Interpreter-mediated access to the written record in police interviews

ABSTRACT

One of the main goals of the police interview is the drafting of a written record. That written record is the textual outcome of a complex negotiation process on the content and wording of what is being recorded. The interviewee’s ability to negotiate content and wording is however limited when the interviewee is denied access to the text of the record. Such access may be granted through the police officer’s reading out loud what he is typing while drafting. In many cases, that access does not go beyond the interpreter, as the interpreter does not always identify the police officer’s reading turns as conversational turns to be interpreted. In our dataset, Belgian interpreters for Dutch are seen to involve themselves in the negotiation process instead of rendering the police officer’s reading turns, repeating segments the latter failed to record or correcting information they perceive to be erroneous. Only when the interpreter decides to transfer the access to the written record granted by the police officer to the interviewee by rendering the police officer’s reading turns, the interviewee is able to enter in the negotiation process on the content of the written record and able to offer confirmations, corrections or elaborations.

KEYWORDS:

• Interpreter-mediated police interviews
• written record
• text drafting
• entextualisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Art. 38–40 wet 28 november 2000 betreffende de strafrechtelijke bescherming van minderjarigen, BS 17 maart 2001.

2 Wet 12 maart 1998 tot verbetering van de strafrechtspleging in het stadium van het opsporingsonderzoek en het gerechtelijk onderzoek, BS 2 april 1998.

3 Wet 15 juni 1935 op het gebruik der talen in gerechtszaken, BS 22 juni 1935.

4 Wet 10 april 2014 tot wijziging van verschillende bepalingen met het oog op de oprichting van een nationaal register voor gerechtsdeskundigen en tot oprichting van een nationaal register voor beëdigd vertalers, tolken en vertalers-tolken, BS 19 december 2014.

5 Koninklijk Besluit van 25 april 2017 tot vaststelling van de deontologische code van de beëdigd vertalers, tolken en vertalers-tolken aangesteld in toepassing van de Wet van 10 april 2014 tot wijziging van verschillende bepalingen met het oog op de oprichting van een nationaal register voor gerechtsdeskundigen en tot oprichting van een nationaal register voor beëdigd vertalers, tolken en vertalers-tolken, BS 31 mei 2017.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sofie Verliefde

Sofie Verliefde holds a Master’s Degree in Romance Languages and Literature and a Master’s Degree in Interpreting. She is a PhD student at the Department of Translations, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University. Her research focuses on dialogue interpreting in a police context and the drafting of written records in interpreter-mediated police interviews.

Bart Defrancq

Bart Defrancq is an Associate Professor of interpreting and legal translation at Ghent University interested in linguistic markers of cognitive load in and sociocognitive features of simultaneous interpreting, including gender patterns, and in interactional features of dialogue interpreting in a police context. He is President of CIUTI.