Misinterpreting / Fehlerhaftes Dolmetschen
am 11.03.2006 von http://transblawg.eu
Just a note that both Language Log and languagehat have entries about poor court interpreting and its effects for the defendant. Bill Poser in Language Log talks about people who can speak two languages but don’t know anything about interpreting, and the fact that they may abridge.
Interpreters may be highly qualified, or they may be the bailiff’s sister who took a little Spanish in high school. No one really knows how often this leads to miscarriages of justice, in part because it is very difficult to appeal on these grounds because appellate courts normally consider only the written record of the trial, and the written record contains only the English translation of the testimony, not what was actually said.
Poser compares Canada and the US, but I fear there is nowhere in the world you could be guaranteed a good interpreter. In Germany, there are sworn interpreters, but not for all languages, and the judges don’t always call sworn interpreters (and, dare I whisper it, not even all sworn interpreters are perfect). The thing that worries me most is the inability of some judges and presumably of most people to understand what interpreting involves.
Steve at languagehat picks up the point about the difficulty of appeal:
This strikes me as a serious problem, and it seems to me that trial records should include a taped record of foreign-language testimony so that if there is a complaint about the translation it can be checked. Otherwise, …
Interpreting error / Fehler beim Dolmetschen
Transblawg / Apparently an interpreter working for a company (Lesley Howard Languages) hired by CNN made a slip on Saturday, saying Iran has the right to build nuclear weapons, instead of saying that Iran has the right to nuclear energy, and that “a nation …
Interpreting at court / Dolmetschen bei Gericht
Transblawg / Artikel heute in der NZ zu einer Gerichtsdolmetscherin beim Amtsgericht in Nürnberg, Jutta Koch (Link wird nicht ewig funktionieren; bei dem Foto ist etwas schiefgegangen, Gott sei dank, dass mein Bild nicht in der Zeitung steht). Jutta Koch ha…
Court interpreter weblog
Transblawg / I seem to have missed this one, but Céline quotes from it. The blog started on December 11: In my opinion, the public doesn´t really understand what an interpreter does. There are all kinds of interpreters: U.N. interpreters, conferenc…
Court interpreting problems in Scotland/Gerichtsdolmetschermangel in Schottland
Transblawg / The Scotsman reports on court interpreting problems in Scotland: some trials have collapsed because the untrained interpreter was incompetent, and with the influx of foreign nationals into Scotland the problem is increasing (its presumably a mag…
Court case on poor interpreting/Klage über fehlerhaftes Dolmetschen in Ontario
Transblawg / A class-action lawsuit in Ontario was filed in April alleging that the government uses an inadequate test for court interpreters. This was reported by the Globe and Mail - original article available for payment. It can also be found on Lia Bar…
Interpreter weblog/Dolmetscherblog
Transblawg / From Our Lips to Your Ears is a weblog about interpreting by Nataly Kelly in New Hampshire. She is collecting interpreters' stories for a book project, whose site is here ('Contact Us' must be the royal we)n and the main purpose of the bl…
Translation problems with police/Verzicht auf Rechte ohne ausreichende Übersetzung
Transblawg / The Daytona Beach newsjournal.online.com reports on a Spanish-speaking subject who is claimed to have waived his right to silence but says he didn’t understand everything that was said. Olmos was questioned at times by a Spanish-speaking polic…
Interpreting errors continued/u.a. Dolmetschen
Transblawg / Continuing the topic of incorrect interpreting (see earlier entry), Roger Shuy takes up the topic at Language Log. A few years ago I encountered this problem in a case in which English transcripts of Spanish speakers in undercover tape recordings we…
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