The Cooperative Courtroom: A Case Study of Interpreting Gone Wrong

The cooperative courtroom
A case study of interpreting gone wrong
Bodil Martinsen and Friedel Dubslaff

Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus
This paper presents a case study of an interpreting event in a Danish courtroom

setting. The study investigates the interpreter’s influence on the interaction as well
as factors influencing the behaviour of all the participants involved. The study also
investigates what happens when the interpreter’s performance is perceived by par-
ticipants as inadequate in order to achieve the communicative goal of the event.
The model of translation culture, in which cooperativeness, loyalty and transpar-
ency are key concepts, is used as an explanatory tool. Although the interaction un-
der study, like all courtroom interaction, is determined by the inherent institution-
al power differential, it is appropriate to describe it in terms of cooperativeness.
The conflict regarding the interpreter’s non-normative behaviour is negotiated and
settled by way of consensus, and the trial is carried through with the same inter-
preter despite doubt about her competence. The paper concludes by discussing the
effect of special contextual conditions, as well as ethical implications.
Keywords: court interpreting, discourse analysis, translation culture,

cooperativeness, loyalty, transparency, non-normative behaviour, ethics
1. Introduction
In research on court interpreting, various scholars have dealt with interpreters’

non-compliance with translational norms, especially in order to demonstrate the
tension between the prescriptions of official guidelines on the one hand and inter-
preters’ behaviour in practice and/or their self-perception as more or less visible
interactants on the other (e.g. Angelelli 2004; Berk-Seligson 2002; Jacobsen 2002;
Jansen 1995; Mikkelson 1998, 2008; Morris 1993). Deviations from the norms,
such as additions, omissions or register variations (e.g. Hale 1997, 2004; Jacobsen
2002), usually pass unnoticed by the primary participants involved because they
cannot monitor the interpreters’ renderings of their own or other participants’
input. Other deviations which can be observed directly, also by monolingual
Interpreting 12:1 (2010), 21–59. doi 10.1075/intp.12.1.02mar

issn 1384–6647 / e-issn 1569–982X © John Benjamins Publishing Company
22 Bodil Martinsen and Friedel Dubslaff
participants, e.g. interpreters’ adoption of indirect speech or their engaging in

short dialogues in the foreign language, seem to be tolerated by judges (cf. Ja-
cobsen 2002 in the context of Danish district courts). In short, such deviations
are commonplace and are not normally the subject of criticism. (For the relevant
norms in Danish court interpreting, see Section 3 below.)
By contrast, in the present study the interpreter’s non-normative behaviour
gives rise to explicit disapproval during the trial. This casts doubt on her transla-
tion competence and results in a negative sanction, namely a comment about the
incident in the court record.
To our knowledge, non-normative behaviour resulting in negative sanctions
has not yet been the subject of empirical research based on authentic data collected
in a courtroom setting. Obviously, such data is not easily obtained. As mentioned
above, one reason for this is that the primary participants are not usually able
to perceive non-normative behaviour. As Salaets and Van Gucht (2008: 283) put
it, “the other parties in the triad are dependent on the interpreter for translation
purposes, hence they will probably only be aware of the most blatant misconduct.”
Blatant misconduct, however, is not the rule. According to Toury, “non-normative
behaviour tends to be the exception in actual practice” (Toury 1978/2000: 206),
because, “under normal conditions, a translator would tend to avoid negative
sanctions on ‘improper’ behaviour as much as obtain the rewards which go with a
proper one” (Toury 1999: 19). Yet another reason for the lack of empirical research
on this topic is that recordings are very often not allowed in courtroom settings.
Hence there is not normally “any material basis on which to evaluate incompetent
interpretation” (Morris 1993: 19). Jacobsen (2002: 51) states that within the Danish
legal system, “utterances in a foreign language are not considered evidence and are
therefore not entered into the court records in their original form. Incidentally,
the records are not verbatim either. As a result, an interpreter’s performance is not
documented (…).”
Hence, as Toury (1999: 19) states, “it would make an interesting project to
study the (…) sanctions that may be associated with translational behaviour and
their (possible and actual) effects on instances of performance within defined so-
cio-cultural settings.”
2. Aim of the study and theoretical framework
The issue of explicit disapproval of the interpreter’s performance is central in the

present study. However, our main interest is not to register all kinds of non-nor-
mative behaviour on the part of the interpreter and in this way focus almost exclu-
sively on the interpreter’s behaviour. Rather, the aim is to investigate the influence
The cooperative courtroom 23
the interpreter exerts on the interaction between all the participants involved in
the interpreting event. More specifically, the study aims to identify factors influ-
encing the participants’ behaviour and, if possible, identify regularities of behav-
iour. Our point of departure is the basic assumption that the interpreter wishes to
obtain the rewards which go with “proper”, norm-conforming behaviour.
The courtroom setting

The criminal case under study was conducted by a Danish district court sitting
with a professional presiding judge and two lay judges. The other legal partici-
pants were the prosecutor and the defence counsel. In this kind of setting, Jacob-
sen (2002, 2008) discerns a clear power differential between the legal profession-
als, on the one hand, and the non-legal participants, i.e. defendants and witnesses,
on the other. The existence of a power differential in courtroom settings is non-
controversial (e.g. Hale 2004; Mikkelson 2008). “Much has been written about the
courtroom as the site of ultimate institutionalised hierarchy of power”, as Hale
(2004: 160) states. However, Hale found that even “though the powerful partici-
pants have legitimised institutional power to control the discourse of the power-
less participants (…), such power is not exercised consistently or continuously”
(Hale 2004: 159). As to the setting in our case study, we will argue that institutional
power is exercised in a cooperative way more or less throughout the trial.
This has to do with the fact that the Danish legal system “is not an aggres-
sive system” (Jacobsen 2002: 38). According to Jacobsen (2008: 129), “The Dan-
ish courtroom is less adversarial than many other courtrooms around the world.”
Among other things, this is due to the accusatorial principle of “favor defensionis”,
granting defendants in criminal trials certain rights and privileges. Thus, “defen-
dants are not obliged to answer questions and cannot be punished for giving false
evidence”. Furthermore, lawyers must only ask questions “that will elicit clear and
truthful responses” (Jacobsen 2008: 129). Another fundamental principle is that
of “in dubio pro reo”, which means that “a case must be proven beyond reasonable
doubt” and also that “the prosecution must protect the interests of the accused”
(Jacobsen 2002: 39). Interpreting events within this non-aggressive courtroom
setting can be adequately described by applying a model of a translation culture
which is based on democratic principles in accordance with the value systems of
Western democratic societies. Therefore, we have chosen the model of transla-
tion culture proposed by Prunč (1997, 2000) as the framework to account for the
interpreting event under study. As Prunč uses the terms translation, translational
action etc. generically, i.e. including interpreting, it goes without saying that we
shall adapt the terminology to the context of this study when appropriate. (For the
use of Prunč’s model in the context of asylum hearings, see Pöllabauer 2006.)
Translation culture
Prunč (2000: 59) defines translation culture as “the historically developed sub-
system of a culture relating to the field of translation” (our translation here and
throughout unless indicated otherwise). It consists of “a socially established and
variable set of norms, conventions, expectations and values underlying the behav-
iour of all the interactants who participate, actually or potentially, in translation
processes conducted within this culture” (Prunč 2000: 59). Translation culture is,
of course, in line with the other value systems present in a specific society. Thus,
in a democratic Western society, a model of translation culture has to be derived
from democratic principles (Prunč 2000: 60).
One of these democratic principles is the maxim of cooperativeness. On the
most basic level, cooperativeness implies the functional division of labour (Prunč
2000: 60). This means that the translator’s role in the translational interaction is
that of linguistic and cultural expert. However, first and foremost, cooperative-
ness means “mutual respect for the legitimate interests of all participants in the
production and reception of the translation” (Prunč 2000: 60) and “the willingness
to negotiate viable conflict-settling conventions to ensure the balancing of com-
peting interests” (Prunč, cited in Pöllabauer 2006: 153). The asymmetry of power
between participants is explicitly included in the model.
The second principle of the model is loyalty — an ethical maxim for trans-
lational interaction which can be derived from the principle of cooperativeness
(Prunč 1997: 111). “Loyalty is constituted by the interactants’ mutual commitment
not to act against the other partners’ interests and to resolve conflicting communi-
cative goals by way of consensus” (Prunč 2000: 61). Unlike Nord (e.g. 1997/2001,
2004), who introduced the notion of the translator’s loyalty to initiators, target
receivers and original authors, Prunč not only includes the translator’s loyalty to
him/herself, but also redefines the concept as a reciprocal principle by including
the other participants’ loyalty to the translator. Without this reciprocity, the inte-
gration of power asymmetry in a democratic model of translation culture would
not make sense (Prunč 2000: 61).
The third principle of the model, transparency, “is the psychological barrier
against the partners’ fear of deception” (Prunč 2000: 61).
As to the translation product, it is usually in line with the other participants’
expectations (cf. Chesterman’s (1997) expectancy norms). According to Prunč,
“translators have to establish the relation between source and target texts which is
expected by the other partners in a given translational situation” (Prunč 2000: 61).
Prunč terms this relation “implicit skopos” (i.e. purpose) because it is standardised
and does not require explicit negotiations (Prunč 1997: 116–117). Translators who
establish this skopos relation carry out their loyalty obligation. However, “if any of
the participants (…) regards the implicit skopos as inadequate in order to achieve
the communicative goal of the interaction, it follows from the principle of loyalty
that deviations are negotiated by the partners involved” (Prunč 2000: 62). The re-
sult of the negotiation is of course dependent on the power hierarchy between the
interactants, but whatever the result, “the principle of transparency requires that
deviations from the expected skopos relation be declared” (Prunč 2000: 62), so all
partners are free to decide whether or not they want to accept the deviations. In
such cases, Prunč (ibid.) talks about an “explicit skopos”.
The notion of translation culture as a “subsystem of a culture” has been criti-
cised by Pym (2006: 23) for being unclear with regard to the definition of its scope.
However, Prunč (2000) takes a pragmatic view of this issue: “The frame within
which translational action is carried out in practice does not necessarily comprise
the entire social and cultural context (…). A translation convention can also be
established ad hoc (…) by the partners involved. This kind of convention merely
implies that its validity is restricted to these partners only” (Prunč 2000: 14). In
our data analysis, the focus is on the interactional micro-level dimension. In our
opinion, this frame is adequate in order to describe the interaction under study,
which, incidentally, comprises a conflict-settling convention established ad hoc
with clearly delineated validity.
3. Methodology
The study is based on only one event and one interpreter, which mandated a quali-
tative approach. While it does not claim to provide a picture of “interpreting prac-
tice”, it does attempt to shed light on something that occurs in practice on a not
particularly infrequent basis.
The data used for this study was collected as part of a larger research project.
The long-term aim of the larger project is to investigate the role of the interpreter
in a broad perspective, encompassing interpreters, institutional participants and
non-Danish-speaking participants by way of triangulation, i.e. field observation,
discourse analysis of transcribed audio-recordings, and a survey approach by
means of case-based questionnaires (see Christensen 2008). The questionnaires
were designed to find out what institutional and individual participants and inter-
preters, respectively, regard as good interpreting. To this end, the questions were
elaborated drawing on the Guidelines for interpreting in Danish court proceedings,
published by the Danish Court Administration (Domstolsstyrelsen 2003), which
describe the performance requirements of court interpreters and “a code of ethics
which includes regulations on accuracy/completeness, conflicts of interest, confi-
dentiality and impartiality, and recommendations regarding working conditions,
forms of address and other issues” (Christensen 2008: 101). As Christensen argues,

