WHAT DO JUDGES NEED TO LEARN ABOUT THE PREMISES OF COURT INTERPRETING?

1. Tina Paulsen Christensen (tpc@asb.dk)Associate Professor, Ph.D.TRAFUT - workshopin Antwerp18-20 October 2012 WHAT DO JUDGES NEED TO LEARN ABOUT THE PREMISES OF COURT INTERPRETING?

2. Online-survey (2010) • The aim of the project was to investigate Danish judges’ expectations towards court interpreters and lived experiences with practicing court interpreters. • A questionnaire was sent to 350 Danish judges working at the 24 Danish district courts (byretter) and 2 high courts (landsretter). • In total, 170 judges filled in the online-questionnaire (a response rate of 48.6 %).

3. Types of experienced problems • Incorrect and inadequate interpreting • Off-recorddialogues • Poorlanguageskills • Interpreterswhodon’tobserveimpartiality • Roleconfusion • Interpreterswhodon’tpossess the necessaryknowlege or educationalbackground • Use of indirect forms of address • Quality • Formal requirements

4. Research impacts on education of judges ”The Danish court Administration agrees with the conclusions of the research report of the researchers [Christensen and Martinsen, red.] that there is a need for more and better trained interpreters in a number of languages. The greatest barrier to good courtroom interpreting is a shortage of qualified interpreters. This means that the courts are sometimes forced to rely on the service of people who do not possess the necessary qualifications to act as interpreters. The Administration also agrees with the researchers, that the Administration needs to look into whether it is possible to prepare judges better for the use of court interpreters. Therefore, as from autumn 2012, the Administration will start educating judges in the use of courtroom interpreting services”. (Danish Ministry of Justice16 April 2012, my translation)

5. Aim • The aim of this paper • is to present conclusions • drawn from the online- • survey and to discuss • the possible implications • for judicial training and • education.

6. Facts • According to the Danish National Police, by 11 November 2011 there were 1,984 active interpreters registered in the official interpreter list managed by the Danish National Police, covering approx.140 languages/dialects. • Of the interpreters working at the courts, 80% do not have any interpreting qualification. • In May 2011, the number of state-authorised translators and interpreters (beholders of an MA in interpreting and trans-lation) was as follows: English (173), German (54), French (41), Spanish (27), Italian (9), Turkish (5), Russian (4), Polish (4), Portuguese (2), Norwegian (2), Arabic (1), Finnish (1), Flemish (1), Greek (1), Dutch (1), Icelandic (1), Romanian (1) and Slovakian (1). • .

7. Danish guidelines on courtinterpreting • ”The goal of the interpreter is to facilitate communication between parties in court who do not share a common language so that this communication is as smooth as it would be if the parties did have a common language. Successful interpreting is achieved when the ongoing interaction in court takes place (almost) as if no interpreter was present”. • (Danish Court Administration 2003: 1; my translation)

8. Performance requirements (1) The Danish court interpreter shall • relay the content of the source text faithfully, i.e. without changing, omitting or adding anything to the source message, • observe impartiality, • if possible copy the style of the minority-language speaker, • ask for repetition, if he/she believes that he/she did not catch everything said correctly,

9. Performance requirements (2) • ask for clarification, if there is something he/she did not understand, • inform the court about possible misunderstandings, • inform the court if cultural factors or implications seem to influence the communication, • prepare him- or herself for the assignment, e.g. by means of research on relevant terminology,

10. Performance requirements (3) • choose an adequate mode of interpreting, and • use direct speech (first and second person singular). The Danish court interpreter shall not • provide interpreting for family members and make statements about the case.

11. What the 170 respondents told usabout themselves Workplace: • district court 82.8 % • high court 17.2 % Gender: • Female 55.9 % • Male 44.1 % Age: • average 48.2 years Number of years employed as a judge: • average 13.2 years

12. Interpreting-relatedquestions • Interpreting experience: In 2009, the judges, on average, had participated in interpreter-mediated court proceedings 12.5 times, however, with an individual range between 0 and 100 • Knowledge of the guidelines: 50.3 % did not know the guidelines • Preferred form of address: • 79.6 % direct speech • 13.4 % direct and indirect speech • 1.9 % indirect speech • 1.9 % do not address the minority-language speaker • 3.2 % were unable to answer the question

13. The importance of direct forms of address The use of indirect forms of address face interpreters with a moral dilemma: • To be faithful to the original utterance and interpret the user’s utterance in the same person (e.g. ”where was he last night?”), even though the interpreter knows it was addressed to him/her? • To simply relay the question to the minority-language speaker in his/her own words, thereby adopting direct speech?

14. How is the interpreter supposed to transmit utterances? 1 2 3 4 5 □ □ □ □ □ 1: The interpreter should relay the content of the original utterance without changing, omitting or adding anything. 5: The interpreter is allowed to make reductions as long as the interpreter is being faithful to the meaning of the original utterance. 1.61

15. The importance of faithfulness (1) “It is problematic when the interpreter is not aware that he or she simply has to interpret what is being said – not the interpreter’s understanding of it.” ”Many interpreters are good, but there are also many interpreters, who don’t seem to know that they – roughly speaking – are supposed to act as a ”translation machine” (which is, however, able to deal with linguistic nuances)”.

16. Faithfulness – whatdoes it mean? • An interpreter provides a faithful rendition, if the rendition maintains not only the semantic meaningof the utterance, but also the intention behind it, the style of the utterance and its intended effect. This is typically referred to as a pragmatic translation. • In order to maintain the pragmatic meaning of an original utterance, the interpreter might need to make decisions between alternatives, that is, to make choices, and - if necessary - changes.

17. Copy the style of the speaker?

18. The importance of the style • In court, language is used to achieve specific purposes, e.g. to elicit information or to test the credibility, trust-worthiness and intelligence of the defendant/witness. • People are judged not only on what they say, but how they say it. • Research (Hale 2008) shows that interpreters rather than replicating the speech style of the speaker, use their own style, because they fear that if they maintain incoherent speech, incomplete sentences or hesitation markers, they are the ones who will be judged as incompetent.

19. A comment on style “E.g. Arabic/Kurdish and Somali interpreters. Sometimes I have the suspicion that the interpreter does not simply translate questions and answers, but tries to produce meaningful and coherent renditions. However, if the utterance of one of the primary participants is rubbish, I still want the interpreter to interpret the nonsense in order for me to be able to take my own position on the statement. I want to be the one who gives the explanations needed and further instructions, which are then translated by the interpreter”.

20. Do thesetasksliewithin the responsibility of the interpreter?

21. The importance of askingclarifyingquestions “Typically, the interpreter explains something and argues on behalf of the accused/suspect or discusses the answer before it is interpreted into Danish”. “Untrained interpreter (Somalian) who, without any doubt, identified himself with the accused person and obviously discussed with the accused how to best answer the questions”.

22. Conclusion Defendant, law, court, judge, sen-tence, conviction, witness, teste-mony, appeal, pleading, accu-sation …… Judges need to learn that: • Meaning is dynamic and must be negotiated through interaction • faithfulness is a shared responsibility!