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How Many Interpreters Does It Take to Interpret the Testimony of an Expert Witness? A Case Study of Interpreter-Mediated Expert Witness Examination

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Abstract

Through the analysis of the discourse of an interpreter-mediated expert witness examination in a Korean criminal courtroom, this paper examines challenges in obtaining evidence from an expert witness through unskilled interpreters and the related complexity of participation status during the multiparty interactions, namely the courtroom examination. This paper, drawing on the participation framework theories, demonstrates how all participants are engaged in negotiation and interpretation of the meaning of the expert testimony. The two unskilled interpreters, who are primarily responsible for interpreting, collaborate with each other in order to achieve communication when they face problems or difficulties in the other’s interpreted rendition. However, despite the collective efforts to accurately obtain and understand the expert evidence accurately, such efforts are not always successful in the absence of skilled interpreters. Based on these findings, this paper argues that a team of unskilled interpreters is not sufficient to accomplish the demanding task of interpreting expert evidence, and further, the court needs to be meticulous about the quality of courtroom interpreting which have potential implications for achieving just legal outcomes.

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Notes

  1. Interpreters need a certain level of prior knowledge to understand the source language speech and to produce adequate interpretation. Empirical evidence demonstrates that preparation enhances accuracy in terms of the use of correct terminology and sense consistency between the source text and the target text [11, 13, 30].

  2. The accused was found guilty and sentenced to a 20-year-imprisonment.

  3. Korean courts recruit interpreters every year based on the applicants’ education, work experience, and overseas experience. The court lacks expertise to judge the applicant’s interpreting ability because there is no way to test interpreting skills.

  4. Goffman [15: 128] discusses participant roles in the context of footing, which he defines as “the alignment we take up to ourselves and the others present as expressed in the way we manage the production or reception of an utterance”.

  5. Powerful participants in talk may self-select or select non-powerful participants, but not vice versa [10: 153].

  6. It is the current practice of the Korean courts to require the counsel to present written questionnaire prior to the courtroom examination, which facilitates the court’s preparation of trial records. Most of the questions during the witness examination are based on the prepared questionnaire, but counsel may skip questions or may ask follow-up questions spontaneously. Interpreters generally receive a copy of the written questionnaire when the examination-in-chief proceeds.

  7. The presiding judge was conscious of challenges associated with interpreting by non-specialists and interrupted the counsel’s question and dissuaded the defense counsel from asking a long and technical question on the autopsy report. The judge also requested the expert witness to break up his testimony so that the interpreter could interpret, and on occasion he allowed INT2 to provide a summary of the evidence. All in all, the judge was tolerant of the performances of the two interpreters. Although the data is not presented in this paper, the judge encouraged INT2 to summarize what the witness said when he balked at interpreting. Such leniency of legal professionals is common when the general quality of court interpreting is low and when they have a low expectation [26: 63–64]. However, the judiciary authorities should be aware of ethical consequences of deviations from the complete and accurate rendition of original utterances in court interpreting.

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  1. Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Jieun Lee

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Lee, J. How Many Interpreters Does It Take to Interpret the Testimony of an Expert Witness? A Case Study of Interpreter-Mediated Expert Witness Examination. Int J Semiot Law 28, 189–208 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-013-9346-5

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