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Conference Paper: Garment, or upper-garment? A matter of interpretation?

TitleGarment, or upper-garment? A matter of interpretation?
Authors
KeywordsPolysemy
Ambiguity
Contest
Interpreting
Bilinguals
Issue Date2012
PublisherCentre for Forensic Linguistics.
Citation
The 10th Biennial Conference of the International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL-10), Birmingham, UK., 11-14 July 2011. In Proceedings of the International Association of Forensic Linguists' Tenth Biennial Conference, 2012, p. 58-72 How to Cite?
AbstractIn an adversarial common-law courtroom, where one party tries to defeat the other by using words as weapons, polysemous words more often than not pose a problem to the court interpreter. Unlike in dyadic communication, where ambiguity can be easily clarified with the speaker by the hearer, court interpreters’ freedom to clarify with speakers is to a large extent restricted by their code of ethics. Interpreters therefore can only rely on the context for disambiguating polysemous words. This study illustrates the problem of polysemy in an interpreter-mediated rape trial. It exemplifies how the interpreter’s goal to avoid contradictions by making her interpretation of a polysemous word consistent with the preceding context runs counter to that of the bilingual cross-examiner, whose primary goal is to identify inconsistencies in the hostile witness’s testimony in order to discredit him. This study also manifests a denial of the interpreter’s latitude in the interpretation of contextual clues and her loss of power in a courtroom with the presence of other bilinguals.
DescriptionPart 1: The discourse of forensic contexts
Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/160836
ISBN

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorNg, ENSen_US
dc.date.accessioned2012-08-16T06:21:39Z-
dc.date.available2012-08-16T06:21:39Z-
dc.date.issued2012en_US
dc.identifier.citationThe 10th Biennial Conference of the International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL-10), Birmingham, UK., 11-14 July 2011. In Proceedings of the International Association of Forensic Linguists' Tenth Biennial Conference, 2012, p. 58-72en_US
dc.identifier.isbn9781854494320-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/160836-
dc.descriptionPart 1: The discourse of forensic contexts-
dc.description.abstractIn an adversarial common-law courtroom, where one party tries to defeat the other by using words as weapons, polysemous words more often than not pose a problem to the court interpreter. Unlike in dyadic communication, where ambiguity can be easily clarified with the speaker by the hearer, court interpreters’ freedom to clarify with speakers is to a large extent restricted by their code of ethics. Interpreters therefore can only rely on the context for disambiguating polysemous words. This study illustrates the problem of polysemy in an interpreter-mediated rape trial. It exemplifies how the interpreter’s goal to avoid contradictions by making her interpretation of a polysemous word consistent with the preceding context runs counter to that of the bilingual cross-examiner, whose primary goal is to identify inconsistencies in the hostile witness’s testimony in order to discredit him. This study also manifests a denial of the interpreter’s latitude in the interpretation of contextual clues and her loss of power in a courtroom with the presence of other bilinguals.-
dc.languageengen_US
dc.publisherCentre for Forensic Linguistics.-
dc.relation.ispartofProceedings of the International Association of Forensic Linguists' Tenth Biennial Conferenceen_US
dc.rights© Copyright remains solely with individual authors-
dc.subjectPolysemy-
dc.subjectAmbiguity-
dc.subjectContest-
dc.subjectInterpreting-
dc.subjectBilinguals-
dc.titleGarment, or upper-garment? A matter of interpretation?en_US
dc.typeConference_Paperen_US
dc.identifier.emailNg, ENS: nsng@hku.hken_US
dc.description.naturepublished_or_final_version-
dc.identifier.hkuros205556en_US
dc.identifier.spage58en_US
dc.identifier.epage72en_US
dc.publisher.placeUnited Kingdom-

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