Chapter 2
Tell us about that
Using audiovisual clips to allow students to practise
interpreting authentic court questions
This chapter contains a discussion of the
findings of a small study in which the authors applied voice
recording technology to enable student interpreters to practise
authentic legal question-and-answer discourse from the
examination-in-chief and cross-examination phases of two jury trials
in New Zealand. The chapter discusses the purpose of lawyers’
questions in the common law adversarial courtroom, and identifies
the question types used in the video clips shown to students. It
then focuses on student renditions, identifying which types of
questions were interpreted most accurately, and which types of
questions were interpreted least accurately. The authors offer some
suggestions as to why some question forms may pose difficulties for
interpreters, and make some practical suggestions to improve student
understanding of the pragmatic intent of questions in the different
parts of the trial process.
Article outline
- Introduction
- 1.Court interpreting discourse: The language of examination and cross-examination
- 2.Methodology
- 2.1Error analysis of student interpreters’ renditions
- 2.1.1Clip one
- 2.1.2Clip two
- 2.1.3Clip three
- 2.2Findings of analysis of renditions by Mandarin-speaking
students
- 3.Findings
- 4.Analysis of question types
- 5.Discussion and conclusion
-
References
References (40)
References
Austin, John L. 1975. How
to do Things with
Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Baker, Mona. 1992. In
Other Words: A Course on
Translation. London: Routledge.
Barik, Harry. 1971. “A
Description of Various Types of Omissions, Additions and
Errors Encountered in Simultaneous
Interpretation.” Meta 15 (1): 199–210.
Berk-Seligson, Susan. 2002. The
Bilingual Courtroom: Court Interpreters in the Judicial
Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Burn, Jo Anna, and Ineke Crezee. 2017. “
‘That Is Not the Question I Put to You Officer.’ An Analysis
of Courtroom Questions in New Zealand Murder Trial Extracts,
and the Difficulties for
Interpreters.” International
Journal of Interpreter
Education 9 (1): 30–45.
Chen, Mai. 2015. Superdiversity
Stock
take. Wellington: Chen Palmer. [URL] (accessed December 1,
2017).
Crezee, Ineke, and Jo Anna Burn. 2019. “Action
Research and its Impact on the Translation and Interpreting
Classroom.” In Routledge
Handbook of Translation and
Pragmatics, edited
by Rebecca Tipton and Louisa Desilla, 355–372. London: Routledge.
Crezee, Ineke, Wei Teng, and Jo Anna Burn. 2017. “Teething
Problems? Chinese Student Interpreters’ Performance When
Interpreting Straightforward Authentic Cross-Examination
Questions in the Legal Interpreting
Classroom.” The Interpreter
and Translator Trainer
(RITT) 11 (4): 337–356.
Danet, Brenda. 1980. “Language
in the Legal Process.” Law
and Society
Review 14: 445–564.
Danet, Brenda and Nicole Kermis. 1978. “Courtroom
Questioning: A Sociolinguistic
Perspective.” In Psychology
and Persuasion in Advocacy, edited
by L. N. Massery. Washington, DC: Association of Trial Lawyers of America, National College of Advocacy.
Daniels, Harry. 2006. Vygotsky
and
Research. London: Routledge.
Dueñas González, Rosann D., Victoria F. Vásquez, and Holly Mikkelson. 1991. Fundamentals
of Court
Interpretation. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
Dunstan, Robert. 1980. “Context
for Coercion: Analyzing Properties of Courtroom
questions.” British Journal
of Law and
Society 7 (1): 61–77.
Erickson, Bonne, Allan E. Lind, Bruce Johnson, and William M. O’Barr. 1978. “Speech
Style and Impression Formation in a Court Setting: The
Effect of ‘Powerful’ and ‘Powerless’
Speech.” Journal of
Experimental Social
Psychology 14:266–279.
González Davies, María, and Vanessa Enríquez Raído. 2016. “Situated
Learning in Translator and Interpreter Training: Bridging
Research and Good
Practice.” The Interpreter
and Translator
Trainer 10 (1): 1–11.
Hale, Sandra. 2001. “How
Are Courtroom Questions Interpreted? An Analysis of Spanish
Interpreters’
Practices.” In Triadic
Exchanges: Studies in Dialogue
Interpreting, edited
by Ian Mason, 21–50. Manchester, UK: St Jerome.
