Minority language speakers and disadvantage before the law
Challenges for applied linguistics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v11i1.19060Keywords:
Forensic Linguistics, Discouse Analysis, Intercultural CommunicationAbstract
With the increasing global mobility, and growing awareness of language rights in many parts of the world, issues related to minority language speakers’ participation in the legal process are now attracting increasing attention from scholars and those in the legal profession. As Tiersma (1993: 135) argues, ‘[f]ew professions are as concerned with language as is the law’. One manifestation is the disadvantage suffered by lay people unfamiliar with how language works in legal contexts such as police interviews and courtroom cross-examination. This gap in the access to linguistic repertoire between lay people and legal professionals can be widened when people participating in the legal process come from linguistic and cultural backgrounds that are different from those who speak the language of the court and are familiar with the culture in which the legal system is embedded. This paper discusses the participation of minority language speakers in the legal process, and some of the challenges that linguists face in trying to improve legal processes for minority language speakers. The following key aspects of communication are discussed: access to language assistance; quality of language assistance; attitudes towards minority language speakers; and intercultural issues. Drawing on the author’s own studies of interpreter-mediated police interviews and multilingualism in criminal courts, as well as other relevant studies, the paper presents linguistic analyses that elucidates problems in legal interaction involving minority language speakers and legal professionals.
References
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Mizuno, M. (2008). Nick Baker Case: the challenges encountered in improving the quality control of legal interpretation in Japan. Kinjo Gakuin Daigaku Ronshu Studies in Social Sciences, 5 (1): 34–41.
Nakane, I. (2007). Communicating the suspect’s rights: Problems in interpreting the caution in police interviews. Applied Linguistics, 28 (1): 87–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/aml050
Nakane, I. (2009). The myth of an ‘invisible mediator: An Australian case study of English-Japanese police interpreting. PORTAL: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 6 (1). http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/portal.v6i1.825
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Nakane, I. (2012). Language rights of non-Japanese defendants in Japanese criminal courts. In N. Gottlieb (Ed.), Language and Citizenship in Japan, 155–174. London and New York: Routledge.
Pavlenko, A. (2008). ‘I’m very not about the law part’: Nonnative speakers of English and the Miranda warnings. TESOL Quarterly, 42 (1): 1–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2008.tb00205.x
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Russell, S. (2000). ‘Let me put it simply …’: The case for a standard translation of the police caution and its explanation. Forensic Linguistics, 7 (1): 26–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2000.7.1.26
Russell, S. (2002). ‘Three’s a Crowd’: Shifting dynamics in the Interpreted Interview. In J. Cotterill (Ed.), Language in the Legal Process, 111–126. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Solan, L., and Tiersma, P. M. (2005). Speaking of Crime. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Tiersma, P. M. (1993). Linguistic issues in the law. Language 69 (1): 113–137. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/416418
Wadensjö, C. (1998). Interpreting as Interaction. New York: Longman.
Woolard, K. A. (1998). Language ideology as a field of enquiry. In B. B. Schieffelin, K. A. Woolard and P. V. Kroskrity (Eds), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yoshida, R. (2007). H?tei s?gok?i o ts?yakusuru: h?tei ts?yakunin no yakuwari saik? [Interpreting Court Interaction – Redefining the Role of Court Interpreters] Interpretation Studies 7, 19–38.
Yoshida, R. (2011). H?tei danwa jissen to h?tei ts?yaku: Goy? to meta goy? no orinaku tekusuto. [Courtroom discursive practice and court interpreting: text interwoven by pragmatics and metapragmatics] Shakaigengokagaku. [The Japanese Journal of Language in Society], 13 (2): 59–71.
Angermeyer, P. S. (2005). Who is ‘you?’: Polite forms of address and ambiguous participant roles in court interpreting. Target, 17 (2): 203–226. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/target.17.2.02ang
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine Books.
Berk-Seligson, S. (1990). Bilingual court proceedings: The role of the court interpreter. In J. N. Levi and A. G. Walker (Eds), Language in the Judicial Process, 155–201. New York: Plenum Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3719-3_6
Berk-Seligson, S. (2009). Coerced Confessions: The Discourse of Bilingual Police interrogations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110213492
Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511610295
Brown-Blake, C., and Chambers, P. (2007). The Jamaican Creole speaker in the UK criminal justice system. The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 14 (2): 269–294.
Coldrey, J. (1987). Aboriginals and the criminal courts. In K. M. Hazlehurst (Ed.), Ivory Scales: Black Australia and the Law, 81–92. Sydney, NSW: University of New South Wales Press.
Cooke, M. (1995). Aboriginal evidence in the cross-cultural courtroom. In D. Eades (Ed.), Language in Evidence: Issues Confronting Aboriginal and Multicultural Australia. Sydney, NSW: University of New South Wales Press.
Cooke, M. (1996). A different story: Narrative versus ‘question and answer’ in Aboriginal evidence. Forensic Linguistics 3 (2): 273–288.
Cummins, J. (2000). Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Eades, D. (1992). Aboriginal English and the Law: Communicating with Aboriginal English Speaking Clients: A Handbook for Legal Practitioners. Brisbane: Queensland Law Society.
