Eva N.S. Ng
[Benjamins Translation Library 144] 2018
► pp. 49–71
The previous chapter explained the modes of interpretation and the audience roles in court proceedings, monolingual and bilingual. It compared the audience roles in two different bilingual settings, a common bilingual courtroom as well as the bilingual Hong Kong courtroom, where interpreters nowadays often have to work with court actors who share their bilingual knowledge. This chapter examines how the audience roles of the court actors, as construed in the previous chapter, affect their power and thus control over the interpreter-mediated interaction. In particular, this chapter illustrates an augmentation in the power of bilingual counsel while at the same time manifests a denial of the interpreter’s latitude in the interpretation of contextual clues and his/her loss of power in a courtroom with the presence of other bilinguals.