INTERPRETERS IN THE COURTROOM: THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPETENCE AND QUALITY

Abstract

Court interpreting is becoming an increasingly important issue in Translation Studies and interpreting research. The article will be devoted to the analysis of the concepts of competence and quality and their manifestation in the court interpreter’s work. It is assumed that the interpreter’s competence is accomplished in three basic fields, i.e., linguistic (embracing the perfect command of the mother tongue and the foreign language), cultural (knowledge on two cultural realities) and cognitive (combining such cognitive factors as intelligence, experience, general knowledge or motivation). Quality is the concept in interpreting closely related with successful performance and communication (with all its aspects). The attempt at quality description, apart from subjective impressions resulting from our understanding of the importance of features that good – competent – translation and effective communication should have, cannot be devoid of focusing on three principal factors, i.e., the interpreter (as the text author/ producer), interpreting process and product, which is the result of this process and involvement (and competence) on the part of the interpreter. All the above aspects pose a real challenge for the court interpreter.

Keywords

• competence
• quality of legal translation
• courtroom
• legal interpreter