Translation policies for courtroom interactions with ethnic minorities at a Chinese court: integrating ethnographic fieldwork and complexity theory

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon the tripartite model of translation policy, this study examines not only how China’s legal rules on court interpreting for ethnic minorities are interpreted and implemented by local actors, but also how court interpreting for ethnic minorities is valued. By integrating ethnographic fieldwork and complexity theory, this article illuminates why local actors (inter)act in certain ways and how their interactions contribute to specific translation policies. The concept of ‘constraints’ alerts us to the causal influence of both realised and unrealised possibilities on a translation policy. The study shows that official regulations, the observed translation practices, and participants’ views on the provision and use of translation constrain but do not determine each other. Meanwhile, unrealised possibilities in the social context have reinforced certain translation practices, such as the appointment of court interpreters for criminal trials and the tendency of interpreters to alter information. This study also reveals how the translation policies under scrutiny are related to individual actions. These findings shed light on why a translation policy exhibits uncertain behaviour and cannot be controlled by a certain individual or structure, while simultaneously showing specific patterns.

KEYWORDS:

• Translation policy
• ethnography
• complexity theory
• court interpreting
• ethnic minorities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In this study, Chinese refers to both written Chinese and spoken Chinese. Spoken Chinese includes Mandarin Chinese, which is the standard spoken Chinese language, and other Chinese dialects.

2. These languages are referred to as minority languages in the current study. Minority languages refer to languages that are ‘traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State’s population; and different from the official language(s) of that State’ (Council of Europe 1992). This definition is employed because it fits the understanding of minority languages in China.

3. Tao (pseudonym), interview by author, April 21, 2018.

4. Some trial videos shared by courts across China are accessible to the public on http://tingshen.court.gov.cn/.

5. In China, people’s assessors are drawn from members of the public. They assist judges and evaluate evidence. They do not rule on matters of law but can decide on a verdict with judges.

6. For practical reasons, I had to focus on trial processes, while recognising that they constitute a part of a larger judicial process that includes arrest and interrogation by policemen, and interrogation by prosecutors.

7. All the interviews were conducted in Chinese and translated into English by the author.

8. Drawing on the three language orientations set forth by Ruíz (1984), I use ‘translation-as-right’, ‘translation-as-problem’, and ‘translation-as-resource’ when describing the translation beliefs that have (not) been observed in the court.

9. All but one prosecutor were monolingual speakers of Chinese.

10. Only a provincial policy document on language issues, named Yunnan Regulation on Minority Language Work (author’s translation), has an article that sets a general principle for translating. Article 18 reads: ‘Translating between minority languages and Chinese or transliterating minority-language characters and Chinese characters should conform to the characteristics and rules of minority languages and Chinese. Words that are discriminatory and disrespectful to ethnic minorities are prohibited’ (The Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Yunnan Province 2013, author’s translation). While the participants of this study advocated that a principle of respect and non-discrimination be set in a regulation, they found existing regulations vague in terms of court interpreting services.

11. Transcription and Lahu-Chinese translation were done by Huimin Li. The video recordings of the trials under analysis were transcribed and translated by Chinese-speaking native speakers of the minority languages used. None of them had links with the court. Chinese-English translation of all the excerpts was done by the author.

12. Transcription and Lahu-Chinese translation were done by Chunxia Luo.

13. From the receiver’s perspective, information can be provided only if there is uncertainty, and information is provided when this uncertainty is then removed or reduced (Deacon 2013, 380). For example, when a judge knew what answer a defendant would give, the defendant’s answer provided no information. When a court interpreter altered information while interpreting, they either increased uncertainty, conveying less information, or reduced more uncertainty, conveying more information.

14. All the defendants observed exercised the right to defend themselves at the trials, so no attorney was involved in the trials under study.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the China Scholarship Council [201606020118]

Notes on contributors

Shuang Li

Shuang Li is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of English Studies at Shanghai International Studies University. She holds a PhD in translation studies from KU Leuven. Her current research focuses on translation policy for indigenous peoples and immigrants. She works within the theoretical and methodological frameworks of complexity theory and ethnography.