Community Interpreters at the End of the Twentieth Century

Plus Ça Change....?

Community Interpreters at the End of the Twentieth Century

Ruth Morris

Bar-Ilan University, Israel

Abstract

The article considers the position of community interpreters at the end of the twentieth century, particularly in the light of recent technological developments. The advent of email and the Internet can play a dramatic role in countering the traditional isolation of the community interpreter, by enabling information and opinions to be exchanged worldwide—assuming that the requisite hardware and telecommunications services are available. However, no amount of technology can offset the negative impact of any unhelpful attitudes on the part of the service providers with whom community interpreters work. Various historical English court cases are cited to illustrate a range of situations involving interpreters, and the question is posed as to how far changes have occurred in user attitudes. The article raises the issue of whether—and if so, how—interpreters themselves should be seeking to bring about more positive attitudes among the “clientele” of their services.

Introduction

The day after the last Critical Link conference finished, my fellow author and I sat by the Geneva Park lake and started to write a book. Of course, it turned out that starting was the easiest part. Finishing it was tricky. But then came the really hard part—making sure that people know about it: the people that count. The people whose attitudes, in a nutshell, can make all the difference in determining whether the language issue in legal proceedings is a technical matter, like legal representation—for which today well-regulated and high-quality solutions are readily available in many countries, or a potentially fundamental difficulty which will bedevil situations involving individuals who do not speak the language of legal proceedings and which can adversely affect the quality of justice. Our book happens to deal with interpreting and language-related issues in legal contexts, particularly in England and Wales, but the issue of language barriers can easily be transposed to other countries and different areas, such as medicine, with consequences which may be life-threatening.

The United States constitutes a striking example of how language issues can and do crop up across the board in today’s world. The United States Census Bureau has just released figures showing that nearly one in ten U.S. residents is an immigrant. Half of them are from Central America, South America or the Caribbean. One in four is from Asia and one in five from Europe (The Times of London, April 13, 1998). Until these people become proficient in English, they often require interpretation services in order to function appropriately in a variety of circumstances. As mainstreaming increasingly becomes general practice, American-born people with hearing impediments also require language assistance in the full range of life situations, from education to health to employment to leisure to the law, to name but a few. And of course, sometimes non-English-speakers with hearing problems also require interpretation—as in the case of the deaf Mexicans who were recently brought into the United States illegally to be exploited there.

How—in the United States and elsewhere—is the whole range of required provision being addressed? Are people getting the interpreters they need, when they need them? Are service providers aware of the need for quality interpretation? Are high-calibre community interpreters being suitably remunerated for their services? Is legislation requiring the provision of interpretation in certain situations being respected? In the brave new world of the late twentieth century, how much progress has been achieved in the old-new field of community interpreting?

Nothing new

In the past, some judges were certainly aware of linguistic problems arising in court settings, as illustrated by the Supreme Court of Michigan’s 1889 agonized identification in Rajnowski of confusion which it strongly suspected was the result of substandard interpreting arrangements:

In numerous contested cases, testimony has been taken by means of interpreters. In very many instances the conflict of testimony is such as to indicate either more perjury than seems possible, or more likely incorrect renderings of testimony...

It is necessary to employ the help of those who are supposed to understand both languages, and to be capable of transmitting correctly from each to the other all that is said by either person dealing with another. But the danger of mistakes in legal proceedings is such that nothing but practical necessity can justify the intervention of an interpreter between counsel and witness or witness and jury, although it is well settled that on a proper occasion it is allowable, and the occasion must usually be judged of by the trial court...

It is necessary, for the due course of examination, that the interpreter shall give to the witness the precise form and tenor of each question propounded, and no more or less, and that he shall in like manner translate the precise expressions of the witness..

It often happens that the chance interpreter who is picked up is ignorant, or otherwise not the right person, and that he takes liberties with both questions and answers. All who have had experience in trials have found serious evils inevitable under our present system of chance and temporary appointments, and have found themselves powerless to prevent mischief, intended or unintended.

If stenographers could take down what is said by interpreters and witnesses in other languages, it might furnish some help, by giving means of resorting to other translators to test their accuracy; but this is also impracticable, and the stenographer’s minutes contain the questions in English, and the interpreter’s English rendering of the answers, with no means of judging the correct report of either, as between interpreter and witness...

