Interpreting pnexplicit language during courtroom examination

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

52 Scopus citations

Abstract

Court interpreters are required to provide accurate renditions of witnesses' utterances during courtroom examinations, but the accuracy of interpreting may be compromised for a number of reasons, among which is the effect on interpretation of the limited contextual information available to court interpreters. Based on the analysis of the discourse of Korean-English interpreting in Australian courtrooms, this article examines how inexplicit language used by Korean-speaking witnesses affects the accuracy of court interpreting. Such use of inexplicit language is a consequence of differences between the lexico-grammatical system of the witnesses' language (Korean) and that of the court (English), as well as being due to the witnesses' lack of familiarity with the courtroom discourse. This study demonstrates that the way the court interpreters cope with inexplicit language may result in inaccurate rendition of the evidence, and thus have legal implications for court proceedings.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)93-114
Number of pages22
JournalApplied Linguistics
Volume30
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2009

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Interpreting pnexplicit language during courtroom examination'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this