the Guidelines state what is “explicitly mandatory in Danish interpreter-mediated
courtroom proceedings, and, therefore, (…) they represent (…) translational ex-
pectancy norms governing court interpreting” (Christensen 2008: 101).
By allowing for triangulation, the multi-method approach adopted for the
overall project can, at least to a certain degree, make up for the limitations of the
present single-case study. One of the authors was a participant observer at the
event under study, and made the recordings after having obtained the permission
of the interpreter and all three legal professionals. She also distributed the ques-
tionnaires. These were filled in by all the institutional participants immediately
after the trial, and by the interpreter a few days later. It was not possible, however,
to obtain the foreign-language-speaking participants’ responses.
It has been pointed out that the unavoidable subjectivity of the researcher
when transcribing and analysing data may result in methodological pitfalls (e.g.
Mason 2006). Therefore, when applying the model of translation culture as an ex-
planatory tool, we shall strive to avoid these pitfalls by adopting an approach simi-
lar to the one suggested by Mason, i.e. investigating “real-time responses of the
participants themselves to each other’s moves rather than (…) analysts’ imagined
reconstruction of context, intentionality and acceptability” (Mason 2006: 103).
The trial
The length of the proceedings was 90 minutes.
The languages involved were Danish and French. In the questionnaires, all
three legal professionals involved indicated that they “understand some French,
but do not speak the language”. Thus, they may have been able, to a certain extent,
to monitor the interpreter-mediated parts of the proceedings. However, as will
emerge from the data analysis, this assumption was not justified, at least not as far
as the judge is concerned. All three institutional participants have ample experi-
ence of interpreter-mediated hearings.
The interpreter was a female state-authorised translator and interpreter with
several years of experience. She has assignments as a court interpreter on a fairly
regular basis. She was hired for the task in question on the basis of the official list
of interpreters which is kept by the National Commission of the Danish Police
and used by the police as well as the courts (see Schweda Nicholson & Martinsen
1997). State-authorised translators and interpreters have to be graduates from the
two business schools in Denmark. They have taken a Master’s degree in translation
and interpreting in one foreign language and, usually, also a Bachelor’s degree in
another foreign language. The BA degree programme does not include interpret-
ing courses, though. In the context of the present study, it has to be mentioned
that the interpreter obtained the title of state-authorised translator and interpreter
in a language other than French. As will appear from the analysis, she is a Bach-
elor of French, which means among other things that her training did not include
Danish-French or French-Danish interpreting. The official list of interpreters does
not distinguish between Masters and Bachelors. The interpreters’ level of educa-
tion is registered under the common heading “translators and interpreters and
other graduates”. Thus, users of the official list do not know whether the interpreter
to be hired for a particular job has an MA degree or a BA degree — and the level
of remuneration is the same, too. Finally, it is worth noting that court interpreters
in Denmark are not employed on a permanent basis by the courts, but are always
hired on a freelance basis to ensure impartiality.
The defendant was a French-speaking UN Convention refugee from an Afri-
can country. He is fluent in French, but French is not his mother tongue. At the
time of the trial, he had been living in Denmark for a few years and had acquired
some knowledge of Danish. Recently, his three teenage daughters had come to
Denmark to live with their father, who had been granted family reunification. The
eldest daughter, who does not know any Danish, was the injured party in the case
and appeared as one of two witnesses.
The defendant was charged with two counts: (1) having hit his eldest daughter
twice in the face; and (2) in a phone conversation with the other witness, a Dan-
ish community interpreter of French, having made statements which were per-
ceived by this witness as threats to kill his daughter. The Danish witness who had
been appointed by the municipality as an interpreter to assist the French-speaking
daughters was the person who had reported the defendant to the police. The de-
fendant had already pleaded guilty to the violence charge, and not guilty to the
threat charge.
4. Analysis
The criteria for the choice of excerpts from the transcript were as follows: (1) only
instances of participants’ responses to each others’ moves were included (cf. Sec-
tion 3 above); and (2) the focus was on different participant constellations (cf. Sec-
tion 2 above) so that the mutuality implied by the concepts of cooperativeness and
loyalty was rendered visible.
The excerpts will be presented according to the chronological order of the
proceedings, i.e. examples from the questioning of the defendant first, followed by
examples from the questioning of the French-speaking witness.
Questioning of the defendant

As will appear from the analysis, one of the special circumstances characterising
the interaction is that the defendant understood some Danish. In the introductory
phase when the judge announced the case, the defence counsel informed the judge
about the defendant’s language skills. Based on two pre-trial meetings with his cli-
ent, the counsel stated that “we can communicate excellently in Danish” and the
interpreter had only been requested “for all eventualities in connection with the
second count”. As to answering the court’s questions though, the defendant stated
that he “would like to respond in French”. The defence counsel’s move enhanced
the defendant’s public self-image or face (Brown & Levinson 1987: 61). (For the
concept of face in a study on Danish court interpreting, see Jacobsen 2008). It also
revealed that the defendant’s language abilities might enable him, at least to some
degree, to follow the legal professionals’ questions and the interpreter’s renderings.
Thus, the interpreted event was to a certain degree transparent for the defendant.
It must be assumed that the interpreter was the only person for whom all mediated
parts of the trial were totally transparent. However, the fact that the defendant had
some Danish skills made the interpreter’s job somewhat less transparent. It seems
to imply a deviation from the implicit skopos of the interpreting event, namely
that the interpreter relays everything said and hence takes every second turn. The
question of how much Danish the defendant could be assumed to understand ap-
peared to be a source of uncertainty for the interpreter — which in turn some-
times resulted in irritation on the part of the defendant.
Excerpt 1 below illustrates cooperativeness on the part of the defence counsel
(DC) and the judge (J), demonstrating respect for the defendant’s (D) interests.
The prosecutor (P) posed her second question to the defendant, who responded
directly without waiting for the interpreter (I). (For a list of abbreviations and
transcription conventions, see the Appendix.)
Excerpt 1
1 P: Kom du alene til Danmark?
Did you come to Denmark alone?
2 D: Je suis je suis arrivé seul?
I arrived I arrived alone?
3 I: Ja, jeg kom-
Yes, I came-
4 D: Non non je suis pas arrivé seul mais par le biais des Nations Unies,
c’est le Haut Commissariat des Réfugiés c’est (.) qui m’a emmené au
Danemark (..) par le Haut Commissariat FN.
No no I did not arrive alone but via the United Nations, it’s the United
Nations High Commissariat of Refugees it’s (.) who brought me to
Denmark (..) via the UN High Commissariat.

