Language and Anthropology in the Courtroom

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Previous articleNext article FreeCurrent ApplicationsLanguage and Anthropology in the CourtroomLisa Bonnici and Christine JurtLisa Bonnici Search for more articles by this author and Christine Jurt Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreThe Special Court of Sierra LeoneFrom 1991 to 2002 Sierra Leone was engulfed in civil war; thousands of Sierra Leoneans, among them many women and children, were victims of horrific crimes, including rape, murder, and abduction. Children were taken from their homes and forced, often through psychological coercion, to take up arms, rape, and kill. In 2002 an agreement between the United Nations and Sierra Leonean President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah resulted in the establishment of the Special Court of Sierra Leone, whose main task is to try the individuals who bear the greatest responsibility for the atrocities committed during the war.Figure 1. Ehret with Sierra Leonean translators from the special court. (Photo Dominique Burkhardt)View Large ImageDownload PowerPointThe court aims to provide all witnesses and defendants with translations of court proceedings into a language of their choice, but limited resources have made this a challenging task. Initially, court translators received minimal formal training, and none of Sierra Leone’s roughly two dozen languages had an established legal lexicon. This was the situation when the Swiss anthropologist Rebekka Ehret became chief of the court’s language unit. Ehret, who speaks fluent Krio, the most widespread Sierra Leonean language, had lived in the West African country with her four children carrying out anthropological fieldwork and brought with her an understanding of the country’s people and its linguistic landscape and political climate. She and her team had to provide accurate and timely translations of testimony for the international legal community and keep the Sierra Leone public informed on the proceedings.As an anthropologist with a linguistics background, Ehret knew that cultural and linguistic matters would affect translation work and, in turn, the work of the court and the wider community. The effect of the translator’s gender on the accuracy of translation was one of the major issues on which she focused. Translators were at first exclusively male, and they found it difficult and embarrassing to translate women’s descriptions of rape. This prompted Ehret to initiate a recruitment and training program for women translators, and today there are equal numbers of men and women serving as translators for the court, all of whom have received formal training and certification. Moreover, the team has created glossaries of legal terms in six of Sierra Leone’s languages. Additionally, the experiences of the translators themselves, all of whom were affected by the civil war, are now being addressed through counseling.Ehret’s efforts have made a strong contribution to the court’s work and provide a much‐needed commentary on the role of language and anthropology in the administration of justice. She has since returned to Switzerland after more than two years with the court, and her position has been assumed by a male team member. There are still many challenges to be met in ensuring access to quality translation services, among them the continuing difficulty in accommodating the language requests of those who speak less widely spoken Sierra Leonean languages. Ehret is hopeful that, as Sierra Leone becomes a post–civil‐war society and the court finishes its work, the translators will find employment in the national court and other institutions and organizations throughout the country. However, several translator positions have recently been eliminated. Whether anthropological and linguistic input will continue to be sought in the country’s legal system remains to be seen. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4August 2007 Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/519798 Views: 165 PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.