Eades, D. (2004). Understanding Aboriginal English in the legal system: A critical sociolinguistics approach. Applied Linguistics, 25 (4): 491–512. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/25.4.491
Eades, D. (2008). Courtroom Talk and Neocolonial Control. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110208320
Eades, D. (2010). Sociolinguistics and the Legal Process. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Gibbons, J. (2001). Revising the language of New South Wales police procedures: Applied linguistics in action. Applied Linguistics, 22 (4): 439–469. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/22.4.439
Gibbons, J. (2003). Forensic Linguistics (1st ed. Vol. 32). Oxford: Blackwell.
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Gumperz, J. J. (1982). Discourse Strategies. New York: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611834
Hale, S. (2004). The Discourse of Court Interpreting. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/btl.52
Hale, S. (2008). Controversies over the role of the court interpreter. In C. Valero-Garcés and A. Martin (Eds), Crossing Borders in Community Interpreting: Definitions and dilemmas, 99–121. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/btl.76.06hal
Laster, K., and Taylor, V. L. (1994). Interpreters and the Legal System. Sydney: The Federation Press.
Leung, E. S. M., and Gibbons, J. (2008). Who is responsible?: Participant roles in legal interpreting cases. Multilingua, 27: 177–191. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/MULTI.2008.010
Liberman, K. (1981). Understanding Aborigines in Australian Courts of Law. Human Organization, 40: 247–255. http://dx.doi.org/10.17730/humo.40.3.7823t2m267261132
Matoesian, G. (1993). Reproducing Rape: Domination through Talk in the Courtroom. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Matoesian, G. M. (2001). Law and the Language of Identity: Discourse in the William Kennedy Smith Rape Trial. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mikkleson, H. (2000). Introduction to Court Interpreting. Manchester: St Jerome.
Mikkelson, H. (2008). Evolving views of the court interpreter’s role: Between Scylla and Charybdis. In C. Valero Garcés and A. Martin (Eds), Crossing Borders in Community Interpreting: Definitions and Dilemmas, 81–97. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/btl.76.05mik
Mizuno, M. (2005). Nikku B?k? jiken ts?yaku no seikakusei ni tsuite no kanteisho kosshi, in Nikku B?k? jiken ni kansuru Nihon Ts?yaku Gakkai no Kenkai (Nihon Tsuuyaku Gakkai) pp. 4–10. Available at http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jais/html/community/opinion_n_baker.pdf retrieved 6 June 2011.
Mizuno, M. (2008). Nick Baker Case: the challenges encountered in improving the quality control of legal interpretation in Japan. Kinjo Gakuin Daigaku Ronshu Studies in Social Sciences, 5 (1): 34–41.
Nakane, I. (2007). Communicating the suspect’s rights: Problems in interpreting the caution in police interviews. Applied Linguistics, 28 (1): 87–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/aml050
Nakane, I. (2009). The myth of an ‘invisible mediator: An Australian case study of English-Japanese police interpreting. PORTAL: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 6 (1). http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/portal.v6i1.825
Nakane, I. (2010). Partial non-use of interpreters in Japanese criminal court proceedings. Japanese Studies, 30 (3): 443–459. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2010.518603
Nakane, I. (2012). Language rights of non-Japanese defendants in Japanese criminal courts. In N. Gottlieb (Ed.), Language and Citizenship in Japan, 155–174. London and New York: Routledge.
Pavlenko, A. (2008). ‘I’m very not about the law part’: Nonnative speakers of English and the Miranda warnings. TESOL Quarterly, 42 (1): 1–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2008.tb00205.x
Pöchhacker, F. (2008). Interpreting as mediation. In C. Valero-Garcés and A. Martin (Eds), Crossing Borders in Community Interpreting, 9–26. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/btl.76.02poc
Roy, C. B. (2000). Interpreting as a Discourse Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Russell, S. (2000). ‘Let me put it simply …’: The case for a standard translation of the police caution and its explanation. Forensic Linguistics, 7 (1): 26–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.2000.7.1.26
Russell, S. (2002). ‘Three’s a Crowd’: Shifting dynamics in the Interpreted Interview. In J. Cotterill (Ed.), Language in the Legal Process, 111–126. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Siddique, O. (2012). The language of justice. February 28. 2012. The Express Tribune. Retrieved 28 September 2012 http://tribune.com.pk/story/342487/the-language-of-justice/?print=true
Solan, L., and Tiersma, P. M. (2005). Speaking of Crime. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Tiersma, P. M. (1993). Linguistic issues in the law. Language 69 (1): 113–137. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/416418
Wadensjö, C. (1998). Interpreting as Interaction. New York: Longman.
Woolard, K. A. (1998). Language ideology as a field of enquiry. In B. B. Schieffelin, K. A. Woolard and P. V. Kroskrity (Eds), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yoshida, R. (2007). H?tei s?gok?i o ts?yakusuru: h?tei ts?yakunin no yakuwari saik? [Interpreting Court Interaction – Redefining the Role of Court Interpreters] Interpretation Studies 7, 19–38.
Yoshida, R. (2011). H?tei danwa jissen to h?tei ts?yaku: Goy? to meta goy? no orinaku tekusuto. [Courtroom discursive practice and court interpreting: text interwoven by pragmatics and metapragmatics] Shakaigengokagaku. [The Japanese Journal of Language in Society], 13 (2): 59–71.
Published
2016-05-26
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How to Cite
Nakane, I. (2016). Minority language speakers and disadvantage before the law: Challenges for applied linguistics. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 11(1), 9-29. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v11i1.19060
