Interpreter as the Discourse Analyst:

A Case Study of Court Interpreting

Taufiq Jati Murtaya

, Pratomo Widodo

Applied Linguistics Department, Post-Graduate Program, Yogyakarta State University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Keywords: Interpreting, court interpreting, discourse analysis.

Abstract: To have a complete and indeed scientific enquiry of interpreting study is to invoke another expansive and

shrill systematic point of view, namely the discourse study. This is because interpreting is the composite

acts of transmitting the conveyed messages linguistically, understanding the whole interaction among all

participants, and rendering the intended meaning prevalently. Thus, such thorough discourse analysis is

worthy to make in drawing comprehensive elaboration of those phenomena. Technically, in doing

interpreting, various strategies will be implemented when dealing with the complicated massages transfer or

in coping the dense intended meaning of the utterances. Thus, this paper will dive deeper scrutinizing of

what lies beneath when an interpreter put such strategies in the realm of legal activity by using discourse

analysis. Specifically, this paper will investigate one of Indonesia phenomenal judicial event which involved

court interpreting activity, namely the case of Jessica Kumala Wongso. Finally, to make a substantial

inference then the study of conversational analysis and communication theory is crucially applied.

1 INTRODUCTION

Interpreting is a forceful and burdensome self-

consistency of being responsible and aware in

handing on the most noteworthy intention running

along within the communicative situation in a very

restricted time. It is like a brief rush hour in which

each of the various processes leads its own way,

supposedly in integrated and accordance works, to

the canal of proportional pragmatic utterance; so that

the communication flawlessly and naturally

constructed. Once, Viezi (1996) ever stated as

quoted by (Pöchhacker, 2001) that the top priority of

an interpreter was to enable communication by his

or her expressions production activities. Thus from

those point of views, it can be said that one of the

crucial matters during the interpreting process is to

revive and provoke self-awareness of the linguistics

competencies, interpreting techniques, and

fluctuated situations. The linguistics competence and

the interpreting techniques are inevitably elements

which have to be there in the interpreter as the basic

cornerstones. Those can be learnt and trained

through a particular program. Meanwhile, the

awareness of the dynamic situation closely dealing

with the real time condition in which the interpreter

engaged to. Therefore it, definitely, can be out of the

expectation from what have been done in the

training through designed simulation; yet it can be

occupied by a learning-by-doing real time practices.

What can be said form the above illustration is that

the need to investigate the unpredictable of a given

situation during the interpreting event valuable to be

done.

Looking at the self-awareness of the dynamic

situations, generally speaking, referring to what was

stated by (Pöchhacker, 2001) who defined two types

of interpreting based on its working mode namely

consecutive (the rendition take place after the source

expression production) which later be specified by

community interpreting; and simultaneous (the

rendition take place almost at the same time of the

source expression production) that then closely

related to conference interpreting; then the changing

situation will be much more occur in the field of

community interpreting. Community interpreting as

defined by (Hale, 2006) meant that the interpreter

brought upon certain setting in which the common

discussed matter were intimate and significant issues

in daily life. Basically, the daily issues are spreading

Murtaya, T. and Widodo, P.

Interpreter as the Discourse Analyst: A Case Study of Court Interpreting.

DOI: 10.5220/0008219900002284

In Proceedings of the 1st Bandung English Language Teaching International Conference (BELTIC 2018) - Developing ELT in the 21st Century, pages 85-96

ISBN: 978-989-758-416-9

from the informal to the formal occasion. And as the

concern of this study then it will be specified the

community interpreting that undergoes in a formal

purview, namely in the legal occasion. Then, this

study certainly will put its stand point on the realm

of court interpreting in which such dynamic

situations frequently occur. Those dynamic

situations heavily related to the current issues of

interpreting as proposed by (Hale, 2004) in the

notion of how professional interpreters should

behave; namely the state of being aware of their

responsibeilities as professional, so that they can

escalate client’s trustworthiness of their

performances. Furthermore it will be reinforced also

by the adequate rendition in realizing the

expressions; therefore they should overcome the

important of the language in the courtroom, use

various strategies in interpreting, and also

understanding the other legal procedures which are

essential of the court session overflow. The second

is the awareness of the tough process in interpreting

which require integrated phase of comprehension,

conversion, and delivery (three proficiencies) as ever

suggested by Ginori and Scimone (1995) (Hale,

2004). Thirdly is the pragmatic equivalence. This

term has the core meaning as adopted from (House,

2009) of the conscious intercultural differences,

language appropriateness (Crystal, 1987), the

sentence usage and real world relevance (Stalnaker,

1973, p. 380) in (Zambrano-paff, 2011), the

relationship of the users and its linguistics form

(Yule, 1996), and the top down approach of

discourse understanding to its re-expression in the

word level (Hale, 2004). Rather this study will

consider the pragmatic equivalence more on the

relation to the notion in discourse purview. And the

last is the role of interpreter. The interpreter’s role is

explicitly and closely related with its code ethic as

asserted by Mikkelson (2000, p. 48) in (Hale, 2004),

that the interpreter’s most prominent role is to

sustain the equality before the law and human rights

reinforcement; this is as mentioned in the Austrian

Association of Court Interpreter’s Ethic Code.