5 I: FN? okay (..) ja ø:h (..) tiltalte hævder at vedkommende ikke er kommet
til Danmark alene men er kommet hertil via FN.
UN? okay (..) yes e:r (..) the defendant claims that the person concerned
didn’t come to Denmark alone but came here via the UN.
6 P: Ja.
Yes.
7 DC: Ja, kvoteordningen.
Yes, the quota system.
8 J: Ja, som som flygtning, som FN-flygtning.
Yes, as as a refugee, as a UN refugee.
9 I: Som FN-flygtning.
As a UN refugee.
The defendant is not quite sure about the meaning of the prosecutor’s question.
So in turn 2 (henceforth T2 etc.) he reiterates her question in French, which im-
plies that he has understood the words. However, his questioning intonation is
not conveyed by the interpreter. She starts her rendering in an affirmative man-
ner: Ja, jeg kom- (Yes, I came-) and is immediately interrupted by the defendant’s
protest. He has come to the conclusion that the prosecutor’s alene (alone) in this
context means by himself or on his own initiative. As a Convention refugee, he
probably wants to dissociate himself from asylum seekers who usually arrive in
EU countries on their own initiative. In comparison with the low status of asylum
seekers in Danish society, Convention refugees enjoy certain rights and higher
status because they come to Denmark by agreement as part of the UN resettle-
ment programme. The defendant’s emphatic repetitions of non (no) and of le Haut
Commissariat (the High Commissariat) in T4 presumably reflect the importance
he attaches to this circumstance. The mention of his status in society — like the
mention of his language skills — serves to enhance his positive face.
The exchange between all the participants in excerpt 1 is an example of many-
facetted cooperativeness. As to the functional division of labour, the exchange pro-
vides an atypical example of the interpreter’s role, i.e. according to the model of
translation culture, the role of linguistic and cultural expert. Both defence counsel
and the judge supply the information which the interpreter did not convey: Ja,
kvoteordningen (Yes, the quota system) and Ja, som (…) FN-flygtning (Yes, as (…)
a UN refugee) in T7 and T8 respectively. Counsel thus shows loyalty to the defen-
dant. The judge’s contribution is likely to be perceived as cooperative by all other
participants. At the same time, it probably also functions as a cue to the court
secretary, who is typing the record.
The interpreter’s final utterance (T9): Som FN flygtning (As a UN refugee) has
no obvious purpose, as it is merely an echo of the piece of information supplied by
the judge. It may be seen as the interpreter’s acknowledgement of the fact that this
piece of information had been missing in her rendition, and may reflect her wish
to comply with the norm of accuracy and completeness. Norm-compliance would
in turn indicate loyalty to the court.
However, the interpreter does not comply with the first-person norm stipulat-
ed in the Guidelines (Domstolsstyrelsen 2003: 3). She does use the first person in
her first turn (T3) in excerpt 1; but in her second turn (T5) she uses third-person
style, which she adopts more or less consistently throughout the trial. According
to her answers in the questionnaire, she knows the Guidelines, but prefers indirect
style all the same. She may enjoy the central role of intermediary in the interaction
which is associated with the use of the third person. In addition, her speech style
in T5 is markedly formal (her use of vedkommende (the person concerned) instead
of han (he), and her filtering the defendant’s utterance by using hævder (claims) in-
stead of siger (says)). This behaviour is in line with interpreters’ tendency to “raise
the level of formality” when interpreting into the language of the court (e.g. Pöch-
hacker 2004: 146, Hale 2006: 219). Presumably, it reflects the interpreter’s wish to
appear as a competent professional — but it is not in accordance with the principle
of loyalty.
Excerpt 2 below is the continuation of excerpt 1 (indicated by the continued
numbering of the turns). It illustrates cooperativeness once again, this time on
the part of the prosecutor as well, which emerges from her next question to the
defendant (T10).
Excerpt 2
10 P: Ja (..) og så har jeg forstået at du er blevet familiesammenført med dine
tre døtre her i år. Er det korrekt?
Yes (..) and then I understand that you have been reunited with your three
daughters now this year. Is that correct?
11 D: Ou:i.
Ye:s.
12 I: Tu comprends tout?
You understand everything?
13 D: Oui oui oui, j’entends j’entends j’ai pas (besoin de?) (xxx)#
Yes yes yes, I understand I understand I don’t (need?) (xxx)#
14 I: Ja, det er korrekt at tiltalte-
Yes, it’s correct that the defendant-
15 J: familiesammenført
reunited
16 I: familiesammenføres med med dem.
is reunited with with them.
17 D: (xxx)
18 J: i år.
this year.
The prosecutor sums up by Ja (Yes), and links her next question to the prior dis-
course by using the discourse markers og så (and then) (see Jacobsen 2008 on,
among other things, the pragmatics of discourse markers in a Danish courtroom
setting). Her line of questioning indicates that she, presumably, had expected the
defendant to answer her prior question (T1) in the affirmative, i.e. that he arrived
alone in the sense of without his children or family. However, she does not dismiss
his answer (not alone, but via UNHCR) as irrelevant, but reformulates her question
in a more precise and, at the same time, cooperative manner. She indicates con-
tinuity with the prior context by using og så (and then), and signals that the new
topic she is introducing is derived from her own understanding of prior informa-
tion from the police report: og så har jeg forstået at (…) med dine tre døtre her i år
(and then I understand that (…) with your three daughters now this year). She now
asks the defendant to confirm this data: Er det korrekt? (Is that correct?). He does
so, once again, by responding directly without waiting for the interpreter.
As the skopos of the interpreter’s task concerning the turn-taking pattern is
unclear, she asks the defendant — for the third time now — Tu comprends tout?
(You understand everything?). His irritation in T13 may seem inappropriate and
uncooperative considering that his monosyllabic answer to the prosecutor’s ques-
tion (T11) does not show which fact or facts he actually confirms. However, it has
to be mentioned that, a few seconds earlier, the interpreter had tried his patience
when relaying his answer to the prosecutor’s first question about the length of time
he had lived in Denmark. The interpreter did not take notes and asked for repeti-
tions three times, so it took her 26 seconds to produce the complete answer in
Danish. Contrary to the interpreter’s performance as a translator, her performance
as a coordinator (Wadensjö 1998) and communicator may be observed by the pri-
mary participants, at least to a certain degree. Thus, they may have perceived her
performance as less professional and, if so, they may have been aware of her need
for their cooperativeness already at this early stage of the proceedings. In any case,
the judge demonstrates cooperativeness again by supplying a suggestion for the in-
terpreter’s rendition, familiesammenført (reunited), and the missing part i år (this
year) in T15 and T18 respectively. As in excerpt 1, her contributions simultane-
ously serve institutional purposes in that they provide cues for a complete answer
to the prosecutor’s question for the court record.
In excerpt 3 below, it is the defendant who demonstrates cooperativeness and
loyalty to the institutional participants.
In the context prior to his explanation below, the defendant has confirmed
that he hit his daughter as charged because she kept teasing and frightening her
younger sisters when he was at work in a nearby town. So he wanted to confront

her with this misconduct and make her take responsibility for the youngest mem-
bers of the family. In excerpt 3, he explains that he ordered her to leave her own
room upstairs and to come downstairs with him into the basement so the younger
sisters would not be witnesses to the argument. He has already stated that he re-
grets having hit his daughter when she refused to obey.
Excerpt 3
1 D: Et puis je l’ai appellée (..) comme dans notre culture (..) j’ai pas encore la
culture danoise (..) dans notre culture on ne peut pas parler à l’enfant qui
a plus d’ans devant les autres qui sont plus jeunes.
And then I called for her (..) because in our culture (..) I do not yet have
the Danish culture (..) in our culture you can’t talk to a child who is older
in front of the others who are younger.
2 I: Ja, det forholder sig sådan at det her, det er jo så en anden kultur øh men
tiltalte siger at at han ikke rigtig ville tale til den ældste i familien, altså
det vil sige (NAVN), mens de to små hørte på.
Yes, the fact is that this here, this is of course a different culture er but the
defendant says that that he didn’t really want to talk to the eldest in the
family, I mean that is to say (NAME), while the two young ones listened.
In his parenthetical j’ai pas encore la culture danoise (I do not yet have the Dan-
ish culture), the defendant refers explicitly to a cultural disparity of which he was
probably unaware when he committed the offence. His use of pas encore (not yet)
seems to indicate that he is willing to acquire Danish cultural values, the case in
point being a democratic non-violent way of solving domestic conflicts. This in-
terpretation is in line with the fact that he has repeatedly expressed his regret hav-
ing used violence. Thus his utterance may be said to imply loyalty to the legal
representatives of the Danish host country present in the courtroom. At the same
time, this utterance serves his own interest in the outcome of the trial. The issue of
cultural disparity has most likely been discussed in the pre-trial meetings with his
defence counsel, so the defendant knows that collaborative behaviour will enhance
his positive face and possibly affect the judgement in a favourable way. However,
the interpreter misses the point by omitting the defendant’s parenthetical remark.
Thus, she does not establish the skopos relation which the author of the original
utterance would expect, i.e. she does not live up to her loyalty obligation.
In excerpt 4 below, all the primary participants — apart from the counsel —
cooperate in order to ensure that the interpreter can provide correct renditions.
The questions concern the defendant’s alleged threat to kill his daughter, made in
a telephone conversation with the Danish witness. The defendant pleads not guilty
to the threat charge, so it is important for the prosecutor to establish whether
or not he can confirm the relevant statements from the police report which she
is going to read aloud. The judge asks the prosecutor to deliver the text in small
segments. She is a legal professional who is used to working with interpreters, so
it can be assumed that she knew that reading written documents aloud at high
speed is likely to be a problem for interpreters, unless they have been given a copy
beforehand.
Excerpt 4
1 J: (til anklageren) og hvis du sådan vil tage det sætning for sætning?
(to the prosecutor) and if you would read it aloud sentence by sentence ?
2 P: og der står (..) det er faktisk kun en lang sætning (..) << sigtede forklarer
at det var korrekt at han den omhandlede dag havde telefonisk kontakt
med (NAVN) >> …
and it says (..) it is in fact only one long sentence ( ..) << the suspect states
that it was correct that he on the day in question had telephone contact
with (NAME) >> …
3 I: (4 sec.) Oui, tu as racontre que c’est correct que ce jour là tu as eu e:h
contact téléphonique avec (NOM).
(4 sec.)Yes, you have tell that it is correct that you on that day have had e:r
telephone contact with (NAME).
4 P: < og det var også korrekt at han var meget ophidset da han snakkede
med hende. >
< and it was also correct that he was very angry when he talked with
her. >
5 I: et c’est aussi correct que tu as été très eh eh …
and it’s also correct that you were very er er…
6 D: J’étais très quoi (.) énervé?
I was very what (.) irritated?
7 I: Ja …
Yes …
8 D: fâché, oui.
angry, yes.
9 I: un peu fâché oui (.) énervé (.) eh quand tu as parlé avec elle.
a little angry yes (.) irritated.(.) er when you talked with her.
The prosecutor splits the long sentence into two parts and presents the first one
(T2) extremely slowly and with an extremely distinct articulation. Apart from a
long pause at the beginning of the interpreter’s rendition (T3), there is nothing to
indicate that she might have had translation problems. Her non-standard use of
French grammar — which the authors have tried to translate into ungrammatical
English here and elsewhere — does not affect the intelligibility of this particular
turn, and probably cannot be monitored by the legal professionals anyway. So in
T4, the prosecutor delivers the second part of the statement in a slightly more
natural manner. However, the interpreter gets stuck and now the defendant of-
fers linguistic support. This is yet another instance of cooperation implying an
atypical division of labour. The rest of excerpt 4 is a dialogue in French about the
equivalent that would best match the Danish meget ophidset (very angry). In T6
the defendant, having understood the prosecutor’s second turn in Danish, recycles
— in French — part of the prosecutor’s question: J’étais très quoi (I was very what)
and suggests the term énervé? (irritated?) which he rejects immediately, however,
and replaces by the more powerful fâché, oui (angry, yes) in T8. The interpreter
finishes the dialogue in an evaluating manner including both terms suggested by
the defendant, but with her own “improvement” of the last one: un peu fâché oui
(a little angry yes), a mitigation which runs counter to the context.
Although the interpreter saves face in this way, she may have perceived the
defendant’s assistance not as cooperative, but as challenging her linguistic compe-
tence. Although his recycled question is not spoken in an ironic or sarcastic tone
(there is no indication of this in the audio-recording), the interpreter may have
perceived it that way. This might explain why she does not simply accept the term
fâché (angry), which the defendant regards as the best match, but modifies it slight-
ly. However, it is very likely that the interpreter really believes that her mitigated
version is the best choice, considering that, in the data, there are several occur-
rences of the same mitigation phenomenon in her renditions of central utterances
(excerpts 6 and 7). If the defendant is in fact challenging the interpreter’s linguistic
competence he does so only after almost 30 minutes of interpreted proceedings
containing ample evidence of less than proficient interpreting into French.
In this subsection, we have presented various kinds of cooperative behaviour
by all the primary participants in the interpreting event. A common feature is that
they demonstrate respect for the other participants’ interests, while pursuing their
own institutional and (as far as the defendant is concerned) individual interests at
the same time. Concerning the interpreter, the mutuality of cooperativeness seems
to be lopsided. The interpreter is the interactant who is shown most consideration
by the other participants, whereas there may be some doubt about her loyalty to
the other participants. As to the transparency of the proceedings, the defendant is,
of course, at a disadvantage, but owing to his Danish skills and the pre-trial talks
with his defence counsel, this is the case only to a limited degree. Hence he has no
obvious reasons to fear deception. However, he may feel insecure with the inter-
preter’s performance, which he is able to monitor to some extent.
Questioning of the witness

