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- Publisher Website: 10.1007/s11196-012-9290-9
- Scopus: eid_2-s2.0-84881225072
- WOS: WOS:000436681100004
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Article: Garment, or Upper-Garment? A Matter of Interpretation?
Title | Garment, or Upper-Garment? A Matter of Interpretation? |
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Authors | |
Keywords | Bilinguals Ambiguity Context Interpreting Participant role |
Issue Date | 2013 |
Publisher | Springer Verlag Dordrecht. The Journal's web site is located at http://springerlink.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=journal&issn=0952-8059 |
Citation | International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 2013, v. 26 n. 3, p. 597-613 How to Cite? |
Abstract | In 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. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. |
Persistent Identifier | http://hdl.handle.net/10722/190538 |
ISSN | 2023 Impact Factor: 0.9 2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 0.332 |
ISI Accession Number ID |
DC Field | Value | Language |
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dc.contributor.author | Ng, ENS | - |
dc.date.accessioned | 2013-09-17T15:28:12Z | - |
dc.date.available | 2013-09-17T15:28:12Z | - |
dc.date.issued | 2013 | - |
dc.identifier.citation | International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 2013, v. 26 n. 3, p. 597-613 | - |
dc.identifier.issn | 0952-8059 | - |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10722/190538 | - |
dc.description.abstract | In 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. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. | - |
dc.language | eng | - |
dc.publisher | Springer Verlag Dordrecht. The Journal's web site is located at http://springerlink.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=journal&issn=0952-8059 | - |
dc.relation.ispartof | International Journal for the Semiotics of Law | - |
dc.rights | The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/[insert DOI] | - |
dc.subject | Bilinguals | - |
dc.subject | Ambiguity | - |
dc.subject | Context | - |
dc.subject | Interpreting | - |
dc.subject | Participant role | - |
dc.title | Garment, or Upper-Garment? A Matter of Interpretation? | - |
dc.type | Article | - |
dc.identifier.email | Ng, ENS: nsng@hku.hk | - |
dc.identifier.authority | Ng, ENS=rp02119 | - |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1007/s11196-012-9290-9 | - |
dc.identifier.scopus | eid_2-s2.0-84881225072 | - |
dc.identifier.hkuros | 221552 | - |
dc.identifier.volume | 26 | - |
dc.identifier.issue | 3 | - |
dc.identifier.spage | 597 | - |
dc.identifier.epage | 613 | - |
dc.identifier.isi | WOS:000436681100004 | - |
dc.publisher.place | Netherlands | - |
dc.identifier.issnl | 0952-8059 | - |