Courtroom Interpreting

by Marianne Mason

Overview

In Courtroom Interpreting, Marianne Mason offers a new perspective in the study of courtroom interpreting through the exploration of cognitive and linguistic barriers that court interpreters face everyday and ultimately result in an interpreter's deviation from original linguistic content. The quality of an interpreter's rendition plays a key role in how well a non-English speaking defendant's legal rights are served. Interpreters are expected to provide a faithful rendition of all semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic content regardless of how difficult the task may be at a cognitive level. From a legal perspective this expectation may be sound as it disregards the cost associated with the interpreter having to account for a great deal of linguistic content. Mason proposes that if the quality of interpreters' renditions is to improve and the rights of non-English speaking minorities is to be better served the issue of cognitive overload needs to be addressed more effectively by the court interpreting community.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761840732
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	09/15/2008
Pages:	212
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Marianne Mason, (Ph.D.), is Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. A Journey into Courtroom Interpreting: Fieldwork Procedures
Chapter 3. A Linguistic and Cognitive View of Interpreter-Induced Errors
Chapter 4. Counteracting the Effects of Cognitive Overload: The Interpreters' Use of Interruptions and Semiconsecutive Interpreting
Chapter 5. On Using Note Taking in the Bilingual Courtroom
Chapter 6. Gender Differences in the Management of Cognitive Overload
Chapter 7. Conclusions

Editorial Reviews

Marianne Mason's Courtroom Interpreting hits the reader like a battering ram from beginning to end. Taking the importance of a judiciary interpreter's profession as a given, Mason dives into the heretofore unexplored territory of cognitive overload. Her research is revealing, groundbreaking, and challenging.

Janis Palma