We have seen so many instances in the records before us of testimony which appeared of questionable accuracy that, while it is beyond our power to correct the evil, we deem it proper to advert to the occasion for having it corrected, if possible. It is not for us to do more than call attention to it.

In the intervening 109 years since the Detroit justices made these observations, so much has changed in the world. Yet the availability of modern electronic wonders such as tape-recording and computerization has done little, if anything, to change the legal system’s behaviour in addressing the specific issues identified above. Despite the introduction of certification and quality standards, courts still make “chance and temporary appointments”. Well-meaning judges continue to call attention to “the serious evils” that continue to plague the interpreting practices that prevail in the vast majority of legal systems in the world, yet little gets done. Books are written, and those who are aware of the potential for “mischief, intended or unintended” may buy and, even, read them. A certain amount of research is carried out—and in many countries much of it points in the same direction as identified by the Detroit judge nearly 110 years ago.

In the meanwhile, a far larger body of qualified interpreters has developed, yet to judge by the following report on Californian court interpreters, a basic problem appears to remain:

There is dissatisfaction with the unpredictability of working schedules, so that where—and if—one is going to work is often up in the air until the last possible minute. ... Many of our colleagues were very discouraged by the appalling lack of respect and appreciation displayed by court administrative personnel. One very experienced interpreter mentioned that he felt that interpreters are generally ‘gum on the bottom of somebody’s shoe’ when they are working in the courtroom setting. (Burris: 7)

As long as the system’s attitude to the employment of interpreters remains unchanged, the consequences of ignorance about the interpreting process will similarly remain with us—and those who should benefit from quality interpreting will instead suffer from the substandard product they are offered, whether for lack of competent interpreters or because of the unsatisfactory conditions in which interpreting is provided. If judges can only “call attention” to a parlous state of affairs, who will take steps to correct it?

No change?

The question that needs to be asked is whether such pessimism—or cynicism—is really justified. Are there no signs of changing attitudes? Take, for example, the case of Somali seaman Mahmood Hussein Mattan, hanged in Wales in 1952 for murder. In February 1998, 45 years after his execution, his conviction was quashed by Britain’s Court of Appeal when three judges ruled that the conviction was unsafe because the evidence of the main prosecution witness was not reliable.

According to the Home Office, Mr. Mattan was the first person in living memory whose conviction was quashed after he had been hanged for murder (Daily Telegraph, February 25, 1998).1 Although Mattan was married to a Cardiff woman, his English was limited and he did not have the aid of an interpreter. In addition, he was defended by an inexperienced lawyer and was the victim of racism, being called “a semi-civilised savage” by his own counsel. Mattan’s case was one of the first to be referred back for review by the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission since it was set up under the 1995 Criminal Appeal Act. In a further sign of the times, The Telegraph noted (September 21, 1996): “It will be the first time that Sir David Calcutt, the independent compensation assessor, will have to assess compensation for the personal representatives of a hanged prisoner.”

Times would indeed appear to be changing in the area of law in Britain—or, at the very least, an awareness is growing that all is not well and that in many spheres, review of existing practice and procedure is long overdue. In a piece typical of 1998 Britain, under the title “Ensuring full access to justice”, The Times (April 21, 1998) reports on the establishment of Britain’s Civil Justice Council, whose priorities reflect the main issues that will determine how in future civil justice will be more accessible, fair and efficient. It comments:

A home on the Internet for the new Civil Justice Council will send the message that it is determined to take a fresh and outward-looking approach to ensuring better access to justice for the public... Previous attempts at civil justice reform have lacked an authoritative body to oversee the effective transition between theory and practice ... [T]he council will meet four times a year. Its role as an advisory body will be wide-ranging and its influence could be the key to the success of the reforms.

In the field of British community interpreting, a register of public service interpreters has been set up in the course of the 1990s. Its current organization, influence and impact are open to discussion. It may be argued that, as in British civil justice reform, the success of reforms in this sphere depends on influence being brought to bear rather than on their intrinsic worth. In other words: the system has to be persuaded to change. The question is: by whom?

This is not the place to discuss the social, psychological, political, forensic and other ramifications of issues influencing legal systems. Writing about interpreters and the legal system in Australia, Laster and Taylor (1994: vii) make the point that it very soon becomes clear that “language issues” cannot be separated from the law’s own claims about its proper sphere. Let us briefly consider how attitudes to language issues may be dictated by practical considerations, or by psychological ones which may—perish the thought—include an element of racism, not to say xenophobia.

