Achieving accuracy in a bilingual courtroom: the effectiveness of specialised legal interpreter training

Abstract

ABSTRACTCourtroom interpreting requires a high level of accuracy due to the strategic use of language in such an institutional setting. It is generally agreed among interpreting scholars that quality interpreting in court should accurately relay both propositional content and illocutionary force of the original utterances. This high standard of accuracy poses challenges to practitioners who may have only received generic training, if any at all, but little specialised legal interpreter training. A number of studies have shown alterations in the dynamics of interpreter-mediated courtroom examinations. Consequently, there has been a call for specialised training to improve the practice of court interpreting. However, there is a lack of discussion and a dearth of empirical studies addressing the effectiveness of such training. This paper will therefore present results of an experimental study that aimed to gauge whether specialised legal interpreter training is effective in improving interpreting accuracy among trainee interpreters. Using a quasi-experiment, the study found that specialised training is conducive to improving interpreters’ pragmatic accuracy and that interpreters who receive more training tend to perform better on accuracy than those who receive less. These results affirm the value of specialised training.