Naturally the role of interpreter is providing a social

justice and making clearance of certain deviations

from the source expression to the target expression

to make sure the understanding (Conomos (1993) in

(Hale, 2004) in purpose of helping the deprived

client of non-source expression producer (Hale,

2004) or enhance the answers to help get sufficient

and proportional result (Barsky, 1996).

However, since this study is conducted in

Indonesia, the present of interpreter in a

prosecution can be viewed in a more political as

well as moral issue and having marketing selling

point. In this case, when a lawyer brings a foreign

expert witnesses that demand the help of an

interpreter; actually the implied meaning will be

that the open prosecution is pumping the people’s

curiosity in search of law enforcement thus the

interpreter having a chance to provide the

justification of the gap in the different language or to

buffer the self-arrogance exposition of the lawyer as

he or she is showing off the credible judicial

evidence on board. In short, in this study the present

of the interpreter, in a more extensive range, can be

the discourse signifier.

Diving to the deeper exploration, then this study

embraces the last two issues that are the pragmatic

factor and the interpreter’s role. The interpreter here

shall be consciously aware of the discourse in the

court interpreting as the dynamic condition that has

to be taken into account as the considerable element

in coping the understanding, alteration, and

transmission. Based on this principal, it will clearly

against the statement of the former Supreme Court

judge of South Australia, W Wells (1991) that ever

cited in Hale’s work (Hale, 2004), who once

proclaimed that the interpreter wisely look upon his

or her role as a robotic transformer, who just literary

throwing up of what has been injected in. No

consideration and sense of sensitivity of what are

mentioned above. In brief, the focus of this study is

on how the court interpreter operates as the

discourse analyst.

For this recent decade, apparently the study of

court interpreting has been expanding through time.

For the most previous one was the study conducted

by Dimitrova (Dimitrova, 1993) which elaborate the

need to be strict in interrupting the spacious and

discursive utterances during the turn-taking in

judicial event. The longer and bigger chunk of

utterance were produced the more important

information would lose because of the

comprehension narrow capacity. On the other hand,

rather, this recent study sets its justification on how

the interpreter manages the turn-taking, so that the

communicative question and answer session pops

up. Later, the next study presented by (Moeketsi,

2001) who tried to implemented Hymes SPEAKING

mnemonic in all aspect of court interpreting. Slightly

different from Moketsi’s work, deriving from the

core that court interpreting is part of the community

interpreting, thus there hardly predicted that the

speech community strike its existence within. From

this point of view, Hyme’s theory on component of

communicative event is surely preferable. The work

of Jieun Lee, a PhD of Ewha Womans University

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Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, in

2009 asserted that the disclosure of linguistics and

cultural aspect would impact the accuracy in court

interpreting. Here, the study does agree as referring

to that previous conclusion. However, the concern of

this study is not merely the accuracy but more on the

ability and awareness of the interpreter of the three

proficiencies which can be investigate through the

techniques applied. The next previous study was

performed by (Zambrano-paff, 2011) who rigorously

explained the court interpreter’s failure and bad

condition of failing linguistic mechanism choices.

Rather than exposing the failure factors, then this

study tend to elaborate the integrated efforts of the

interpreter lies within the strategies grounded during

the court interpreting. An empirical explanation of

fully independent behavior to gain in the court

interpreting was what (Jacobsen, 2012) had come up

with. In her previous research it was told that the

interpreter intentionally ignoring the

recommendation and also choosing the strategies

that could hinder the stream of communication in

question-answer dialogues in court interpreting.

Perversely, the court seemed to accept of this

situation. Unlike the Jacobsen’s work, this study

instead scrutinizes how the interpreter is completely

aware and responsible of what means the most in the

court interpreting for the sake of the flawless

communicative occasion. Finally, this study has

similarity with the research of Dordevic which

argued the important to have the ability in discourse

analysis when conducting consecutive interpreting

(Dordevic, 2012). However, still, there is a gap to

catch, since the concern in this study is an empirical

and practical while Dordevic’s range is an

educational one.

In this present study, the focus will be the

interpreter as the discourse analyst which can be

reflected through the strategies applied within the

rendering processes. Since it is a case study, then the

court session of Jessica Kumala Wongso which

involves an interpreting act of the English speaking

expert witness will be precious to take. For its

feasibility, this case is considered as the most

phenomenal of Indonesian planned assassination

case through a poisonous coffee. In order to draw a

structuralized framework, thus the questions of this

study will be; what are the techniques applied during

the court interpreting? And how do the techniques

reflect the interpreter’s discourse analysis?

