ABSTRACT
Several authors (e.g. Berk-Seligson 1990; Jansen 1995) have described how court interpreters tend to adopt a more active role than would be expected, and how this can influence the end result of their work. They may perform functions that, in principle, fall within the remit of professionals from other fields: provision of legal advice and, in extreme cases, social work. The aim of this paper is to analyze this active role from the standpoint of the interpreters themselves. It is based on research involving 19 subjects who replied to a questionnaire exploring the perceptions of practising court interpreters in the Madrid region of Spain with regard to their work. The topics covered include controversial issues at the centre of the debate about the court interpreter's role, such as adaptation of language register, cultural explanations, expansion and omission of information and the relationship between interpreter and clients. It was crucial to determine whether court interpreters, at least in Spain, are aware of what their role is, where its limits lie and what reasons may induce them to go beyond their established functions. The results indicate that the majority of practising court interpreters seem to go beyond the remit that codes of ethics stipulate.
