ABSTRACT
Globalization has brought ever larger numbers of people to places where the local legal systems were not used to dealing with speakers of other languages, or if they were, with only a small linguistic range. Inevitably, non-proficient or ‘second-language’ speakers become involved in law enforcement practices, whether as victims, witnesses or suspects. In order to ensure equal access to justice, decision-makers in a rapidly growing number of countries must nowadays find ways of coping with the resulting increased linguistic diversity at all stages of the judicial process. Given the nature of courtroom language, with its highly structured discourse,
competing narratives and speech styles, court interpreting is often regarded as the most important sub-domain of legal interpreting (see Hale, this volume). However, in the context of forensic linguistics, no less relevant are issues of interpreter-mediated communication in other legal and forensic contexts; this chapter is devoted to just such issues. In the law enforcement chain that begins with a crime, interpreters for second-
language speakers, whether they be suspects, victims or witnesses, can be an all-important link. Unless the highest standards are maintained at all stages, failure may result further down the line, at trial or at a subsequent appeal. In what follows we discuss interpreting at five stages of the judicial process: initial contact, police interviews, client-lawyer interactions, probation meetings and prison visits. These different stages do not necessarily pose different kinds of linguistic problem. Rather, they can each be associated with certain consequences (1) for the interpreter, who may be subjected to different kinds of pressure and often forced to take on unexpected roles, (2) for the second-language speaker, who will be variously disadvantaged depending on the context, and, finally, (3) for the administration of justice.
