In Court with Dell Hymes: Implications for Courtroom Discourse and Court Interpreting

Abstract

Earlier ethnographic investigations which studied language in relation to ethnic types and behaviour, seemingly paid little attention, if at all, to discourse participation in the courtroom, where there is, in South Africa at least, an overwhelming overlap of cultures and behavioral patterns.

The first crop of sociolinguists applied the term “the ethnography of communication” to sociolinguistics in order to refer to the study of language in relation to “the entire range of extra- linguistic variables which identify the social basis of communication” (Crystal, 1985: 113). This article attempts to discuss the “extra-linguistic variables” identified by Dell Hymes (1974) and to explore their relevance using the courtroom as the speech situation and court interpreting as the speech event. The aim is to establish the influence of such variables on the communicative competence of the court interpreter.