How lawyers' questions can be made less coercive or more so: it's all up to the court interpreter
The degree of coerciveness of attorneys' questions has been shown to be
related to the outcome of witnesses' answers in the course of
examination. Questions can be seen to vary in their coerciveness. One category ofquestion-type that is generally considered to be coercive is the
leading question. However, leading questions themselves can be seen to vary
along a continuum of coerciveness, and thus vary in their ability to control theway in which witness answers emerge.
This study examines a typology of leading questions--looking a eleven
grammatically distinguishable types--and analyzes their use in one type
of courtroom context, namely, that which uses the services of a court-appointed interpreter. The study analyzes the language of five trials and a number of depositions and hearings before a judge, all of which were conducted with the aid of a Spanish/English court interpreter. The data come from federal and state superior courts located in the Southwest of the U.S.A., and comprise 504 leading questions.
Interpreting at these proceedings were four court interpreters, two federally certifiedand two not. Included in the analysis of the interpreters' renditions of leading questions is the variable of interpreting mode, specifically, whether the interpretation of the leading questions was carried out in simultaneous or consecutive mode.
The data show that interpreters do a far more accurate job in
consecutive mode than in simultaneous mode. Furthermore, accuracy of
interpreting lawyers' questions correlates with the type of proceeding in
which interpreters are working: interpreters do a far better job in
consecutive mode when they are interpreting at a trial than when they are
interpreting at a deposition or a hearing. Unexpectedly, to the great surprise of
this researcher, when controlling for both interpreting mode and the factor offederal certification, it was found that federally certified
interpreters do not perform better than do non-federally certified ones while
rendering questions in consecutive mode (in fact, they do a far worse job). The ability to keep the level of coerciveness the same in the target languageas it is in the source language was seen to be the same for
federally certified and non-certified interpreters when they were interpreting
in simultaneous mode; however, the accuracy rate of both interpreter
types was quite low. The implications of these findings are discussed in
the light of recommendations for court interpreter certification testing
programs.