Legal Interpreting and Translanguaging: Contested Spaces in the Centre-Periphery Dynamic

The dramatic growth in the number of immigrants in the United States has been paralleled by an ever-increasing demand for interpreters in the courts. The fifth, sixth and fourteenth amendments of the Constitution support the provision of due process and equal protection under the law for all residents. Legal interpreters are therefore needed to provide equal access to justice for linguistic minorities. However, it takes more than bilingualism to make a legal interpreter. The legal interpreter must also be able to manipulate dialect and geographic variation in his/her working languages, possess wide general knowledge, understand both the legal process and the related terminology, and also understand the various discourse styles used in the courtroom. But, despite the stringent requirements needed to perform legal interpreting, academic institutions have been slow to develop suitable programmes. While a few ongoing but limited legal interpreting programmes exist at the undergraduate level, the only comprehensive and graduate programmes are the Master of Arts in Bilingual Legal Interpreting and the Graduate Certificate in Bilingual Legal Interpreting at the University of Charleston, South Carolina.

Interpreting in legal settings outside the courtroom is an area where community and legal interpreting intersect, a “gray zone” where the rules from each of these areas may mesh or collide. Thus legal interpreting outside the courtroom is an area that has caused great confusion for both the legal interpreters and the community interpreters who practice in its confines. Two neighboring countries, the United States and Canada, have adopted different approaches to interpreting in this area and to the kind of certification necessary for those community interpreters who work in legal settings. This article discusses non-courtroom legal interpreting in the broadest sense in both the United States and Canada, overviewing spoken non-courtroom legal interpreting in both countries, addressing the various challenges involved, and summarizing the emerging best practices for legal interpreting outside the courtroom, including some current and developing certification programs that affect, or may affect, non-courtroom legal interpreting.

The principle that, during police interviews, people who do not speak English should have access to interpreters has long been established in legal practice in the UK. However, very little is known about the extent to which or how this principle is actually applied. The aim of this study was to provide a close look at current legal interpreting practices in different types of legal encounter in the UK. The broad questions guiding my analysis were: what was actually going on in these events; what were the specific problems associated with interpreting in legal settings; and what were the problems associated with interpreting between Cantonese and English? What can the close study of interpreters as they interpret tell us about the process of ‘interpretation’ in legal settings? An ethnographic approach was adopted to collect and analyse the data. I observed and audio-recorded four interpreting events which involved Chinese interpreters. In order to understand the process of interpretation and reflect the interpreter’s point of view, interviews with each interpreter involved were arranged immediately after the recorded data has been transcribed. The main finding emerging from this study is that the legal practitioners exerted most control over the interaction through their use of language. However, this control was sometimes undermined, knowingly or unwittingly, by both interpreters and clients. In addition, it was found that, while interpreting, the interpreters were trying to understand what was said, but that their understanding was shaped by their knowledge and experience of the world. The interpreters in my study filtered information which they deemed to be significant and relevant to the situation. Working with different languages and with different cultural traditions, the interpreters could only interpret in ways which they thought were most appropriate to the situation. For example in one interview, the police needed to find out whether the suspect had bought an MOT certificate knowing that purchase of the certificate was illegal. Since time of the action was not marked in the suspect’s answers (because in Chinese the verb itself does not indicate time); the interpreter clarified with the suspect, on her own initiative, whether he knew at the moment he bought the certificate that the purchase would constitute a crime. Interpreters were making moment-by-moment decisions related to the unfolding of the interpreting event rather than by reference to established procedures. Because of the complexity of the interactional processes and the power asymmetries involved in events such as these, I argue for a more dialogic approach to the study of legal interpreting, one which takes account of the participants’ understanding of particular legal interpreting events. I also argue for a more critical approach to the study of legal interpreting, one which takes full account of the wider institutional and discursive context in which specific legal interpreters find themselves working.

The work on legal interpreting can shed new light on or revisit the concept of interpreters’ professional rights and duties when they are operating in fragile environments (e.g. war and conflict zones). In particular, it helps explore the extent to which interpreters’ institutional and professional boundaries have been challenged in ethical terms. Drawing on Wadensjö’s (1998. Interpreting as Interaction. London/New York: Longman) framework and Sperber and Wilson’s (1986/1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell) Relevance Theory, my analysis shows that legal interpreters’ frequent pragmatic shifts are evidence of their pronounced involvement impacting on their neutrality and, ultimately, on the fairness and effectiveness of the legal process. This approach leads to better understanding of how the concept of ethics fades away on a spectrum from legal settings to war and conflict zones. In particular, it highlights what adjustments need to be agreed upon between the authorities and interpreting professionals in order to facilitate communication and create a new ethical approach to interpreting.