Unlike the defendant, the non-Danish-speaking witness is not in a position to
perceive the interpreter’s linguistic difficulties, so she cannot demonstrate cooper-
ativeness by providing French synonyms or suggesting Danish equivalents. She is
the only non-institutional participant who is totally dependent on the interpreter’s
renditions. In addition, she has no knowledge of the Danish trial procedure and its
socio-cultural context. So for her the proceedings lack transparency.
Excerpt 5 below illustrates a lack of transparency for the witness, but to a cer-
tain degree also for the judge, owing, at least partly, to erroneous interpreting.
The incident occurs at the beginning of the witness’s testimony, when the judge
informs her of her right not to testify against her father.
Excerpt 5
1 J: Ja (..) og øh du er kommet herind for at svare på nogle spørgsmål.
Yes (..) and er you have come here in order to answer some questions.
2 I: Tu es ici pour repondre à des questions? (..) tu es ici pour repondre à des
questions?
You are here in order to answer questions? (..) you are here in order to
answer questions?
3 W: répondre (..) à répondre …
answer (..) to answer …
4 I: répondre (.) oui.
answer ( .) yes.
5 J: og da det er din far øh det drejer sig om,
and as it is your father er who is concerned,
6 I: En ce qui concerne ton père,
Regarding your father,
7 J: så behøver du ikke svare på det vi spørger dig om.
you need not answer the questions we put to you.
8 I: il n’est pas nécessaire que tu repondre des questions.
it is not necessary that you to answer questions.
9 W: Oui.
Yes.
10 J: Vil øh vil vil du svare på nogle spørgsmål?
Are er are are you willing to answer some questions?
11 I: Tu veux repondre des questions oui ou non? Tu veux-
You are willing answer questions yes or no? You are willing-
12 W: Quel genre de questions?
What kind of questions?
13 I: Hvilken slags spørgsmål skal (xxx)?
What kind of questions shall (xxx)?
14 J: Jamen der er (..) du kan øh (..) det foregår på den måde at anklageren
som sidder der vil spørge dig om noget.
Yes but there is (..) you can e:r (..) what happens is that the prosecutor who
is sitting there will ask you about something.
The witness is not sure how to react (T3) when the interpreter relays the judge’s in-
troductory statement as a declarative with a slightly questioning intonation (T2):
Tu es ici pour repondre à des questions? (You are here to answer questions?), and,
after a pause, repeats the same utterance in exactly the same manner. Next, the
interpreter tells the witness that she does not have to answer questions about her
father (T6 and T8) — the interpreter has omitted the causal relationship contained
in the information given by the judge in T5 and T7. The witness confirms the in-
terpreter’s statement by Oui (Yes). Consequently, she wonders what kind of ques-
tions the court might want her to answer, when the judge asks the standard ques-
tion whether she is willing to make a statement (T10). In addition, the interpreter
renders the question as a menace (T11): Tu veux repondre des questions oui ou
non? (You are willing answer questions yes or no?), so the witness seems to suspect
unexpected and disagreeable questions and responds with the counter-question
T12: Quel genre de questions? (What kind of questions?). The unexpected turn of
the exchange causes embarrassment on the part of the judge, who obviously could
not monitor the interpreting and has to improvise a more or less sensible answer
(T14): Jamen (…) spørge dig om noget (Yes but (…) ask you about something). The
exchange also illustrates another aspect of less than proficient interpreting into
French, apart from wrong grammar (as in T8 and T11), namely incoherent rendi-
tion of content. The interpreter’s mistranslation concerns a routine sequence in
criminal trials, which seems to indicate insufficient generic knowledge of Danish
court proceedings quite independent of the interpreter’s working languages. So
the incident questions the interpreter’s loyalty to the other interactants, who must
assume that she lives up to default expectations.
The remaining excerpts 6–9 below constitute continuous phases of a conflict.
Excerpt 6 illustrates the interpreter’s rendition which triggers the conflict and
results in extensive meta-talk in the following excerpts, which comprise various
participant constellations. Excerpt 7 illustrates the criticism of the interpreter’s
performance put forward by the audience; excerpt 8 contains the interpreter’s self-
defence; while excerpt 9 contains her explicit skopos declaration and the ensuing
negotiation of the terms on which the proceedings are to continue.
In the context of excerpt 6, the prosecutor is trying to elicit the witness’s ver-
sion of the violent event. The immediate context is the same as in excerpt 3, i.e. the
defendant had ordered his daughter to come down to his room, something which
she had refused to do twice when he sent one of her younger sisters as a messenger.
On the third occasion the defendant went up to her room himself, and the pros-
ecutor has asked what he said then.
Excerpt 6
1 W: Il a répondu je veux pas t’entendre parler, prends tes choses avant que je
m’énerve.
He answered I don’t want to listen to your talk, take your things before I
lose my temper.
2 I: m’énerve?
lose my temper?
3 W: Oui.
Yes.
4 I: Okay (..) faren sagde at jeg vil gerne tale om det der går mig på eller det
som irriterer mig.
Okay (..) the father said that I would like to talk about what bothers me or
what irritates me.
The interpreter is in doubt about the expression m’énerve (lose my temper), which
she recycles with a questioning intonation (T2). It is not clear whether this ques-
tion is an indirect request for confirmation or explanation. The witness is unaware
of the interpreter’s linguistic problems, so she only answers Oui (Yes). It seems odd
that the interpreter does not ask the witness to repeat or explain the entire utter-
ance, as her rendition (T4) shows that she has either not heard or not understood
the utterance as a whole. She constructs an arbitrary — though not meaningless
— rendition consisting of selected verbs from the original utterance: veux, parler,
m’énerve (want, talk, irritate), in different combinations. She may be gambling, but
it seems more likely that she is not aware of her comprehension error, because this
error is in line with her understanding of corresponding prior utterances by the
defendant. The interpreter has consistently mitigated the pragmatic force of utter-
ances in which the defendant stated that he was angry with his eldest daughter and
that his younger children were angry with their sister (cf. the context of excerpt 3).
In the same vein, the interpreter has mitigated the defendant’s characterisation of
his state of mind during his telephone conversation with the Danish witness (ex-
cerpt 4). Presumably, the reason for the interpreter’s mitigation of such statements
is that she is preoccupied with Danish cultural values, e.g. cooperative conflict
settlement among members of a family. She does not take into account that the
defendant has explicitly admitted and regretted that he used violence to enforce
his daughter’s respect for her father. Consequently, the violence and threat charges
appear less justified according to the interpreter’s renditions.
In excerpt 7 the prosecutor poses her next question, but the judge inter-
rupts the proceedings because she has observed some kind of trouble among
the French-speaking audience. The interaction is mainly a dialogue between the

judge, on the one hand, and the Danish witness (supported by several anonymous
members of the audience), on the other. The audience objects to the interpreter’s
last rendition, i.e. T4 in excerpt 6, as being incorrect.
Excerpt 7
5 P: Gik du så med ham?
Did you go with him then?
6 J: Altså (.) lige et øjeblik. Altså der bliver lavet sådan en masse grimasser
nede fra fra det bagerste (.) fra den bagerste række. Hvad hvad dækker
de over?
Now (.) just a minute. I mean there’s such a lot of grimacing down there
from from the last (.) from the last row. What what’s behind this?
7 W-DK: Må vi må vi godt sige noget?
May we may we say something?
8 J: Ja.
Yes.
9 W-DK: Hun oversætter helt forkert.
She translates quite wrong.
10 AUDm: Det er fuldstændig forkert det hun siger.
It’s completely wrong what she says.
11 W-DK: Det er slet ikke rigtigt (.) det er misforstået (.) det er misforstået.
It’s not at all correct (.) it’s misunderstood (.) it’s misunderstood.
12 J: Er det misforstået?
Is it misunderstood?
13 W-DK: Han siger kom med ned inden jeg bliver sur, ikke jeg vil ned og
snakke om hvad jeg er sur over.
He says come down with me before I get angry, not I want to go down
and talk about what makes me angry.
14 I: Okay.
Okay.
15 AUD (overlapping voices): (xxx)
16 J: Er det er det (..) nu har vi (.) vi har flere franskkyndige til stede. Hvad (.)
øh (..) er det er det rigtigt at tolkningen ikke er korrekt?
Is it is it (..) well we have (.) we have several French-speaking persons here.
What (.) er (..) is it is it true that the interpretation is not correct?
17 AUDm: Ja det er meget sandt.
Yes it’s very true.
18 I: Ø::h …
E::r …
19 J: Nå men nå men (..) så må vi lige have det igen. Faren faren kommer
altså (.) altså tredje gang så kommer faren …
Well then well then (..) we’ll just have to repeat it then. The father the
father comes, that is (.) that is, the third time the father comes …
As the judge is responsible for what is going on in “her” court, she addresses the
audience about the reason for the disturbance (T6). The Danish witness, who has
joined the audience after having testified, acts as a spokeswoman. She asks po-
litely for permission to speak (T7): Må vi (…) godt sige noget? (May we (…) say
something?), although this is exactly what the judge herself has just asked the audi-
ence to do. In this way she mitigates the serious face-threatening act she is going
to carry out, while at the same time maintaining her own face as a cooperative
participant. She then criticises the interpreter’s rendition in T9 as being helt for
kert (quite wrong) and in T11 as slet ikke rigtigt (not at all correct) and misforstået
(misunderstood), supported by a male member of the audience who adds T10:
fuldstændig forkert (completely wrong).
The judge is obviously not aware of any problems with the relaying part of
the interpreter’s performance, and therefore asks for confirmation (T12): Er det
misforstået? (Is it misunderstood?). The Danish witness illustrates the point (T13)
by offering her version of what the defendant had said to his daughter as opposed
to the interpreter’s rendition, thus demonstrating the gap between the expected
translational relation and the one established by the interpreter: Han siger kom
med ned (…), ikke (…) sur over. (He says come down with me (…), not (…) angry.).
The interpreter takes note of the criticism (Okay) without any other comments
(T14). The judge, however, finds it difficult to accept the criticism of the inter-
preter’s service. One reason may be loyalty to the interpreter, while another may be
a wish to avoid the inconvenience which acceptance of the criticism might mean
for the court. In any case, she decides to ask other members of the audience for
their opinion (T16), perhaps hoping that some of them might disagree with the
criticism (and/or hoping that one of the authors of this study, who was present as
a researcher, might answer her question). She has to make a difficult decision in
real time, which is reflected by several false starts, repetitions, pauses and voiced
hesitations: Er det er det (…) ikke er korrekt? (Is it is it (…) is not correct?). When
the criticism is confirmed again by a male member of the audience (T17): Ja det er
meget sandt (Yes it’s very true) and the interpreter only produces a voiced hesita-
tion in response (T18), the judge, eventually, resorts to resuming the proceedings
and initiates a renewed discussion of the piece of evidence in question (T19): Nå
men (…) så kommer faren (Well then (…) the father comes).
However, this decision is unsatisfactory. The audience’s and especially the
Danish witness’s objection to incorrect interpreting questions the reliability of the
evidence elicited from the non-Danish-speaking witness — an issue which con-