The bigoted language used by the accused’s own defence counsel in the 1952 Welsh case of Mattan is greatly reminiscent of the references to the Sierra Leonian slaves in Steven Spielberg’s film Amistad,which is based on historical events. In 1839 Connecticut, such references were, perhaps, only too common and normal; in 1952 Wales racist references were doubtless far from uncommon; in 1998 the public expression of such bigoted views is generally considered unacceptable. Today it is highly unlikely that a parallel could be published (whether on paper or electronically) of the linguistic lack of sophistication of the 1956 Encyclopedia Americana. Its article on the Amistad case refers on page 576b to the antislavery interest bestirring itself and securing “funds, able counsel, and an interpreter of African” and states that “hardly one [of the defendants] could speak a word of European”.

It is necessary to bear in mind that for not a few people the very use of a language other than a country’s primary mode of expression may constitute an unacceptable act, as witnessed by those who seek to impose English only as the official language of the United States. On April 28, 1998 the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a 1988 law requiring state and local government business to be conducted in English was unconstitutional. Arizona was one of the 23 states from Arkansas to Wyoming that passed measures in the late 1980s and early 1990s making English the official language of the state. Arizona’s law was by far the most restrictive, at least on paper. It prohibited an elected official for example, from speaking to his Navajo constituents in their native tongue while on state or local business. And it required that welfare workers or state park rangers fluent in six languages use only English to give aid or directions (New York Times, April 29, 1998).

The “English Only” movement in the United States is, of course, far from being the only area in the world where attitudes to a particular language or languages play a major role. For example: as a result of attitudes on the part of educators of the deaf, from the late nineteenth century onwards deaf people in many countries had for many years to contend with the hearing world’s demand that they learn speech rather than sign language. In the 1870s, “oralism”, the insistence that the deaf learn speech and join the mainstream, became increasingly vociferous. Sign-language institutions were considered “old-fashioned” and oralist schools “progressive”. At the 1880 International Congress of Educators of the Deaf held in Milan, deaf teachers were excluded from the vote, oralism won the day and the use of Sign in schools was “officially” banned. A consequence was that from then on, hearing teachers had to teach deaf students. As Sacks points out (1990: 28), this would not have mattered if oralism had worked. However, the result of an oralist approach is that prelingually deaf children expend enormous amounts of effort on attempting (with varying degrees of success) to acquire speech and therefore have little time for acquiring any other skills, knowledge, or culture. Yet to this day, for example, the official preference in Portugal is for lip-reading, and not sign language, in the teaching of deaf children.

Tools of the trade?

Nevertheless hope is—perhaps—at hand, in the form of that modern panacea, technology. If a “home on the Internet” signals “a fresh and outward-looking approach to ensuring better access to justice for the public” in Britain, in Portugal the issuing of a CD-ROM is an important step to taking Portuguese sign language out of the closet and enabling those who are interested to become acquainted with it.2 Both these uses of technology signal the same message. It is the message of the global village and the information superhighway. In this world, for example, discussion groups enable people to exchange views and obtain information on a vast range of topics connected with the area of community interpreting. For those armed with a computer and the minimal skills needed to surf the Web and send an email message, the old days of isolation are over. The message of the following extracts from email communications is clear: technology is not a solution, but a tool. It cannot in itself change attitudes. But for community interpreters—those thousands of language professionals on the leading edge, involved on a daily basis in situations in court, the health system, educational settings, and so on, facing service providers, administrators, government officials, and ordinary people dealing with situations where they need language assistance—today’s tools have changed their situation out of all recognition in the last five years.

Specific issues relating to the vital issue of interpreters’ qualifications for different fields can be discussed on the Web:

I’m trying to put together for a US government agency a minimum list of qualifications for medical interpreters that would be for use by health care providers. Clearly, there is still much debate over issues of training, assessment, and certification of medical interpreters. But many of you must use some basic criteria/assessment tools to determine whether or not to use someone as an interpreter in your institutions. What criteria of competence should someone meet (which if they didn’t, they really ought not be interpreting)?

People preparing presentations, for example to lawyers’ or judges’ associations, can get invaluable pointers, materials and support from others who have experience in such situations, avoiding the need to reinvent the wheel. The following message reflects the frustration experienced by many concerned and responsible court interpreters who are clearly aware of the need to change attitudes among non-language personnel: