The Atypical Bilingual Courtroom an Exploratory Study of the Interactional Dynamics in Interpreter-Mediated Trials

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY The atypical bilingual courtroom an exploratory study of the interactional dynamics in interpreter-mediated trials in Hong Kong Eva Ng 2013 Aston University Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions. If you have discovered material in AURA which is unlawful e.g. breaches copyright, (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please read our Takedown Policy and contact the service immediately THE ATYPICAL BILINGUAL COURTROOM: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF THE INTERACTIONAL DYNAMICS IN INTERPRETER-MEDIATED TRIALS IN HONG KONG EVA NGA SHAN NG A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ASTON UNIVERSITY January 2013 © Eva Nga Shan Ng, 2013 Eva Nga Shan Ng asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this thesis This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. 1 ASTON UNIVERSITY THE ATYPICAL BILINGUAL COURTROOM: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF THE INTERACTIONAL DYNAMICS IN INTERPRETER-MEDIATED TRIALS IN HONG KONG Eva Nga Shan Ng Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Thesis Summary: This study investigates the communication process in the atypical bilingual Hong Kong courtroom, where, unlike in most other jurisdictions, interpreting services are routinely provided for the linguistic majority instead of the linguistic minority and the interpreter usually has to work with court actors who share his/her bilingual knowledge. It sets out to explore how the unique nature of the bilingual Hong Kong courtroom impacts on the interactional dynamics in the communicative process in the courtroom and potentially on the administration of justice, using authentic recordings of nine criminal trials from three court levels, supplemented by a survey administered to court interpreters. It compares the participant roles of different court actors in different court settings, monolingual and bilingual, using Goffman’s (1981) participation framework and Bell’s (1984) audience design as the conceptual framework. It is found that the notion of recipientship in the atypical bilingual Hong Kong courtroom is complicated by the presence of other bilinguals, which inevitably changes the interactional dynamics and impacts on the power of court interpreter as these bilinguals take on more participant roles in the process. The findings of this study show that the power of the court actors is realised in the participant role(s) they and the other co-present court actors take on or are capable of playing. The findings also indicate that a change in the participant role of a court actor has an impact on the participation status of other court actors, which may in turn hamper the administration of justice. It is also found that the notion of power asymmetry in the courtroom has an effect on the footings adopted by the interpreter and thus on his/her neutrality. This thesis identifies training needs and makes recommendations for best practice in the courtroom and for institutional and administrative practice. Keywords: participant role, participation status, bilinguals, power asymmetry, interpreting style 2 DEDICATION To my mother for all her sacrifices, and to my father, who lost his mobility and speech to a severe stroke soon after I started this research project, for his unspoken support throughout the past four years. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to Professor Malcolm Coulthard for giving me a head start and for his prompt feedback to my work and responses to my queries during the first two years of my study. I am especially thankful to him also for his continued advice and support even after he had officially ceased to be my supervisor. To me, he is both a mentor and a good friend whom I cherish dearly. This thesis would not have come into being without the efforts of Dr Krzysztof Kredens, who took over the supervision of my thesis on Professor Malcolm Coulthard’s retirement. I am indebted to him for keeping me on the right track and for his insightful advice and enlightenment. I really appreciate the meticulous efforts he has taken in correcting and commenting on my drafts. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the High Court Registrar of the Judiciary of Hong Kong for granting me access to the recordings of the court proceedings and to the Court Assistant for preparing the DVDs. My special thanks also go to the Judiciary Administrator for referring my initial request to the High Court Registrar. Thanks are also due from me to my ex-colleagues of the Court Language Section of the Judiciary Hong Kong for completing the online survey. I would like to thank, in particular, Mr. Joe Lai for forwarding the survey link to the serving court interpreters, and the late Mr. Renner Yu for his effort to solicit help from his fellow retired court interpreters. It is regrettable that Mr. Yu will never be able to read this thesis, but he will always be remembered dearly by me. My thanks also go to the Leung Kau Kui Research and Teaching Endowment Fund of The University of Hong Kong for funding the data transcription of this project, and to the three student Research Assistants, Sheryl Ng, Po Po Tsang and Rachel Yang, for their help with the data transcription. I would also like to express my heartfelt thanks my friend and colleague, Dr. Yvonne Fowler, for proofreading this thesis. Any errors that remain are mine alone. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their unwavering support over the years. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE 1 THESIS SUMMARY 2 DEDICATION 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS 5 TRANSCRIPTION KEYS 10 ABBREVIATIONS 11 LIST OF TABLES 12 LIST OF FIGURES 13 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 14 1.1 Background and motivation of the study 14 1.2 Scope and aims of the study 14 1.3 Summary of chapter contents 15 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 18 2.1 Introduction: Research on court interpreting 18 2.2 The conduit model of the role of the court interpreter 18 2.3 The debate on the validity of the conduit metaphor 19 2.4 The codified role of the court interpreter 20 2.5 The conflicting expectations or perceptions of the court interpreter’s role 20 2.5.1 The interpreter’s role in the courtroom 23 2.5.1.1 Court interpreters as an active participant in court 23 2.5.1.2 Interpreters as advocates 24 2.6 Different role perceptions and expectations of the interpreter in different settings 25 2.7 The use of third-person interpreting and the visibility of the interpreter 26 2.8 Accuracy in Court Interpreting – the norm 27 2.9 Accuracy in court interpreting – the reality 28 2.9.1 Change in testimony styles 29 2.9.2 Change in question styles 32 2.9.3 Further research required with regard to style changes 34 2.9.4 Additions in court interpreting 35 2.10 Interpreting between culturally and linguistically different languages 36 2.11 Conclusion 39 CHAPTER 3: A HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE HONG KONG COURTROOM 42 3.1 Court interpretation in the early British colonial years 42 3.1.1 The birth of court interpreting and the first court interpreter in Hong Kong 43 3.1.2 The lack of competent interpreters and the quality of interpretation 44 3.1.3 The Student Interpreter Scheme 46 3.2 Court interpretation from the 1970’s to 1997 48 3.2.1 The enactment of the Official Languages Ordinance in 1974 48 3.2.2 The creation of the Court Interpreter grade 48 3.2.3 The resistance to the use of Chinese in court by the legal arena 49 3.2.4 The use of Chinese in the Magistrates’ Courts and the role of the interpreter 50 3.3 The post-colonial court interpretation in Hong Kong 50 3.3.1 Increasing use of Chinese in courts 50 3.3.2 The need to work with bilingual court personnel 51 3.3.3 The bilingual court reporting system 51 3.4 The Court Interpreter grade 53 3.4.1 The strength of the Court Interpreter grade 53 3.4.2 Entry requirements for court interpreters 54 3.4.3 Training for court interpreters 55 3.4.4 The deployment of full-time court interpreters 57 5 3.5 Remuneration and career prospects of court interpreters 57 3.6 Conclusion 58 CHAPTER 4: DATA, METHODOLOGY AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 60 4.1 Access to data 60 4.2 Funding and data transcription 61 4.3 Ethical issues 63 4.4 Conceptual framework and analytical tools 64 4.4.1 Goffman’s participation framework 64 4.4.2 Bell’s model of audience design 66 4.5 Application of the frameworks to the analysis of monolingual trial talk 68 4.6 Application of the frameworks to the analysis of bilingual trial talk 70 4.6.1 Application of Goffman’s partipation framework to the role of the interpreter 70 4.6.2 The listener role of the interpreter 70 4.6.3 Participant roles in the typical bilingual courtroom 72 4.6.4 Participant roles in the atypical bilingual Hong Kong courtroom 73 4.7 Conclusion 76 CHAPTER 5: PARTICIPANT ROLES IN MONOLINGUAL TRIAL TALK 77 5.1 Trial procedure in the adversarial common law courtroom 77 5.2 Participant roles in a monolingual trial 77 5.2.1 Arraignment 79 5.2.2 Jury Empanelment 79 5.2.3 Prosecution’s opening and examination of prosecution witnesses 80 5.2.4 Submission of no-case-to-answer 83 5.2.5 Defence’s opening and examination of defence witnesses 83 5.2.6 Closing submissions 84 5.2.7 Summing-up by judge (jury trial) 85 5.2.8 Verdict by jury 85 5.2.9 Verdict by judge in non-jury trials 86 5.2.10 Mitigation 87

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