cerns the fundamentals of any interpreter-mediated trial and therefore cannot be
ignored. According to Prunč (2000: 62), the principle of loyalty requires that devia-
tions from the implicit skopos are negotiated by the partners involved, if any of the
participants regard the implicit (i.e. the default) skopos as inadequate for achieving
the communicative goal of the interaction. In the present context though, it is
not the implicit skopos which the audience regards as inadequate, but rather the
interpreter’s deviation from it, i.e. the fact that she does not “establish the relation
between source and target texts which is expected by the other partners in a given
translational situation” (Prunč 2000: 61). It may be discussed whether the Danish
witness, the spokeswoman of the audience, is a “partner” in the translational situ-
ation. She is not a primary participant in the sense of being the author of original
utterances to be interpreted as part of the proceedings; but she has a legitimate
interest in the reception of the interpreter’s performance. She may be said to be an
initiator of the trial (she reported the defendant to the police), and she is speaking
on behalf of the French-speaking witness, who is in fact a primary participant in
the interpreting event but is completely excluded from the ongoing meta-talk in
Danish. However, most importantly, the Danish witness is a practising interpreter
herself and is obviously better equipped with French language skills than the in-
terpreter in charge. Contrary to the judge — and probably the other two legal
professionals as well — she is able to monitor the quality of the interpreting and
thus, backed up by the audience, takes on the role of a check interpreter. In short,
there is very good reason for all the interactants to regard the Danish witness as a
partner in the translational situation. However, at the point in time when the judge
decides to resume the proceedings, the question of the adequacy or inadequacy of
the interpreter’s skopos deviation has not been negotiated by all the partners in-
volved, as required by the principle of loyalty. As long as the interpreter herself has
not taken a position on this issue, the decision to continue is unsatisfactory.
The interpreter is forced to respond to the challenge, as silence would be per-
ceived as acceptance and would imply face loss. Presumably, she has used the ex-
change between the judge and the audience to prepare a strategy for her self-de-
fence. This would explain why she was not ready to respond when the judge tried
to elicit opinions on the issue from other French-speaking persons.
In excerpt 8 below, the interpreter delivers her self-defence. The Danish wit-
ness objects to the interpreter’s argument and restates her criticism. This causes
the judge to acknowledge the seriousness of the conflict.
Excerpt 8
20 I: Må jeg godt svare på det her?
May I answer to this?
21 J: Ja.
Yes.
22 I: Jeg vil faktisk utroligt gerne have lov til at oversætte så meget som jeg
magter, jeg er jeg er blevet tilkaldt her efter tre års studier og jeg prøver
at oversætte så godt som jeg nu overhovedet kan jeg er overhovedet ikke
inde i sagen jeg tager det så godt som jeg forstår det. I har sandsynligvis
meget mere viden om lige præcis hvad det er det her det angår-
I should indeed very much like to be allowed to translate as much as I can,
I have I have been called for after three years of study and I am trying to
translate as well as I possibly can I am not at all familiar with the case I
take it as well as I understand it. You have probably much more knowledge
of precisely what it is this is all about-
23 W-DK: Det handler ikke om viden. Det handler om at vi virkelig skal
oversætte nøjagtigt korrekt det hun siger,
Knowledge is not the point. The point is that we really have to
translate exactly correctly what she says,
24 J: Ja.
Yes.
25 W-DK: og det bliver det ikke.
and this is not what happens here.
26 J: Det bliver ikke oversat korrekt?
It is not translated correctly?
27 W-DK: Nej det gør det altså ikke,
No, it really is not,
28 AUDf: Det gør det ikke, overhovedet ikke.
It is not, not at all.
29 W-DK: og det har ikke noget med dig personligt at gøre (..) men det skal
være fuldstændigt korrekt,
and this has nothing to do with you personally (..) but it has to be
completely correct,
30 J: Hm.
Hm.
31 W-DK: det du siger, det
what you are saying, it
32 J: hm
hm
33 W-DK: skal det altså.
really has to be.
34 J: Ja, ja det er jo et problem hvis ikke hvis ikke det bliver bliver tolket
korrekt.
Yes, yes it is of course a problem if not if it is it is not interpreted correctly.
Instead of interpreting the judge’s previous utterance (T19), the interpreter begins
with a request to speak: Må jeg godt svare på det her? (May I answer to this?) in
order to mitigate her interruption of the judge. She then delivers her self-defence
(T22), speaking quickly with almost no pauses between the units of meaning, as if
she has rehearsed her speech. This probably reflects the exertion connected with
her attempt to maintain face. She does not reject the criticism, but tries instead to
create goodwill by stressing her strong personal commitment to the task at hand,
e.g. Jeg vil faktisk utroligt gerne have lov til at oversætte så meget som jeg magter
(I should indeed very much like to be allowed to translate as much as I can). More
importantly, her speech implies that the recipients of her performance cannot ex-
pect a full-fledged professional interpreting product. This emerges from the fact
that she mentions two arguments which may explain her less than proficient per-
formance, namely, her rather short education, jeg er blevet tilkaldt her efter tre års
studier (I have been called for after three years of study) — for more on this issue,
see excerpt 9 below — and her restricted knowledge of the case as compared to the
audience: I har sandsynligvis meget mere viden om (…) hvad (…) det angår- (You
have probably much more knowledge of (…) what this is all about-).
However, the latter argument is rejected as irrelevant by the Danish witness
(T23): Det handler ikke om viden (Knowledge is not the point). She clearly acts as
a check interpreter again by explaining the most basic principle of professional
interpreting ethics, the principle of accuracy, to her authorised colleague as well as
the judge. When stating what the point is (T23 continued) she uses redressive de-
vices, e.g. first person plural to indicate that she is reacting as a fellow interpreter:
Det handler om at vi virkelig skal oversætte nøjagtigt korrekt (The point is that we
really have to translate exactly correctly), and an impersonal construction instead
of blaming the interpreter directly for not complying with this basic norm (T25):
og det bliver det ikke (and this is not what happens here). In the same vein, she adds
in T29: og det har ikke noget med dig personligt at gøre (and this has nothing to do
with you personally). However, despite this face-work, she emphasises her point
even more firmly than before and also uses direct address (T29, 31, 33): men det
skal være fuldstændigt korrekt det du siger (but it has to be completely correct what
you are saying) — clearly in order to convince the judge, who has just posed the
same question for the third time (T26): Det bliver ikke oversat korrekt? (It is not
translated correctly?). When this is confirmed once again by the Danish witness
(T27), supported this time by a female member of the audience (T28), the judge
is left with a dilemma.
The judge’s repeated requests for confirmation suggest that she is aware of the
fact that she cannot evaluate the interpreter’s performance and, thus, is confronted
with a lack of transparency. However, she has to decide immediately how to pro-
ceed (one option would be to stop the proceedings and replace the interpreter). In
her concluding turn, she recognises reluctantly (reflected by some repetitions) that
there is doubt about the correctness of the interpreter’s performance, indicated
by her use of hvis (if), and that this constitutes a problem (T34): Ja, ja det er jo et
problem hvis ikke hvis ikke det bliver bliver tolket korrekt (Yes, yes it is of course a
problem if not if it is it is not interpreted correctly).
In excerpt 9, the interpreter responds to this statement. The exchange is a
negotiation between the interpreter and the judge, concerning the interpreter’s
deviation from the implicit skopos. The result is an agreement to continue the pro-
ceedings and pay special attention to improved listening and comprehension con-
ditions for the interpreter.
Excerpt 9
35 I: Jamen jeg har faktisk lidt svæ- både (.) altså jeg har faktisk lidt lidt svært
ved at forstå præcist hvad det er der bliver sagt. Ikke faren, men ø:h
datteren.
Yes but I have in fact some difficul- both (.) I mean I have in fact some
some difficulty understanding precisely what is being said. Not the father,
but e:r the daughter.
36 J: Datteren her …
The daughter here …
37 I: taler meget lavt og fordi det bliver talt meget …
speaks very low and because it is spoken very…
38 J: Ja ja. Så må-
Yes yes. Then [I?]have to-
39 I: og det kan så være som som sagt (..)
and this may be as as mentioned (..)
40 J: Ja.
Yes.
41 I: det kan være min inkompetence. Jeg har jo selv hævdet at jeg er ikke
tolk og translatør i fransk. Jeg er Bachelor i fransk og når man er det så
kan man få lov til at tolke men det er logisk man kan ikke forstå (..) altså
du har ikke den den fulde (..)
it may be due to my incompetence. I myself have stated you know that I
am not an interpreter and translator in French. I am a Bachelor in French
and when you are that then you may be allowed to interpret but it is
logical you cannot understand (..) I mean you do not have the the full (..)
42 J: Nej.
No.
43 I: og du kan møde du kan møde en hvilken som helst dialekt.
and you can meet you can meet any dialect.
44 J: Ja.
Yes.
45 I: Altså jeg gør mit absolut yderste her.
I mean I’m doing my absolute utmost here.
46 J: Ja ja. Jamen det det tvivl- det tvivler vi ikke på. Men jeg har forstået at at
du siger at det kan være lidt svært at forstå (NAVN)?
Yes yes. Yes but we have no no dou- no doubt about that. But I have
understood that that you say that it can be a little difficult to understand
(NAME)?
47 I: Ja det kan det, ja det kan det nemlig.
Yes it can, yes it can precisely.
48 J: Ja, men men (NAVN) så må jeg (.) vil du prøve at tale højt,
Yes, but but (NAME) then I have to (.) will you try to speak loudly,
49 I: og langsomt og tydeligt,
and slowly and distinctly,
50 J: Ja,
yes,
51 I: og og (.) ja.
and and (.) yes.
52 J: Ja vi vi prøver vi prøver igen.
Yes we we try we try again.
By starting her first turn with the discourse marker jamen (yes but), the inter-
preter indicates that she objects to something (Politikens Nudansk Ordbog 2001,
a dictionary of contemporary Danish) — i.e. the judge’s statement of the prob-
lem in T34 — and that she is going to provide new information to counter it, i.e.
that incorrect interpreting is due to her difficulty in understanding the defendant’s
daughter (T35): Jamen jeg har faktisk (…) men ø:h datteren (Yes but I have in fact
(…) but e:r the daughter). However, this new information is delivered with con-
siderable hesitation. The interpreter abandons the first part of her utterance after
the cut-off item svæ- (difficul-), the adverb både (both) and a short pause. Her self-
repair includes the false start (though without the item både (both) which implies
that she was going to mention two difficulties, but preferred only to mention one)
and is introduced by the filler altså (I mean), indicating “the need to maintain
focus” (Jacobsen 2008: 141). The filler faktisk (in fact), which she uses twice, indi-
cates that what the speaker is saying is correct but, at the same time, something
different from what some people think (Politikens Nudansk Ordbog 2001). The
interpreter thus underlines that she does have difficulties understanding the non-
Danish-speaking participant, which is not what people expect from a professional
interpreter. This also implies that there is a good reason for these difficulties. The
judge signals interest in the new information, indicated by her repetition (T36):
Datteren her … (The daughter here …). The interpreter cooperates by providing the
missing part of the judge’s unfinished utterance, i.e. she provides the good reason
for her difficulties (T37): taler meget lavt (…) (speaks very low (…)). This is a con-
vincing argument because a speaker’s low voice is an external, non-discriminating
factor which can impede even the most competent interpreter’s comprehension.
This may explain why the judge seems immediately ready to draw a conclusion
from the interpreter’s statement (T38): Ja ja. Så må- (Yes yes. Then [I?] have to-).
According to Politikens Nudansk Ordbog (2001), the adverb så (then) marks that
a condition has been fulfilled (in this case that the interpreter’s comprehension is
impeded by the witness’s low voice), and the speaker’s discourse focuses on the
consequence of this condition. However, we do not know what consequence the
judge had in mind, because she relinquishes her turn to the interpreter, who wants
to return to the issue of her education. It is worth noting, however, that the judge
repeats almost the same wording based on the same condition (…) så må jeg (…)
((…) then I have to (…)) later in the exchange (see her utterance T48 and the com-
ments below).
Understanding the witness’s low-voice utterances is, however, not the main
problem. If it was, one would expect the interpreter to have mentioned it as the
first weighty argument in her self-defence. More importantly, one would expect
her to have followed the Guidelines by addressing the problem and finding a solu-
tion at an early stage of the questioning of the witness (Domstolsstyrelsen 2003: 3).
Besides, the audience heard what the witness said. The interpreter seems to be
aware of the fact that her difficulty is related to a more fundamental problem. In
any case, she decides to provide an explicit explanation of why she does not live
up to the implicit skopos — in other words, she provides a skopos declaration. She
links her difficulty in understanding the witness with her incompetence in French,
though not without a certain reservation (T39 and T41): og det kan så være (…)
det kan være min inkompetence (and this may be (…) it may be due to my incompe-
tence). According to the interpreter, this incompetence follows from her relatively
low level of education: Jeg (…) er ikke tolk og translator i fransk. Jeg er Bachelor i
fransk (…) (I (…) am not an interpreter and translator in French. I am a Bachelor
in French (…)). As mentioned previously, the title state-authorised translator and
interpreter can only be obtained by graduates from one of the two Danish business
schools who have completed a Master’s programme in translation and interpreting
in one foreign language. Being a state-authorised translator and interpreter herself
(although in a language other than French) the interpreter knows that court inter-
preters of major European languages in Denmark usually have this qualification,
in accordance with the Danish norms in the field, i.e. Section 149(1) of the Danish
Administration of Justice Act (Retsplejeloven 2006), stipulating that the courts shall
be assisted by authorised interpreters whenever possible. Presumably in order to
forestall the suspicion that she was lying about her qualifications, she points out
that she herself has drawn attention to the fact that she only holds a BA degree in
French (see her hint to three years of study in her initial speech T22 in excerpt 8
above): Jeg har jo selv hævdet at jeg er ikke tolk og translator i fransk (…) (I myself
have stated you know that I am not an interpreter and translator in French (…)). It
has to be remembered that language graduates with a BA degree from the Danish
business schools have not received any interpreter training. Interpreting courses
are not offered until the fourth year of study, i.e. as part of the Master’s programme
in translation and interpreting. In T41 the interpreter continues her skopos decla-
ration with an account of the limited proficiency a Bachelor in French possesses as
compared to a Master in French. The sensitiveness of the topic is reflected by two
abandoned utterances, pauses and the filler altså (I mean): (…) så kan man få lov
til at tolke men det er logisk man kan ikke forstå (..) altså du har ikke den den fulde
(..) ((…) then you may be allowed to interpret but it is logical you cannot understand
(..) I mean you do not have the the full (..)). She does not say what it is precisely
Bachelors lack, in her opinion. Presumably, her rather cryptic statement refers to
the fact that all applicants to the official list of court interpreters, who can produce
documentation for being language graduates, are included in the list on an equal
footing without any further quality assurance procedures, regardless of their (lack
of) interpreting qualifications. (For the ethical implications of the interpreter’s ar-
gumentation, see Section 5 below.)
In any case, the interpreter lives up to the principle of transparency by deliv-
ering her skopos declaration. According to Prunč (2000: 62), this implies that the
other (Danish-speaking) participants are informed about the risk that her rendi-
tions may be faulty, but they are free to decide whether or not they want to accept
this risk. The interpreter obviously wishes to continue, which requires that, above
all, the judge agrees with her non-canonical translational action (Prunc 2000: 14).
So she appeals to the judge by once again expressing her commitment to the task
(T45): Altså jeg gør mit absolut yderste her (I mean I’m doing my absolute utmost
here). The judge demonstrates loyalty to the interpreter again, and even includes
the other participants in her reassuring response, indicated by the first-person
plural vi (we) in T46: Jamen det det tvivl- det tvivler vi ikke på (Yes but we have no
no dou- no doubt about that). However, she obviously does not regard the inter-
preter’s line of argumentation as conducive to reaching a viable agreement. Thus,
when continuing her turn T46, she uses men (but) to mark the contrast to the
interpreter’s last contributions to the negotiation, but mitigates the contrast by a
redressive device: Men jeg har forstået at at du siger at (…) (But I have understood
that that you say that (…)). She then returns to the argument previously stated by
the interpreter: (…) du siger at det kan være lidt svært at forstå (NAVN)? ((…) you
say that it can be a little difficult to understand (NAME)?). The interpreter confirms
this in an animated tone (T47): Ja det kan det, ja det kan det nemlig (Yes it can,
yes it can precisely). She has obviously recognised that this is the breakthrough in
the negotiation. The judge returns to the conclusion she was going to put forward
already when the interpreter had mentioned her difficulty in understanding the
witness for the first time. Because of the overlap, the judge did not finish her turn
T38 then. She now repeats her så må jeg (then I have to) when she addresses the
defendant’s daughter, asking her to make an effort to speak loudly (T48): Ja, men
men (NAVN) så må jeg (.) vil du prøve at tale højt (Yes, but but (NAME) then I have
to (.) will you try to speak loudly). She abandons her så må jeg (then I have to) once
again, but the consequence for the witness appears clearly from the rest of her turn.
Instead of relaying the judge’s request, the interpreter extends the negotiation by
adding two more wishes to the witness (T49): og langsomt og tydeligt (and slowly
and distinctly), but gives up her attempt to make even further requests (T51): og
og (.) ja. (and and (.) yes.). The judge is satisfied with the agreement and concludes
(T52): Ja vi vi prøver vi prøver igen (Yes we we try we try again). However, her re-
peated use of the term prøve (try) indicates that she may not be quite sure whether
the conditions agreed upon will result in a more reliable interpreting performance.
The judge could have been spared this uncertainty about the interpreting if the
authority in charge of the official list of court interpreters was prepared to give the
issue of interpreting quality assurance priority. One way of doing this would be
to introduce the use of check interpreters to find out whether graduates with BA
degrees are able to interpret into and from their foreign language (see Section 5).
The agreement to continue is not only a great relief for the interpreter. It is
also, in accordance with the power hierarchy between the participants, the solution
preferred by the judge (cf. Prunč 2000: 62). This appears clearly from the negotia-
tion above as well as from the judge’s previous decision to resume the proceed-
ings in T19 at the end of excerpt 7. So the result of the two partners’ cooperation
is in their mutual interest. The prosecutor responds with a supportive comment
on the judge’s conclusion vi prøver igen (we try again), that is, Jeg har ikke mange
spørgsmål igen (I don’t have many questions left), meaning that the remaining part
of her questioning will not be unduly extended although the interpreting will take
more time than expected. The defence counsel does not comment on the result of
the negotiation. Nor does the Danish witness or any other member of the audience
make any further comments. They have reason to believe that their objection to
the interpreter’s performance will somehow be reflected in the judgement, because
the problem has been explicitly acknowledged by the judge and has been con-
firmed by the interpreter in her skopos declaration. Thus, none of the interactants
objects to the agreement. They all demonstrate mutual respect for the interests of
the other participants involved (except the non-Danish-speaking witness, who is
excluded from the meta-talk).
This subsection deals mainly with the conflict about the interpreting which
occurs during the questioning of the witness. The competing interests in the con-
flict are represented by the Danish witness, who challenges the interpreter’s per-
formance as being inadequate to achieve the communicative goal of the event, and
the interpreter, who regards her performance as good enough. The meta-talk con-
cerning this conflict reveals that the interpreted interaction is not at all transpar-
ent for the judge, who finds it hard to believe that the criticism of the interpreter’s
performance is justified. However, the interpreter’s skopos declaration makes the
problem transparent for her and all the other participants. The negotiation of the
skopos deviation between the interpreter and the judge follows from the principle
of loyalty and implies “mutual commitment not to act against the other partners’
interests” (Prunč 2000: 61). The judge demonstrates loyalty to the interpreter —
rather than to the legal procedure — by paving the way for a conflict-settling con-
vention including the continuation of the trial with the same interpreter. However,
the interpreter’s loyalty to the judge, or indeed to all the other participants who
are dependent on her performance, is not as obvious. This issue will be discussed
in Section 5. The other participants choose to accept the result of the negotiation,
thereby demonstrating cooperativeness.
5. Discussion
In this section, we shall discuss the contextual conditions which have a bearing on
the outcome of the trial, with special reference to the concepts of cooperativeness
and transparency. Subsequently, we shall discuss the ethical implications of the
interpreter’s performance. First, however, we shall briefly outline the outcome of
the trial.
The outcome of the trial

