving the addressees reason to evaluate them accordingly.…”

“…However, Angermeyer (2009) and Cheung (2012) have shown that professional court interpreters occasionally deviate from the direct speech rule. Such uses of reported speech, and any effect they might have on users' perception of interpreter neutrality (particularly when lay participants are involved), have nevertheless been little studied.…”