The bilingual trial : access to interpreting, communication and participation in Chinese criminal courts

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the globalised new economy and increasing movement of people across national borders, the last two decades have seen China’s rapid economic growth and radical social changes, leading to massive-scale of internal migration, and a large influx of visitors and temporary residents from abroad. When migrants who cannot speak Putonghua, the language of the courts, come into contact with the criminal justice system, the monolingual setting becomes bilingual, mediated by an interpreter.

Provision of interpreting to linguistic minorities in courts is a due process right that is legally grounded in both international conventions and Chinese domestic laws, including the Criminal Procedure Law. This thesis offers an empirical analysis of the issue of performing procedural justice to migrant defendants in Chinese criminal courts, focusing on court interpreting practice and non-Putonghua-speaking foreign defendants’ participation in courtroom interaction.

Drawing on ethnographic trial observations in three Chinese courts, analysis of authentic recordings of trial hearings (with a special focus on English speakers from Africa), interviews with practitioners, the thesis identifies several ways in which linguistic minorities’ procedural rights are not adequately safeguarded: respects in which their linguistic presence in proceedings is undermined. Interpreting-dependent defendants’ participation status in the trial is challenged, for example, by both the translation style of interpreters and the speaking style of judges. Interpreters and defendants, both being second language speakers of English, face communicative challenges in achieving mutual understanding, putting defendants in a difficult situation as regards understanding trial proceedings against them, including in making themselves heard. Moreover, interpreters’ performance is further constrained by judicial practice. Judges exert control over the interpreting process through occasional or even almost continuous interventions, influencing the amount of information available to defendants. When representing themselves in closing statements required by the trial procedure, defendants are not always able to project their voice accurately through the voice of interpreters. It is suggested that the adoption and realisation of a language right related to interpreting is closely linked with the judicial ideology of individual rights in the legal system and that the system tends to use court interpreting instrumentally or pragmatically to achieve the institutional goal over lending support to linguistic minorities.

The thesis adopts a dramaturgical approach to investigating the bilingual trial proceedings. That is, it explores the courtroom as theatre in which courtroom layout, court actors, communication and discourse comprise the legal drama that is performed to the public. Its findings contribute to the professionalization and training of court interpreters and the comparative legal studies on criminal justice system. It also sheds light on an understanding of the relationship between language practice and the institutional ideology involved in an inquisitorial legal system.