The defendant was found guilty of both counts and sentenced to a suspended term
of imprisonment. When explaining the grounds to the defendant, the presiding
judge pointed out that the sentence was based on what he himself had stated dur-
ing the proceedings. According to a telephone interview with the judge almost
one year after the event, this remark implied that the injured party’s testimony
had not been taken into account. From this it can be deduced that in the judges’
opinion, the communicative goal of the questioning of the defendant had been
achieved and there had been no reason for them to doubt the reliability of this part
of the interpreting. However, as the presiding judge added during the interview,
the case would “of course” have been adjourned and another sitting with another
interpreter would have been held if the interpreted part of the evidence against the
defendant had had any influence on the sentence. The defence counsel was not dis-
satisfied with the sentence and recommended that his client should accept it.
Regarding possible consequences for the interpreter, the judge explained in
the interview that she did not make a complaint about the interpreter to the Na-
tional Commission of the Danish Police, which administers the list of court inter-
preters, because “in view of my knowledge of French, I can’t tell how poor or not
poor the interpretation was”. However, she had written a note in the court records:
“During the questioning of the witness the interpretation was criticised”. This note
must be regarded as a mild form of sanction because it does not imply any conse-
quences for the interpreter apart from alerting the court to the fact that another
interpreter should be hired in case of an appeal. In this way the judge has again
demonstrated respect for the interpreter’s interests, far more than she has attended
to the interests of the judicature. The interpreter can continue to offer incompetent
interpreting from and into French without feeling obliged to improve her service.
This problem could be handled effectively if judges or other legal professionals
were able to require an independent and qualified check interpreter, who could
decide whether a particular interpreter’s performance was adequate or whether
there was reason to exclude him/her from the official list. The present case reveals
a vital need for check interpreters in Denmark because, as mentioned previous-
ly, the National Commission of the Danish Police accepts all language graduates
regardless of interpreting qualifications, and there are no quality assurance ar-
rangements once applicants have been included in the list. Incidentally, introduc-
ing check interpreters is of course not free of charge, but it should be taken into
account that incompetent interpreting can prolong the proceedings considerably
and thus require a great deal of the court’s costly time.
Contextual conditions
In general, then, the criticism of the interpreter’s performance did not have any
serious consequences. It raised doubt about the reliability of her outputs, but as
mentioned above, this did not pertain to her interpreting of the questioning of the
defendant. Several contextual conditions contributed to the fact that her interpre-
tation of the questioning was regarded as adequate by the court: (1) the defendant’s
admission of guilt concerning the first count already during the pre-trial meetings
with his defence counsel, and his confirmation of this at the outset of the trial; (2)
his admission of guilt, in the course of the questioning, concerning the second
count; (3) the defendant’s knowledge of Danish; and (4) the absence of “an aware
third party” (Morris 1993: 20), a person who is aware of faulty interpreting and
monitors it during the trial; in other words, the absence of the Danish witness
from the courtroom at this stage of the proceedings. The accumulation of these
factors, combined with cooperative behaviour on the part of the defendant and the
legal professionals, facilitated the questioning and contributed to its communica-
tive goal.
In our further discussion of the contextual conditions affecting the outcome of
the trial, we will concentrate on the perception of the interpreted questionings by
the judge, since she was the legal professional who provided the most information
on this issue, through both the textual source (the transcript) and several extra-
textual sources (the interview and two questionnaires, one based on the present
case and another based on a prior case that she conducted).
The judge’s satisfaction with the first interpreted questioning clearly influenced
her perception of the second one. This accounts, among other things, for her will-
ingness to continue with the same interpreter even at an early stage of the conflict
(excerpt 7) and her reluctance to believe that the criticism was justified (excerpts 7
and 8). However, after the interpreter’s skopos declaration she has to acknowledge
the possibility of faulty interpreting as well as her own inability to evaluate the in-
terpreter’s competence. It appears from Table 1 below that this critical view of her
monitoring ability is a consequence of the awareness-raising incident during the
proceedings of the present case.
Table 1 presents information from the two case-based questionnaires filled in
by the same judge. Both cases were criminal cases conducted by the same District
Court within three months of each other, and the foreign language in both was “co-
lonial French”. The judge’s perception of the interpreter’s performance in the case
under review here (interpreter B), as compared to that of the untrained community
interpreter whose mother tongue was French (interpreter A), illustrates a notable
difference in her handling of two cases involving the same language. In the first case,
with interpreter A, the judge quite confidently assessed the degree to which he had
applied accuracy and completeness as an overall relaying strategy. Three months
later, in the present case, the judge was better informed, and ticked the option can’t
judge. She applied this rating pattern consistently to five of the remaining six ques-
tions concerning her satisfaction with more specific interpreting competencies. In
the case with interpreter A she did not use the can’t judge option at all, while in the
present case she demonstrated a high level of awareness. The only feature of inter-
preter B’s competence that she did assess was fluent/coherent delivery — a feature
that can be monitored, at least to some extent, by monolingual participants.
The unusual incident during the second interpreted questioning thus had a
clear effect on the judge’s perception of her monitoring ability. She had become
aware that the common practice of relying exclusively on the interpreter’s rendi-
tions into Danish did not enable her to form an adequate impression of the in-
terpreter’s competence. It follows from her restricted monitoring ability that the
Table 1. The judge’s rating of interpreting competence: her perception of the two inter-
preters’ performance
Features of competence Interpreter A * Interpreter B **
Accuracy/completeness high degree can’t judge
Knowledge of case-specific terminology satisfactory can’t judge
Knowledge of the judicial system satisfactory can’t judge
Neutral language very satisfactory can’t judge
Impartial behaviour very satisfactory can’t judge
Linguistic correctness/grammar satisfactory can’t judge
Fluent/coherent delivery satisfactory moderately satisfactory
Legend: * = untrained interpreter, native speaker of French; ** = interpreter in the present case (3 months
later)
transparency of the proceedings, for which she is responsible, is severely restricted