In recent decades, test design, assessment and evaluation procedures have received much attention and have focused on concepts such as quality, validity and reliability. Obviously this is also true for the highly complex testing of interpreters’ skills, including legal interpreting. In this paper, we will first discuss the significant changes that have been made in the final examination procedure at the end of the LIT (Legal Interpreting and Translation) course at KULeuven, Antwerp campus, which have been complemented by an introductory workshop for the graders. It is important to mention that graders can be language experts as well as external legal experts (judges, prosecutors, police officers, lawyers, etc.) The comparison of the scores of candidates between 2008 and 2013 (a period in which different evaluation grids were used) shows a tendency towards more overall failures. In addition to this, an analysis of the graders’ comments demonstrates that results are more consistent and that graders’ comments mirror the results better. The new evaluation method clearly leaves less room for grader subjectivity, which presumably points to the fact that candidates are tested in a more transparent and reliable way. Follow-up research (in grader focus groups) and observations of the actual evaluation process will enable us to ensure that graders are comfortable with the new method and to check if they use it in a consistent way. Verifying whether the overall procedure actually produces better and more competent legal interpreters is a further important step needed to complete this research project.

Legal Interpreting (LI) can be considered a specialised branch of Community Interpreting (CI). It encompasses interpreting in all legal settings, such as lawyer-client interviews, immigration-related interviews, police-related matters, tribunal hearings and court hearings and trials. In addition to a high level of bilingualism, legal interpreters need to possess specialist knowledge of the relevant legal systems, of the goals of the institutions concerned and of the discourse and language of their participants. Interpreters also need to understand their role and the way they can influence proceedings, have a solid theoretical underpinning to substantiate their choices and possess high level interpreting skills in order to perform to the required standard. Competent interpreting is crucial for the fair administration of justice, as inadequate interpreting can lead to juridical errors. Legal interpreters, therefore, require specialised education and training in order to become qualified to work in this setting. This chapter will present an overview of the education and training in interpreting in legal settings offered at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where the authors work. The course is part of a suite of post-graduate programmes but can also be taken by students who are external to the university as a stand-alone course, including practitioners seeking professional development opportunities. The course draws on the theories and research into forensic linguistics and LI as well as on practical experience from those who teach it.

Legal Interpreting (LI) can be considered a specialised branch of Community Interpreting (CI). It encompasses interpreting in all legal settings, such as lawyer-client interviews, immigration-related interviews, police-related matters, tribunal hearings and court hearings and trials. In addition to a high level of bilingualism, legal interpreters need to possess specialist knowledge of the relevant legal systems, of the goals of the institutions concerned and of the discourse and language of their participants. Interpreters also need to understand their role and the way they can influence proceedings, have a solid theoretical underpinning to substantiate their choices and possess high level interpreting skills in order to perform to the required standard. Competent interpreting is crucial for the fair administration of justice, as inadequate interpreting can lead to juridical errors. Legal interpreters, therefore, require specialised education and training in order to become qualified to work in this setting. This chapter will present an overview of the education and training in interpreting in legal settings offered at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where the authors work. The course is part of a suite of post-graduate programmes but can also be taken by students who are external to the university as a stand-alone course, including practitioners seeking professional development opportunities. The course draws on the theories and research into forensic linguistics and LI as well as on practical experience from those who teach it.

Our paper focuses on the possibility of offering supervised translating/interpreting services to legal interpreters and professionals at Maribor court in the form of a transcultural law clinic implemented as an elective course at the university level. In the empirical section, we will focus on the results of interviews with legal interpreters and professionals at the Penalty Department of Maribor court. On the basis of evidence acquired through questionnaires and interviews, this chapter analyses both legal interpreters and legal professionals’ perspectives on their role, mutual cooperation, conflicts that may arise and limits to their functions, all within the framework of current interpreting service provision practiced at the local Maribor court. The analysis of the data lead to establishing a transcultural law clinic in the form of an elective course at the Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor. The research was conducted and the clinic was organized within the project “TransLaw: Exploring Legal Interpreting Service Paths and Transcultural Law Clinics for persons suspected or accused of a crime” financed by the European Union.

For over a century, English was the only language in which law was practiced in Hong Kong, yet the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 has made legal bilingualism inevitable. In translating existing laws into Chinese, the Law Drafting Division emphasises the need to establish a semantic mapping between the Chinese statutes and their English counterparts, and to strive for both adequacy and acceptability when selecting a Chinese term or expression to represent a common-law concept. This paper examines how legal translators and interpreters resolve the tension between adequacy and acceptability, and concludes that the effort to achieve adequacy at the expense of acceptability may not always pay off.