Harris, Sandra. 1995. “Pragmatics
and Power.” Journal of
Pragmatics 23: 117–135.
Immigration New
Zealand. 2017. New
Zealand Refugee Quota Programme. [URL] (accessed December 1,
2018).
Innes, Bronwen. 2001. “Speaking
Up in Court: Repair and Powerless Language in New Zealand
Courtrooms.” PhD
diss. University of Auckland, Auckland, NZ.
Kiraly, Don. 1997. “In
Search of New Pathways For Translator
Education.” In Transfer: Übersetzen – Dolmetschen –
Interkulturalität. Funfzig jahre Fachbereich Angewandte
Sprach – und Kulturwissenschaft de Johannis Gutenberg
Universität Mainz im
Germersheim [interpreting interculturality. Fifty years of the
Department of Applied Linguistics and Cultural Studies of
Johannis Gutenberg University Mainz in
Germersheim],” edited
by H. Drescher, 135–152. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Kiraly, Don. 2000. A
Social Constructivist Approach to Translator Education:
Empowerment from Theory to
Practice. Manchester, UK: St Jerome.
Lee, Jieun. 2009. “Interpreting
Inexplicit Language During Courtroom
Examination.” Applied
Linguistics, 30 (1): 93–114.
Luchjenbroers, June. 1997. “
‘In Your Own Words…’: Questions and Answers in a Supreme
Court Trial.” Journal of
Pragmatics 27 (4): 477–503.
Matoesian, Gregory. 1993. Reproducing
Rape: Dominion Through Talk in the
Courtroom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Morris, Ruth. 1999. “The
Gum Syndrome: Predicaments in Court
Interpreting.” Forensic
Linguistics 6 (1): 6–29.
O’Barr, William M. 1982. Linguistics
Evidence. Language, Power and Strategy in the
Courtroom. New York: Academic Press.
Pérez-González, Luis. 2006. “Interpreting
Strategic Recontextualization Cues in the Courtroom:
Corpus-Based Insights into the Pragmatic Force of
Non-Restrictive Relative
Clauses.” Journal of
Pragmatics 38: 390–471.
Pöchhacker, Franz. 2010. “The
Role of Research in Interpreter
Education.” Translation and
Interpreting 2 (1): 1–10.
Rigney, Azucena. 1999. “Questioning
in Interpreted
Testimony.” Forensic
Linguistics 6 (1): 83–108.
Royal Society of New
Zealand. 2014. Our
Futures Te Pai Tāwhiti: The 2013 Census and New Zealand’s
Changing Population. [URL] (accessed December 4,
2018).
Ruva, Chrisine L., and Judith Bryant. 2006. “The
Impact of Age, Speech Style, and Question Form on
Perceptions of Witness Credibility and Trial
Outcome.” Journal of Applied
Social
Psychology 34 (9): 1919–1944.
Searle, John R. 1969. Speech
Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of
Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Spoonley, Paul. 2015. “New
Diversity, Old Anxieties in New Zealand: The Complex
Identity Politics and Engagement of a Settler
Society.” Ethnic and Racial
Studies 34 (4): 650–661.
Statistics New
Zealand. 2013. 2013
Census. [URL] (accessed October 20,
2018).
Statistics New
Zealand. 2019. Population. [URL] (accessed February 5,
2020).
Teng, Wei, Jo Anna Burn, and Ineke Crezee. 2018. “‘I’m
Asking You Again!’ Chinese Student Interpreters’ Performance
when Interpreting Declaratives with Tag Questions in the
Legal Interpreting
Classroom.” Perspectives:
Studies in Translation Theory and
Practice 26 (5): 745–766.
Vertovec, Steven. 2007. “Super-Diversity
and its Implications.” Ethnic
and Racial
Studies 30 (6): 1024–1054.
Wang, Ding-yi. 2014. “Examining
the challenges for legal interpreters In New Zealand
courtroom
settings.” Master’s
thesis. AUT University, Auckland.
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Burn, Jo Anna
2023.
The Use of Self-Reflection to Develop Intercultural and Pragmatic Competence in the Legal Interpreting Classroom. In
New Advances in Legal Translation and Interpreting [
New Frontiers in Translation Studies, ],
► pp. 197 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.