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Article published In:
Interpreting
Vol. 22:1 (2020) ► pp.56–86

The interpreter as a sequential coordinator in courtroom interaction

‘Chunking’ and the management of turn shifts in extended answers in consecutively interpreted asylum hearings with remote participants

| Institut Interdisciplinaire de l'Innovation, CNRS | Telecom Paris
| Telecom Paris

We present here an ethnographic study of asylum court interpreting with remote participants and video links. First, we describe the multimodal resources interpreters have at their disposal to manage turn-taking and begin interpreting while an asylum seeker’s answer to a question has not come yet to a recognizable completion point. We distinguish between ‘implicit’ configurations, in which a collaborative turn transition is apparently achieved through reorientations of body and gaze, the use of discourse markers, or other conversational strategies, like overlaps and cases where a turn transition is achieved through the use of ‘explicit’ resources such as instructions to stop and requests to give brief answers. We show that the collaborative production of such long answers is affected by the remote placement of the interpreter, and that recurrent trouble in the management of turn transitions between the asylum seeker and the interpreter during extended narratives may be detrimental to the asylum seeker’s case.

Keywords: courtroom interaction, asylum, consecutive interpreting, turn-taking, chunking
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data collection and fieldwork
  • 3.Consecutively interpreted question-answer sequences in asylum court hearings
  • 4.The interpreters’ involvement in the production of turn transitions: Implicit coordination work
    • 4.1‘Smooth’ turn transitions and the power of gaze
    • 4.2Overlaps
    • 4.3Response tokens
  • 5.Suspensive requests and instructions to stop answering
    • 5.1Holding gestures
    • 5.2Verbal instructions
  • 6.The case of the interpreter in the courtroom
    • 6.1Displaying an orientation to speak
    • 6.2Explicit coordination work when the interpreter is in the courtroom, away from the asylum seeker
  • 7.The inferential consequentiality of the management of turn-taking between the interpreter and the asylum seeker
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.00034.lic
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