This paper examines an unusual feature of spoken Cantonese — the utterance-final particle — to see how it is deployed and rendered by interpreters in courtroom discourse. The data is based on five rape trials heard in the Hong Kong courtrooms. It is a known fact that different participants in the courtroom construct their version of the truth utilizing different linguistic devices. However, different language systems have different linguistic phenomenon which may be common in one language but non-existent in another. Utterance particle is one of those unique language devices in Cantonese which is not available in English. Court interpreters often find themselves facing the task of maintaining the coherence and modality of all the participants’ languages while interpreting for these different language systems.
2024. How interpreting influences defendants’ participation: a discursive study of zero renditions and non-renditions in court interpreting. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2024:286 ► pp. 185 ff.
2019. The Jurisprudence and Administration of Legal Interpreting in Hong Kong (1966–2016). International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique 32:1 ► pp. 95 ff.
Matulewska, Aleksandra
2019. Legal and LSP Linguistics and Translation: Asian Languages’ Perspectives. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique 32:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Ren, Wen & Juan Huang
2019. Interpreting Studies by Chinese Scholars (1949–2017). In Translation Studies in China [New Frontiers in Translation Studies, ], ► pp. 135 ff.
2017. Ethnic Minority interpreters: a mishmash of professionals and semi-professionals?. The Journal of Translation Studies 18:1 ► pp. 203 ff.
Bowe, Heather, Kylie Martin & Howard Manns
2014. Communication across Cultures,
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