Interpreting in court in Scotland I stand beside the booth of the accused. "Milord, could I ask the fiscal to speak slowly so as to allow the interpreter to translate to the accused," I say, interrupting the fiscal and addressing a judge wearing a neat gray, curly wig and starched white collars. The solicitor defending the accused mumbles through tattered black robes that resemble the wings of an old bat or vampire. When the accused speaks, I say, "I'm guilty" or "I'm not guilty." When referring to myself, I speak in the third person, saying "the interpreter." When the solicitor refers to himself, I say in Spanish, "if I could ask your Lordship to consider..." Etc. I am all the "I"s in the room, my goal is to disappear, to become simply a transparent medium, a facilitator for others' speech. I do not have a name, I am anyone who speaks. There is something truly mystical in being an interpreter, sitting at the heart of all these matters that have nothing to do with me but which become temporarily my own. Becoming many different people, allowing myself to be the embodiment of countless selves.
What would happen if you deliberately say "guilty" when the accused say they aren't?
ReplyDeleteWhat would the accused be able to do if you continue to twist the things they say, assuming they don't understand a word in English?
Would you do that to help convict them if you were certain they are guilty?
Are trials even susceptible to linguistic nuances?
Very much so. Linguistic and cultural nuances are extremely important. Interpreters need to work with great accuracy and skill, understanding both languages and regional variants and paying close attention to all these elements. Their job is to express exactly what the people are saying in court, without taking sides in any way. I would never intentionally twist what an accused is saying, and as an interpreter the worst thing I could do would be to form an opinion on whether he or she is guilty. An accused person in a foreign country who doesn't understand a word of what is being said in court is obviously in an extremely vulnerable position.
DeleteIf an interpreter works without accuracy or is partial to either side, this may call into question the validity of the whole trial. In some cases, a team of linguists has to go through the entire trial transcripts and recordings to make sure everything was interpreted correctly. One of my teachers even remembers a trial had to be held again because the interpreter had been interpreting continually for too long, instead of taking breaks, and out of tiredness had ended up saying a bunch of inaccuracies at a very high profile case. Needless to say, that interpreter probably never got a job again.
Here's some interesting cases from the US: http://www.mitinweb.org/Admin/Files/Translator%20&%20Interpreter%20Liability%20(Final).pdf