Citation: 32 Alternative L.J.

198 2007
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ARTICLES
THE CHALLENGES OF
COURT INTERPRETING
Intricacies, responsibilities and ramifications
SANDRA HALE
REFERENCES
I- S. Berk-Seligson The Bilingual Courtroom.
Court Interpreters in the judicial Process
(2000) 204.
2. See R. Morris (1995) The moral
dilemma of court interpreing'. The
Translator, I(1): 25-46; Sandra Hale
Pragmatic considerations in court
interpreting' (1996) 19.1 Australian Review
of Applied Ligustics 6 -72.
3. From a US judge, quoted in S Berk-
Seligson, above n 1, 2 10.
4. From an Australian judge, quoted
in Sandra Hale The discourse of court
interpreting (2004). 8.
5. The word translation is the genenc term
for the activity of convering one language
into another. More specifically, the term
Translation is used to refer to written
translation and the term interpreting to oral
translation-
6. I Mason & M. Stewart 'Interactional
pragmatics, face and the dialogue
interpreter'in Ii Mason (ed). Tridic
Exchanges Studies in Dialogue Interpreting
(2001), S1-70.
Do you swear by Almighty God that you.will well and truly
interpret the evidence that will be given and all matters and
things that are required in this case to the best of your ability.
Soy the words 'I do'
Interpreter- I do.
The above is one version of the interpreter's oath used
in New South Wales courts. Court interpreters are
required to enter into an oath to interpret faithfully,
and great weight is given to such oath swearing by the
system. Howevei, 'no amount of oath swearing can
guarantee high quality interpreting from an interpreter
who does not have the necessary competency" , and
the judiciary Would be very naive to think that oath
swearing is all that is required to achieve a reliable
service. Court interpreters face many challenges
in attempting to interpret truly and faithfully. This
article will discuss some of those challenges by
analysing the intricacies of the task, contemplating the
responsibilities of the interpreter, the other participants
in the communicative event and the legal system, and
exploring the ramifications of inaccurate interpretation.
Understanding the meaning of faithfulness
The first step to achieving a faithful rendition is in
understanding its meaning. Faithfulness, otherwise
referred to as accuracy of interpretation, is an illusive
concept that is inextricably linked to the context of
the communicative event. The old machine metaphor
has been cited by many as representing the legal
system's view of faithfulness. Judges have been quoted
expressing opinions that reflect what has long been
discredited by many', as in'the following examples:
'An interpreter really only acts as a transmission belt
or telephone'
'The interpreter should look upon himself rather as an
electric transformer, whatever is fed into him is to be fed
out again, duly transformed'"
A literal, word for word translation will not produce a
faithful rendition. It is very unlikely that any interpreter
would ever attempt to do so consistently, even if they
think the courts expect them to, as it would be an
impossible task. The concept that faithfulness equates
with literalness is very easily refutable with examples
such as (I):
(I)Spanish original -'Estoy que no day ms'
Literal, word for word translation - 'Am that no
give more'
Accurate rendition (depending on the context)
- 'I'm dead tired'.
What is more difficult to prove is that there can
be translations that, on the surface, may seem to
be accurate because they are grammatical and
comprehensible, but that do not convey the deeper
meaning of the original utterance. This needs to be
looked at in terms of the different approaches that can
be taken to interpreting. Those who argue for a literal
approach look at utterances at the word level and try
to match each word, in the same order in the other
language. Such translations would produce renditions
such as example I. The reason for this is that different
languages have different grammatical rules, use different
word order and express concepts in very different
ways. A more advanced approach, commonly taken
by untrained bilinguals, is to look at the utterance at
the sentence level, out of context. Such translations
will change the order of the words to match the target
language grammar, but will not necessarily be accurate.
This is called a 'semantic translation' and an illustration
of its effects can be seen in example 2 from the
OJ Simpson trial..
(2) Attorney: And you've been here 27 years, correct?
Interpreter: (accurate interpretation)
Witness: Haga la cuen/ vine en 69. Haga la cuenta.
Interpreter: I came in '69, YOU figure it out.
(laughter in courtroom)
Attorney: Okay. Why don't YOU tell me, how long
you've been here.
6
A literal translation of the witness' original utterance
would be:
'Make the count/ (1) came in 69. Make the count'
We can see that the interpreter does not attempt
to provide a literal translation. She provides a
semantic interpretation, where she maintains the
semantic meaning of the utterance, but not the
intention behind it. At the semantic level, it can be
argued that she produced an accurate rendition,
one that was grammatical and comprehensible. A
faithful interpretation, however, takes into account
the whole message of the utterance beyond the
sentence level. This is referred to as a 'pragmatic
translation'. To achieve this, the interpreter is required
to undertake a thorough analysis before deciding on
a rendition. Such analysis needs to consider not only
the grammatical differences across languages, but also
the cultural and pragmatic differences reflected in
aspects such as different social conventions, ways of
expressing politeness, and forms of address according
198 - AltLJ Vol 32:4 December 2007