Elsevier

Language & Communication

Volume 77, March 2021, Pages 1-4
Language & Communication

Interpreting expletives in cross-cultural interaction in court

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2020.12.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Female interpreters appear less comfortable with interpreting expletives literally than their male counterparts though the majority of both prefer not to do so.

  • If the principle of swearing whenever an interlocutor does causes so much discomfort to interpreters, there must be something wrong with it.

  • Most service users do not expect interpreters to render swearwords literally. Why should interpreters impose it on themselves?

  • Euphemisms can be used to interpret expletives without compromising accuracy or the interpreter's dignity.

  • These findings can be applied across languages and cultures.

Abstract

Interpreting practitioners and students have been taught that when any interlocutor swears, they need to do the same. In court, where the highest level of accuracy is required, interpreters have been expected to render expletives literally into the target language. This has brought about hilarious scenarios especially in the case of female interpreters. As a result, I developed my method of using euphemisms to interpret expletives. This method allows me to interpret expletives accurately without swearing. Based on interview data from lawyers and interpreters, and taking into account gender differences, this empirical study answers the question of whether expletives must be interpreted as they are or my alternative method of interpreting expletives accurately but not literally fares better. Results of this study indicate that the latter holds true. Accordingly, I propose the use of euphemisms to interpret expletives so as not to compromise either accuracy or the interpreter's comfort and dignity.

Section snippets

A new method of interpreting expletives

Whenever you interpret, you are most likely performing cross-cultural interaction. One of the thus far basic principles in interpreting in cross-cultural interaction general and in court in particular is that the interpreter needs to interpret expletives literally as they are spoken by any interlocutor in interaction.

Once I was in court observing a Vietnamese female colleague interpret in the cross-examination of an accused in the witness box. The accused said angrily in Vietnamese: “Đ. M. Tôi

Literature review

Expletives are swearwords. Swearing is the use of taboo words (Ljung, 2011) and is universal (Pinker 2008). Although a number of researchers (Jay 2009; Ljung 2011; Wang 2013; Stephens 2013) have argued that swearing has the positive effect of releasing stress, anger and tension, it has been asserted (Stephens, 2013) that swearwords make people more aggressive.

Men and women have been found to use expletives differently. While some (Lakoff, 1973; Spender, 1980) explained the differences in the

Research questions

The aim of this research project is to study the views of interpreting service users, who are lawyers, and interpreters about how common expletives should be interpreted. The research project specifically aims to answer the following questions.

  • 1)

    Must interpreters swear as a suspect/witness/accused/speaker does or can they use euphemisms such as “F-word”, “B-word”, “B. S.”, etc. to interpret expletives in cross-cultural interaction in general and in court in particular?

  • 2)

    Are there gender differences

Methodology

Data for this study is from interviews with 46 lawyers (i.e. 25 males and 21 females) and 51 interpreters (i.e. 24 males and 27 females) of different languages in Australia and the United States. All of these informants agreed to have their data analysed and published while remaining anonymous. In all interviews, the same question was asked: “Do you think that interpreters must swear as a suspect/witness/accused/speaker does or they can use euphemisms such as “F-word”, “B-word”, “B. S.”, etc.

Results and discussion

The table below shows the numbers of male and female lawyers as well as interpreters who agree with the propositions herein.

PropositionsLawyersInterpreters
MaleFemaleMaleFemale
The interpreter must swear as a speaker does.6572
The interpreter can use euphemisms to interpret expletives.19161725

As the interview data shows, the number of those who think that interpreters must swear as a speaker does is in stark contrast with the number of those who do not. The use of euphemisms in interpreting

Conclusions

What I propose here is the use of euphemisms to interpret expletives when applicable in order to preserve accuracy without going out of your way to say what you may not normally do. The euphemisms should be widely understood and largely accepted. I only recommend using euphemisms when its use does not affect the content of the message and the subject matter. If the matter in focus is about swearwords, which is very unlikely, there is no way around but to interpret them as they are. But if the

Funding

This project is funded by Elite Interpreters, Translators & Teachers (ELITE ITT).

Acknowledgements

I am deeply indebted to my family for enduring my absence during the key phases of this research project in addition to my work commitments. Besides, I appreciate and value the feedback as well as support from those involved in the review and approval processes.

Dr Giao Quynh Tran (Dr Grace Tran) is the Principal of Elite Interpreters, Translators & Teachers (ELITE ITT). With a PhD in Applied Linguistics (UniMelb) and NAATI Accreditation for a Professional Interpreter and Translator in English and Vietnamese, both directions, among other degrees, plus 25 years of experience in interpreting and translation in Vietnam, the US, and Australia specializing for the most part in court interpreting, she has made all the lawyers and clients whom she has worked

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Dr Giao Quynh Tran (Dr Grace Tran) is the Principal of Elite Interpreters, Translators & Teachers (ELITE ITT). With a PhD in Applied Linguistics (UniMelb) and NAATI Accreditation for a Professional Interpreter and Translator in English and Vietnamese, both directions, among other degrees, plus 25 years of experience in interpreting and translation in Vietnam, the US, and Australia specializing for the most part in court interpreting, she has made all the lawyers and clients whom she has worked with happy. Having co-authored a book, she is the sole author of another book, 19 peer-reviewed journal articles and numerous newspaper as well as magazine articles. http://www.eliteitt.com.au

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