too. This means, in general, that the court must do without any effective barrier
against deception. It may be argued that the point in the present case is incom-
petence rather than deliberate deception. It was hardly the interpreter’s intention
to deceive the court. However, the effect is the same. The court may rightly feel
deceived, because they had expected professional service by an expert in the field,
but were given an incompetent performance — a fact which only came to their at-
tention by chance. This places a heavy burden of responsibility on the interpreter
(for this issue, see the subsection below).
At the beginning of this subsection we argued that the interactants’ coopera-
tiveness, combined with a number of special contextual conditions, was conducive
to the elicitation of evidence during the first interpreted questioning. By contrast,
during the second questioning, the interactants’ cooperativeness was not only con-
ducive but necessary for pursuing the questioning with the same interpreter. This
does not mean, however, that cooperativeness was the most important factor affect-
ing the interpreting of the second questioning. Legal expedience must be assumed
to have been the most important factor (see Morris 1993: 27) because, as mentioned
previously, the judge was of the opinion that the evidence produced in the first
questioning was decisive for the judgement, so that in her view, the option of inter-
rupting the proceedings and replacing the interpreter would have been time-con-
suming, and the outcome of the trial would not have been substantially different.
Ethical implications
The interpreter’s behaviour in the interaction analysed here calls for more than
a descriptive analysis. In Section 4 we repeatedly referred to ethical problems
concerning the interpreter’s loyalty, but the ethical implications of her behaviour
clearly need to be addressed more thoroughly.
In Prunč’s model interpreters are competent and autonomous individuals,
who decide whether to conform to the norms and conventions prevailing in the
given translational situation and the relevant translation culture (Prunč 2000: 61,
64–65). In the highly regulated context of court interpreting, we assume that in-
terpreters will opt for norm-conforming behaviour. However, it emerged from the
analysis that the interpreter in the case under review here did not comply with a
number of norms stipulated in the Guidelines, first and foremost the accuracy/
completeness norm (in the sense of “faithful”, i.e. not “verbatim” rendering, as de-
scribed by e.g. Hale 2008: 114–115). Non-compliance with this norm means that
the interpreter did not live up to the most basic aspect of her obligation of loyalty
towards the partners in the translational situation. What are the reasons for her
non-normative behaviour?
One obvious reason is that the interpreter overrated her own bilingual compe-
tence. This seems to be a safe assumption, because she would hardly have consent-
ed to recordings of her performance if it had occurred to her that she might not
be competent enough to take on the assignment. Her confidence was apparently
based on several years of satisfactory interpreting practice in her other language,
i.e. her MA-level language — according to her questionnaire she had never had
any negative experience when working as a court interpreter. However — again
according to her questionnaire — she had only had a few sporadic assignments
involving French interpreting, i.e. her BA-level language. She indicated in a com-
ment that she had prepared for the present task by requesting the indictment and
reading the relevant sections of the Danish Penal Code. So in all probability she
believed that she had the necessary competence. Apparently she also believed in
her professional commitment to the task, as she stressed explicitly and repeatedly
when trying to counter the criticism of her performance at the beginning of her
self-defence (excerpt 8) and again when concluding her skopos declaration (ex-
cerpt 9) by stating “I’m doing my absolute utmost here”. However, she was obvi-
ously unaware that her “absolute utmost” was not good enough.
It is open to discussion whether the interpreter in our study would have ac-
cepted the assignment if she had sworn an official oath such as the “Hieronymic
Oath for translators” proposed by Chesterman as the core of his model of an “eth-
ics of professional commitment” (Chesterman 2001: 139). Would she, for example,
have felt committed to paragraph 2 of the oath, which reads, among other things:
“I will always translate to the best of my ability” (Chesterman 2001: 153) and would
she have abstained from a court interpreting task involving French? This seems
unlikely in view of the reasons noted so far. Apparently, Berk-Seligson (2002) was
right in questioning the value of an oath: “Interpreters generally do the best they
can, and are sincere in their effort to be precise and faithful to the foreign language
testimony. Yet if they are not highly qualified to do their job, the product of their
efforts is bound to be faulty. No amount of oath-swearing can guarantee high qual-
ity interpreting from an interpreter who does not have the necessary competency”
(Berk-Seligson 2002: 204).
In the same vein, it is doubtful whether the interpreter would have followed
paragraph 7 of the Hieronymic Oath, which reads: “I will be honest about my
own qualifications and limitations; I will not accept work that is outside my com-
petence” (Chesterman 2001: 153). One thing is that she was unaware of the fact
that the assignment was work outside her competence. Another thing is, however,
that she had obtained authorisation herself and therefore was perfectly aware of
the fact that she had set aside the preliminary norm (Toury 1978/2000) in Danish
court interpreting, according to which the courts must be assisted by authorised
interpreters whenever possible (see the comment on excerpt 9). As there is no
shortage of authorised interpreters of French in Denmark, it was possible, in all
probability, to hire a qualified professional. In accepting the task the interpreter
was not quite honest about her qualifications. Her decision may have been due to
her wish not to turn down assignments, because she earns her living by translating
and interpreting. This might be another factor contributing to her non-normative
behaviour. In any case, her acceptance of the task indicates that she acted accord-
ing to her own personal interests, but not in accordance with the other partners’
interests. Thus, she showed “loyalty to herself ” — although not in the ethical sense
of “preservation of translators’ identity and integrity” as defined in the model of
translation culture (Prunč 1997: 112).
It is important to keep in mind that, under “normal” conditions, i.e. in the ab-
sence of “an aware third party”, the other partners in the interpreted event would
have been ignorant of any problems regarding the interpreter’s competence and
loyalty. However, the criticism during the proceedings made it apparent to the
court that they could not take the interpreter’s competence for granted. This, in
turn, forced the interpreter to be honest about her qualifications and limitations.
She opted for the skopos declaration analysed in Section 4 for her self-defence. In
order to explain why she deviated from the implicit skopos she downgraded her
competence, even talking about her “incompetence”, which she characterised as a
natural consequence of having only a BA degree. Nevertheless, she argued that she
was qualified to do the job because interpreters with BA degrees are “allowed to
interpret” (implying that they are accepted on the official list of court interpreters
— although they have not received interpreter training — because, as mentioned
above, it is not always possible to hire authorised interpreters). However, accord-
ing to her explanation, “it is logical” that BA graduates lack full understanding —
of something which she did not say explicitly because she did not finish the turn
in question (T41 in excerpt 9). What she had in mind was presumably everything
said in the foreign language or something similarly compromising. Thus, the inter-
preter claimed to be qualified, not because she had the necessary competence, but
because exceptions to the authorisation norm are allowed.
Apart from discriminating against interpreter colleagues with BA degrees (who
may or may not be more competent than herself), the interpreter’s line of argumen-
tation reveals that she lacks what Chesterman calls “the most important virtue”
an “ethical decision-making translator” must possess, that is, “the translator must
want to be a good translator, must strive for excellence in the practice of translation”
(Chesterman 2001: 146; emphasis in the original). First and foremost, however, the
interpreter’s skopos declaration reveals that she disclaimed responsibility for her
performance. She established transparency about her qualifications and limitations
by admitting that she was not able to understand everything, but it was up to the
other partners to decide whether they wanted to accept this condition.
It appears from the above that the interpreter in our study is not the competent
and autonomous professional presupposed in Prunč’s model. The term autono-
mous (or selbstverantwortlich in German) means that the translator is responsible
for his/her own decision about how to translate in a given situation. One precondi-
tion for this responsible decision-making is the translator’s competence, and the
other is the translator’s loyalty to himself/herself, in the sense of the concept men-
tioned above (Prunč 1997: 112). If the interpreter had been an autonomous profes-
sional — or one who was striving for excellence — she would not have accepted
the task in the first place. She made an unethical decision. It is most unlikely that
she intended to act against the other partners’ interests. So, corresponding to her
lack of awareness of her insufficient bilingual competence, it must be assumed that
she was not aware of her responsibility for her unreliable performance either. How
can a trained interpreter be unaware of fundamental ethical cornerstones of the
profession such as loyalty and responsibility?
Professional ethics in general and the Guidelines for court interpreting in par-
ticular are of course included in the MA programme for translators and interpret-
ers offered by the Danish business schools. Hence the interpreter in our study
must have become acquainted with the Guidelines during her training to become
an authorised interpreter in her MA-level language. However, as has been pointed
out in the literature, mere acquaintance with a code of ethics does not guarantee
that interpreters can apply the code to the practice (e.g. Hale 2007, 2008, Mikkel-
son 2008). The teaching and learning of a code of ethics requires reflection: “The
code of ethics cannot be of much use without proper reflection and explanations
of the very difficult concepts it presents in concise, and often simplistic ways, due
to the very nature of a code. Adequate training is necessary to elaborate on the
meaning and implementation of the code” (Hale 2008: 100). The interpreter in the
present study has apparently failed to reflect upon concepts such as loyalty or re-
sponsibility. In the context of her training, she may perhaps never have been asked
to do so and thus may never have received any help to understand the complex-
ity of these concepts. This might explain why she was unaware of the actual and
possible consequences of her behaviour for the other partners in the interpreting
event under study.
6. Conclusion
In this study we have analysed an interpreting event in a courtroom setting, focus-

