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Chinese student interpreters’ renditions when interpreting authentic cross-examination questions in the legal interpreting classroom
School of Chinese Seminar
Chinese student interpreters’ renditions when interpreting authentic cross-examination questions in the legal interpreting classroom
Professor Ineke Crezee
Auckland University of Technology
Time: 4:30–6:00 p.m. Thursday, 25 April 2019
Venue: 730 Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Seminar Abstract
This presentation will discuss the findings of a small empirical study in which interpreting students were asked to interpret authentic legal discourse from a video clip showing a lawyer cross-examining a witness in a New Zealand murder trial. The paper focuses on the way in which Mandarin-speaking students in an undergraduate legal interpreting course at Auckland University of Technology chose to interpret polar interrogatives and declaratives with tag questions.
The analysis assessed student interpreter performance using criteria developed by the author, focusing on two very common Chinese syntactical constructions, which were used to interpret polar interrogatives and positive/negative declaratives with tag questions. These were common question forms in the clip, which involved a lawyer engaging in aggressive cross-examination of an ambulance officer.
The findings suggest that some of the Chinese constructions used by student interpreters resulted in interpretations that deviated significantly from the original with the loss of illocutionary intent.
The findings will be beneficial to (legal) interpreter educators and students working between English and Mandarin.
About the Speaker
Ineke Crezee is an Associate Professor at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. She has been involved in interpreter and translator education in New Zealand since the early 1990s and published her first textbook on healthcare interpreting in 1997. Her 2013 textbook Introduction to healthcare for interpreters and translators was published in different language adaptations (Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Arabic). In 2016 Ineke published a special version for Chinese-speaking health interpreters and translators together with Dr Eva Ng from the University of Hong Kong.
