Interpreter linguistic intervention in the strategies employed by police in investigative interviews

Abstract

Police interviews are high-stakes activities that bear legal consequences when the cases move to court proceedings. A wide range of literature exists on police interviewing strategies aiming to obtain complete information from the interviewee; however, this literature focuses primarily on monolingual settings only. This paper reports on an empirical study examining the word choices made by interpreters of 11 selected languages in three scripted police interview excerpts. The study found that considered verbal strategies deliberately employed by police in investigative interviewing may be interfered with by the interpreter in a bilingual setting. The authors discuss the implications of such linguistic intervention for police interview outcomes and propose improvements for the training of interpreters and police.

Keywords:

• investigative interviewing
• police interpreting
• bilingual police interview
• interpreter linguistic intervention
• meaning-based interpreting
• form-based interpreting

Notes

1. Internationally, the modality of interpreting is divided into two broad categories in relation to the timing when the output utterances are produced. In simultaneous interpreting, the interpreter listens and speaks at the same time most of the time. In contrast, in consecutive interpreting, the interpreter alternates between listening and speaking (Gile, 2009). In the context of courtroom examination-in-chief and cross-examination, or in police interview settings, interpreting is normally done consecutively.

2. Equivalent of the Miranda Warning in the USA.