ing on the interactants’ cooperativeness. We found ample evidence of cooperative
behaviour, which served the interactants’ own individual or institutional interests
and the other partners’ interests at the same time. All the participants involved,
including the defendant and the victim and even the spokeswoman of the audi-
ence, who criticised the interpreter’s performance, demonstrated cooperativeness.
The only participant who did not live up to the mutuality inherent in the concept
of cooperativeness was the interpreter. It emerged from the criticism of her perfor-
mance as well as her own skopos declaration that she was not able to comply with
the other partners’ default expectations, but she disclaimed the responsibility for
faulty interpreting. Lack of self-awareness and reflection are the most likely rea-
sons for the interpreter’s disloyalty to the other partners. However, due to a num-
ber of special contextual conditions combined with the participants’ cooperative-
ness, especially on the part of the judge, it was possible to settle the conflict by way
of consensus and to continue the proceedings despite doubt about the interpreter’s
competence. The judge chose a mild form of sanction, a short remark about the
incident in the court records, which reflected her respect for the interests of the
judicature, albeit only to a minimal degree, as well as loyalty to the interpreter,
whose competence she was unable to evaluate.
In the introduction to the present paper we pointed out that the interpret-
ing event analysed in this study is an exceptional case, because criticism of an
interpreter’s performance during the proceedings does not occur frequently and
is rarely documented. However, the first of the two interpreted questionings, i.e.
the questioning of the defendant, represents a rather normal interpreting situation
without any spectacular occurrences. The eliciting of evidence was regarded as
satisfactory by the court and formed the basis of the judgement. Hence the first
interpreting situation seemed to justify the court’s “presumption of the interpret-
er’s competence and reliability” (Morris 1993: 24). This presumption was based on
several factors: (a) the interpreter was a native speaker of the language of the court,
(b) the foreign language involved was among the ones offered by the Danish MA
degree programmes for translators and interpreters, and (c) all three legal profes-
sionals indicated in the questionnaires that they were able “to understand a little
French” and therefore can be assumed to have felt able to monitor the interpreting
performance, although only to a moderate degree. In addition, personal experi-
ence of problems with untrained interpreters of “exotic” minority languages who
are not proficient in Danish — stated by both the judge and the prosecutor in the
questionnaires — probably strengthened these two participants’ expectation that
there would be no problems with the interpreting in the present case.
It must be assumed that the legal professionals would have been ignorant of
the interpreter’s non-normative performance had it not been for the criticism in
the course of the second questioning, put forward from the audience by a trust-
worthy and aware third party, who had a motive and the courage to intervene. We
have argued that this criticism and the ensuing negotiation of the conflict over
faulty interpreting was an eye-opener for the judge, who only then recognised that
she was unable to monitor and evaluate the interpreting, contrary to her normal
assumptions. We do not know whether the other legal participants had a similar
experience. In any case, the exceptional incident highlighted the problem present
in the first questioning and, most likely, in many other “ordinary” court interpret-
ing situations with competent or seemingly competent interpreters, i.e. that the
interpreted proceedings are far less transparent for the legal participants than they
normally assume. Cooperativeness can contribute a great deal to the workings of
the interpreting, but it cannot guarantee that justice will be done if the interpreters
are not aware of their responsibility and hence are not prepared to recuse them-
selves or ask to be recused if they discover they are unable to perform competently
in a given case.
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Appendix: Transcription conventions
J = judge, P = prosecutor, I = interpreter, DC = defence counsel, D = defendant, W = non-Danish

speaking witness, W-DK = Danish-speaking witness, AUD = audience, f = female, m = male.
. terminating intonation
? questioning intonation
, continuing intonation
… open-ended (fading out) intonation
- sudden truncation of a sound
: lengthening of a vowel sound
(.) short pause
(..) pause of 1–2 seconds
(4) long pause
## frames an utterance spoken in a tone of irritation
< > frames an utterance spoken slowly and distinctly
<< >> frames (part of) an utterance spoken extremely slowly and distinctly
boldface emphasis
underlining simultaneous talk
(xxx) word or words which could not be identified
(NAME) anonymous information
italics authors’ English gloss of utterances in Danish or French
Authors’ address
Bodil Martinsen
Department of Language and Business Communication
Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus
Fuglesangs Allé 4
DK-8210 Aarhus V
Denmark
brm@asb.dk
About the authors

Bodil Martinsen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Language and Business Com-
munication at the Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, Denmark, where she teaches
court and police interpreting, conference interpreting and French civilisation. She holds an MA
(LSP) in French (Interpreting and Translation) from the Aarhus School of Business. She is a
State-authorised Interpreter and Translator and works as a freelance court and police interpret-
er. Her special interest is research on community interpreting as well as the professionalisation
of this field in migrant languages in Denmark.
Friedel Dubslaff has recently retired from a position as Associate Professor at the Department
of Language and Business Communication at the Aarhus School of Business, University of Aar-
hus, Denmark, where she taught conference interpreting, translation, text linguistics and prag-
matics. She graduated in languages from the University of Hamburg, Germany, and holds an
MA in German from the University of Aarhus. In 1996 she received her PhD with a dissertation
on simultaneous interpreting at the Aarhus School of Business. Her special interest is research
on community interpreting as well as the professionalisation of this field in migrant languages
in Denmark.
E-mail: dubslaff@gmail.com

The Cooperative Courtroom: A Case Study of Interpreting Gone Wrong

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The Cooperative Courtroom: A Case Study of Interpreting Gone Wrong

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The cooperative courtroom

A case study of interpreting gone wrong

Bodil Martinsen and Friedel Dubslaff

This paper presents a case study of an interpreting event in a Danish courtroom

Keywords: court interpreting, discourse analysis, translation culture,

In research on court interpreting, various scholars have dealt with interpreters’

Interpreting 12:1 (2010), 21–59. doi 10.1075/intp.12.1.02mar

participants, e.g. interpreters’ adoption of indirect speech or their engaging in

2. Aim of the study and theoretical framework

The issue of explicit disapproval of the interpreter’s performance is central in the

The courtroom setting

forms of address and other issues” (Christensen 2008: 101). As Christensen argues,

Questioning of the defendant

Denmark (..) via the UN High Commissariat.

younger sisters when he was at work in a nearby town. So he wanted to confront

Questioning of the witness

the French-speaking audience. The interaction is mainly a dialogue between the

evidence elicited from the non-Danish-speaking witness — an issue which con-

The outcome of the trial

transparency of the proceedings, for which she is responsible, is severely restricted

In this study we have analysed an interpreting event in a courtroom setting, focus-

Appendix: Transcription conventions

J = judge, P = prosecutor, I = interpreter, DC = defence counsel, D = defendant, W = non-Danish

About the authors

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