‘Tell me what he said! We’ll decide if it makes sense or not’: a case study of legal interpreting between English and Chinese in Britain
Authors: Leung Ester S.M. 
Published: January 2008

The principle that, during police interviews, people who do not speak
English should have access to interpreters has long been established in
legal practice in the UK. However, very little is known about the extent to
which or how this principle is actually applied. The aim of this study was
to provide a close look at current legal interpreting practices in different
types of legal encounter in the UK. The broad questions guiding my
analysis were: what was actually going on in these events; what were the
specific problems associated with interpreting in legal settings; and what
were the problems associated with interpreting between Cantonese and
English? What can the close study of interpreters as they interpret tell us
about the process of ‘interpretation’ in legal settings?

An ethnographic approach was adopted to collect and analyse the data.
I observed and audio-recorded four interpreting events which involved
Chinese interpreters. In order to understand the process of interpretation
and reflect the interpreter’s point of view, interviews with each interpreter
involved were arranged immediately after the recorded data has been transcribed.

The main finding emerging from this study is that the legal practitioners
exerted most control over the interaction through their use of language.
However, this control was sometimes undermined, knowingly or unwittingly,
by both interpreters and clients. In addition, it was found that,
while interpreting, the interpreters were trying to understand what was
said, but that their understanding was shaped by their knowledge and
experience of the world. The interpreters in my study filtered information
which they deemed to be significant and relevant to the situation. Working
with different languages and with different cultural traditions, the interpreters
could only interpret in ways which they thought were most
appropriate to the situation. For example in one interview, the police
needed to find out whether the suspect had bought an MOT certificate
knowing that purchase of the certificate was illegal. Since time of the
action was not marked in the suspect’s answers (because in Chinese the
verb itself does not indicate time); the interpreter clarified with the
suspect, on her own initiative, whether he knew at the moment he bought
the certificate that the purchase would constitute a crime. Interpreters
were making moment-by-moment decisions related to the unfolding of the
interpreting event rather than by reference to established procedures.
Because of the complexity of the interactional processes and the power
asymmetries involved in events such as these, I argue for a more dialogic
approach to the study of legal interpreting, one which takes account of the
participants’ understanding of particular legal interpreting events. I also
argue for a more critical approach to the study of legal interpreting, one
which takes full account of the wider institutional and discursive context
in which specific legal interpreters find themselves working.