ÁREA 2: DISEÑO Y FABRICACIÓN EN CARPINTERÍA Y
XXII.4/ LOS PERFILES PROFESIONALES
Whereas in sections 6.1, and 6.2, I examined euphemisms and lack of equivalents respectively, in this section, I present the way in which tenor changes in interpreted speech.
By tenor here, I am referring to the course of thought or meaning that runs throughout an utterance or the general drift on an utterance. Researchers in the field of interpretation advise that the interpreter should stick to the tenor of the ST. for example, if the ST is formal, the TT should also be formal and if the ST is informal then the TT should also be informal (Gonzalez et al, 1991; Benmaman, 1999; Mikkelson, 2000; Hale, 2004; and De Jongh 2008).
In the courtroom, the interpretation should reflect the tone, intonation, register and educational level of every source language speaker all of which form part of the tenor.
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Hale and Gibbons (1999) conduct research that reveals tenor changes in speech, changes in politeness of statements and questions such as when interpreters convey indirect questions as direct questions, changes in reference to persons such as the pronoun you, and omissions of titles and surnames. All these contribute to the change of the tenor used in the source language. But this should not be the case as tenor is important in that it manifests relations of status and relations of affect both of which may be modified by inadequate interpretation. In the courtroom, the question form, style and wording are very important and the form in which a question is put to a witness exerts a strong influence on the quality of the answer given (Hale and Gibbons 1999). Many interpreters however do not often put the question in exactly the same way from the source language to the target language. When an interpreter changes the tenor of a witness or an accused in court, the case is essentially being judged not on the speech style of these two but on the style of the interpreter
Kiguru (2010) discusses the main errors made by interpreters in Kenyan courtrooms. He gives the following categories of errors:
1. Grammatical errors, which manifest in changes of tense, aspect, number agreement, wrong use of pronouns and even wrong word order.
2. Lexical errors, which occur when interpreters fail to grasp the meaning of either general or specialised vocabulary.
3. Omission errors, which occur when interpreters fail to interpret words, phrases, sentences or parts of discourse resulting in the person for whom the interpretation was intended not hearing the omitted information.
4. Meaning distortion and intrusion errors, which change or alter the meaning of the original message.
In line with Kiguru (2010), the examples in this section of the thesis agree with finding number 4 where there occurred changes in naming choices which then resulted in distortion of the ST message in the TT.
Example 6.3.a (See Hearing 2)
Acc: Mane ok aneno nyaka nene ma an nanene mana e court ka RT: That I had never ever seen and I just saw her here in court
Int: I had never seen the said girl; it was my first time to see her in court when she came to testify
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In example 6.3.a, here in court is an Adverb phrase which serves as an Adjunct that gives the location where the accused person claimed to have first seen the complainant. The interpreter in her version introduces an adverbial clause of time whose head word is: when. This is an example of when the interpreter adds information that they are privy to because of their involvement in the on-going case. The clause makes the occasion when the accused person claims to have met the girl more specific than what the accused person had said. In so doing, the accused person comes out as being confident and sure of what he is saying whereas his own words are less certain about when he actually met the girl. He had said “I just saw her here in court”. That could have been any other day when the girl came to court but the interpreter specifies the day further by using an adverbial clause of time that places the day in question in a particular time frame. If one wanted to find out the date, they would just check the court records to see the date when the girl testified.
Such modifications have the potential to change the direction of a court case verdict.
However, the scope of this study does not allow for that kind of speculation which is more in the realm of law than in linguistics. However, considering that in the courtroom it is through the use of language that cases are decided, it is still prudent for interpreters to keep the style and tone of the speaker as the fact that they are only the mouthpiece of the speaker they are interpreting for cannot be over emphasized.
When an interpreter changes the style of speech of a witness or an accused in court, the case is essentially being judged not on the speech style of these two but on the style of the interpreter. The change in style may either be favourable or detrimental to the case and there is a possibility of changing the outcome of the case just because of the change of style. The finding in example 6.3.a can be compared to that of Berk-Seligson (2002) where she notes the
Introduction of linguistic material which is considered to be implicit or obvious in the original message, with the possibility of giving the statement a much more emphatic and definitive character than expected, transmitting a sense of security, or possibly a sense of uncertainty, which could be decisive in the jury's deliberations like giving a complete answer instead of saying “yes” or “no” for example (Berk Seligson 1985 in Garcés, 1996, P.6)
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Similarities are noted here in that as in her research, this study finds that the addition of new information by the interpreter makes the accused person’s words appear more accurate than they actually had been.
Example 6.3.b (See Withdrawal 2) Acc: Ayie ni ong’won na
RT: I accept his forgiveness
Int: No objection to this application
In example 6.3.b, the naming devices I want to concentrate on are: his forgiveness and this application which are both noun phrases used as Compliments in the clauses in which they occur. Clearly these are very different noun phrases but that is how the interpreter conveys them. This example is a contradiction of circumstances. The accused person is unable to use English as the medium of communication in the courtroom but through the interpreter, he appears to know legal terminology. “This application” is a noun phrase frequently to be found in the legal register in reference to submissions made to the judge. Even in normal day to day English conversations, laypeople do not use the kind of vocabulary that example 6.3.b employs.