This article argues for a critical, transformative approach to established principles and recurrent maxims in normative discourses in the training of legal translators and interpreters. It advocates a didactic approach going beyond the socialisation of the student in the norms and deontological principles governing the profession. The role of theorising is defended as an empowering tool for future professionals who will have to work in very diverse settings radically transformed by globalisation and migration. The significance of transformative approaches for a profession that must face unprecedented challenges is analysed and exemplified focusing on two recurrent principles expected in legal interpreting and translation: equivalence and neutrality.

The European Union adopted Directive 64/2010/EU in order to create certain minimum standards in the provision of legal interpreting. The Building Mutual Trust report provides guidelines to help Member States develop training courses to achieve these minimum standards. Italy has failed to introduce a system of accreditation or certification and set up the necessary training courses. The authors propose a minimum course, adopting a learner-centred approach with a strong theoretical underpinning, to enable Italyʹs untrained legal interpreters to achieve a discernible improvement in their performances while awaiting the effective implementation of the Directive.

This paper outlines the historical development of the Canadian legal system in the Eastern Arctic since the turn of the century, particularly after the Second World War. It discusses the challenges and difficulties faced by legal interpreters in situations where fundamental concepts of Indo-European justice were initially foreign to the Inuit. It explores some of the problems created by the differences between the lexicon and syntax of Inuktitut and English. It describes how the already difficult task of legal interpreting has been compounded by the recent change in the Jury Act of the NWT, in September, 1989, allowing unilingual jurors to sit on juries and how this situation has been handled.

Legal interpreting involves helping people who speak different languages and hold different roles in the legal hierarchy to communicate in legal settings. Each legal system has unique processes, terms and concepts that may not exist in other languages, leading to significant challenges for interpreters. To perform well, legal interpreters need a strong understanding of legal terminology. They also have ethical responsibilities and face communication challenges arising from cultural differences. Therefore, legal interpreters need specialised training, both in general interpreting skills and in the specifics of legal interpretation (Stern, 2011). The professionalisation of legal interpreting in the EU was initiated by Directive 2010/64/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, adopted on 20 October 2010. This directive deals specifically with the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings. The key points of the directive are implemented in different ways and to varying degrees in the member states. This study compares the cases of Belgium and Hungary with regard to the legal status of legal interpreters, official registers, codes of conduct, training and certification, and fixed rates for interpreters. The results show that, depending on the language background and needs of the two EU member states, the implementation of the directive can lead to different outcomes.

This article is the guest editor’s introduction to the special issue of The Interpreter and Translator Trainer on ‘Legal Interpreting and Translation’ (LIT). Monzó examines what fluctuations and advances are affecting the contents and methods proposed for training future legal interpreters and translators and argues that the changing legal, social and economic conditions, including an evolving linguascape and law reforms pertaining to LIT, demand professionals who can constantly adapt the services they offer to new settings and new conditions. Trainers need to be aware of the changing nature of the profession to adapt their own roles, and to set learning outcomes for a variety of learning contexts that allow future professionals to thrive in a changing society.As much as translators and trainers need to adapt, so do the curricula themselves. Recent reforms in higher education have introduced substantial changes, purportedly to better correspond to market and States’ needs. As new frameworks and methodologies are enforced and introduced in higher education, several mismatches and inadequacies regarding societal and market needs have to be redressed. Trainers across regions enjoy different policy space regarding planning and delivery but they all face a new generation of citizens, a global citizenship which has been said to be the most qualified generation in history and yet faces unprecedented unemployment rates. Against this background, Monzó questions the ownership of the curricula and examines how trainers themselves struggle with changes impacting their professional discretion and identities.

In the extant literature in Japan, the description of criminal cases involving foreigners goes back to around the fifth century; however, detailed depictions of language problems requiring legal interpreters started to appear in the Edo period (1603–1868). The cases of an Italian missionary who entered Japan illegally in 1709 and the robbery of Ainu graves by British consular officers in 1865 presented communication difficulties between the interrogator and accused in criminal procedures. This is common even today. This paper introduces the history of legal interpreting with reference to high profile cases, and reviews changes in communication issues in criminal proceedings involving non-Japanese speaking defendants in modern Japan. It also presents prospects regarding the shift in attitude among legal practitioners toward legal interpreting against the backdrop of recent judicial reforms including the introduction of a lay judge system and visualisation of the investigation process.