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Translation style and participant roles in court interpreting 1
Author(s) -
Angermeyer Philipp Sebastian
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of sociolinguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9841
pISSN - 1360-6441
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9841.2008.00394.x
Subject(s) - interpreter , gatekeeping , style (visual arts) , linguistics , variation (astronomy) , accommodation , psychology , social psychology , sociology , social distance , political science , law , computer science , history , covid-19 , medicine , philosophy , physics , disease , archaeology , pathology , neuroscience , astrophysics , infectious disease (medical specialty) , programming language
This paper investigates the translation styles of court interpreters in New York City and the styles' social and pragmatic implications for multilingual interactions in court. Interpreters are found to vary between using first or third person to represent the voice of a translated source speaker, thereby varying between adherence to explicit institutional norms that require first person and accommodation to non‐professional interpreting practices that favor the use of reported speech. In a quantitative and qualitative analysis, this variation is shown to be influenced by several pragmatic and social factors, and to index the interpreters' stances towards source speakers and towards the immigrant court users who are the recipients of translations from English. It is argued that translation styles have profound consequences for limited English speakers, as the insistence on institutional norms in translating to them is viewed as a gatekeeping behavior that may impede their full participation in the proceedings.