In using legal terms, the interpreter brings the accused person to the same level as other people in the legal realm such as the lawyers, the court prosecutor and the judge. The speech style of the accused person changes so that he now uses the legal register from use of ordinary everyday language through the interpreter’s choice of naming devices. The irony of the situation is that even the court interpreter who introduces the legal register has no qualification in law. Yet, one feature of the courtroom that many researchers have consistently brought to light is the power relations in the courtroom where the judge is viewed as supreme and the rest of the courtroom people know their place in the ranks.
The discoursal constraints of the courtroom are hierarchically marked in the sense that lawyers acknowledge their subordination to judges whereas lay people are subordinate to both the lawyers and the judges. This subordination conveys hierarchical power, authority and credibility to the opposing sides, to their clients (Atkinson 1992). As Wodak-Engles (1984) found out in a study, the speakers of a particular social class and educational background tend to speak in a particular style and are evaluated more or less positively by the powerful members of the society. On examining the examples given that show that
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interpreters add legal terminologies to their renditions, it shows that the listener to these renditions receives the view of the interpreter’s self rather than that of the accused person or the witness.
Example 6.3.c (See Judgement 1)
Mag: This therefore means that the complainant’s allegation that his store was broken into has not been corroborated
Int: Koro owacho ni kata jadonjo wacho ni dho ot notur ne ok one adiera
RT: Now he is saying that even though the complainant says that the door was broken, no one saw for sure
Corroboration is a term mostly used by members of the legal fraternity to show that something has been verified, supported or validated. Grice (1975) through Cooperative Principle Theory explains that humans operate in such a manner as to be cooperative in their communication and as such, adhere to cooperation in conversation. It may be argued therefore that in this example, even though the interpreter adds the sentence “no one saw for sure”, it is not irrelevant to the intended meaning. He is observing two maxims as expounded by Grice i.e. those of quality and quantity. The maxim of quantity states that speakers don't say what they believe to be false that is provable by adequate evidence and that of quantity states that the speaker is as informative as is required to be. When the interpreter decides to say “no one saw for sure” he is only introducing an aspect of corroboration where it is expected that for a fact to be verified, another person has to stand as witness of that action.
One can therefore say that this interpretation is not irrelevant as there are aspects of corroboration to be found in there being a witness to an event. The interpreter manages to some degree to capture the pragmatic meaning of corroboration; however, the formal tone is lost. The new utterance is said in plain layman’s language; different from the formal legal tone that is present in the ST.
Example 6.3.d (See Plea 1) Mag: Mitigation?
Int: Wach ane ywak mari kaka idwa ni okonyi
RT: Give your mitigation. How you want to be helped
In this example, the magistrate does not use a complete sentence. He just utters one word:
“mitigation”. The interpreter chooses to make this a complete sentence by saying: “give your
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mitigation.” In so doing, he brings in the implied subject “you” that is usually present in commands or in requests i.e. in imperatives. The effect of this addition is that it makes the magistrate’s utterance more formal in the TT than it was in the ST. In correcting the magistrate’s speech, the interpreter also shows the attitude of disapproval of the casual way in which this particular magistrate addresses issues in that courtroom. This is evident in many other examples that involved that magistrate and the particular interpreter.
But the Subject is not all that is added to the utterance. The interpreter adds his version of what he believes mitigation involves. Research on the interpreter’s perception of their role carried out by Matu et al (2012) in Dholuo speaking Nyanza shows that interpreters feel the need to clarify issues for the Dholuo speaking litigants. This example actually proves that interpreters do this. In this particular example, the interpreter clarifies the meaning of the word mitigation even though the accused person does not ask for any clarification. The reason why this easily happens in the Kenyan courtroom is because of the other roles that the interpreter plays. The interpreter is first a court clerk before he/she is the interpreter so as he/she performs the duty of interpretation, this has to be done simultaneously with the clerical duties of the court. This is bound to reflect in the quality of interpretation as exemplified here.
In section 6.3 I presented findings that show the changes of tenor in the TT. These changes illustrate how the defendants are routinely judged on the speech style of the interpreter. The tenor changes come about in various ways, firstly, when the interpreter adds legal terminology to the utterance, it makes the witnesses appear more knowledgeable than their original utterances did. Secondly, interpreters also add words into the utterances that make them more certain than in the original speech. In other instances, the interpreter corrected the speech of the magistrate to make it more formal. This is in agreement with the finding in section 4.5 where I illustrated that interpreters often modified the speech of courtroom officials in order to retain the dignity of the courtroom. Lastly, there were also instances where the interpreter lost the formal tone that was in the ST by using less formal utterances in the TT.