2 THEORITICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 Court Language and Court

Interpreting

What is meant by the court interpreting here in this

study is refer to the courtroom interpreting. Why it is

so; because for the recent study, many of those

researches was conducted in the courtroom setting.

This is an unsurprising thing, as the practical

intention, first will be, the availability of the

recorded data that is accessible from the internet

channel because the judicial form is an open

prosecution. The second may be because the whole

conditions attached in the court such as the firm

rules, ritualistic procedures and protocols, and

permanent participant roles (including the

interpreter) are challenging and scientifically

explorative to be analyzed (Hale, 2007). Those

conditions are clearly operated in the question and

answer sessions. Related to the purpose of the

question and answer session, there are two major

terms which commonly employed in an adversarial

courtroom in examining witnesses. The first is called

examination-in-chief. The purpose of examination-

in-chief is to assure the decision maker (Hale, 2007)

and presenting evidence (Monsefi, 2012) through the

version of the interrogating side facts that permits

the witnesses independently speaking and has non-

confrontational sense (Hale, 2004). Meanwhile the

other examination is called cross-examination. This

examination aims to contradict, challenge or event

discredit the evidence of the witnesses that is under

cross-examined so that the decision maker will

certainly accept the facts that is presented by the

cross-examiner (Hale, 2004). Stemming from those

conceptual models of courtroom language above, it

can be inferred that the study of its linguistics

patterns in line with the discourse senses is

preferable to conduct; since the only accessible and

empirical data is the melodious wording expression.

It has the same nuance as the statement from Du

Cann (1986, p. 112) in Hale (Hale, 2004) that the

only weapon belongs to an advocate is his own

words.

Focusing on the court interpreting as the

courtroom interpreting, this study put the concern

more on the role of the interpreter in a judicial

event. The interpreter should gain two functions

within a prosecution; namely as a barrier remover

and as a conscious mediator. What is meant by

barrier remover here is in tune with the basic

principal asserted by Hale (Hale, 2004) that an

interpreter should have the ability to move out the

Interpreter as the Discourse Analyst: A Case Study of Court Interpreting

gap of the two different languages from the

interaction and could be as a “helper”. Nevertheless,

related to this study, it is suggested to have two kind

of barrier remover function that are linguistic barrier

remover (LBR) which related to has been said by

Hale; and contextual barrier remover (CBR).

The second barrier remover aims to connect or

bridge as close as possible even the most slightly

different contexts that are having cross-perception

and cross- interpretation. This concept is derived

from the core that the interpreter may face

various different context even the slightest.

Interpreter as a conscious mediator means that

the interpreter should be sensible when

transferring the intended meaning pragmatically and

not be machine-like converter. Thus, this study

proposes two kinds of conscious mediator namely

situational conscious mediator (SCM) and neutral

conscious mediator (NCM). SCM occurs whenever

the interpreter having fully aware of the given

condition and the context of the setting in which the

interpreting takes place, thus the renditions should

cope the pragmatic sensibility (Hale, 2004). On the

other hand, NCM requires the interpreter to liberate

his or her tendencies to one of the other

participants; that is only caused by the inequality

matter that may occur in the courtroom. The

interpreter has to be neutral from particular

alignment, even it refers to his or her own personal

intuition. This situation supported by the notion that

the interpreter should not be swayed by sympathy

(Edwards, 1995) and might not mix the alternation

with his or her own expression and idea (Harris,

1990).

2.2 A Brief Review of Interpreting

Techniques

As mentioned previously in the introduction that the

starting point of this study is to scrutinize the

techniques employed within the court interpreting,

thus some elaboration of particular techniques will

be much beneficial. This study adopts the techniques

that are proposed by some experts as interpreting

strategies. The variety of those techniques can be

viewed as follows:

2.2.1 Addition

Addition is viewed when the interpreter willingly to

add (some explanation) of what is not mentioned by

the source expression producer. This is because the

interpreter thinks the interpretation does not clear

enough and has bias on it; usually due to the

inconsistency of the source-and-target expression

culture and the occurrence of specific terminology

(Kalina (1998) in (Bartlomiejczyk, 2006).

2.2.2 Reformation

Reformulation is taken whenever the interpreter

faces a situation in which the utterance is long and

complicated. He or she has to reformulate the

wording of the source expression; it can be broken

down a series that easier and shorter. For example

the relative and subordinate clauses can be shifted

around in the sentence; changing the active form

into the passive one and vice versa; etc (Jones,

1998).

2.2.3 Omission

Omission here proposes some parts are left out

without language conversion; and specifically this

step refers to the situation in which the source

expression is claimed to be something that has been

understood in the context and redundantly

mentioned; or regarded as something which was

less/unimportant and not-transmittable considering

the different culture and stylistic realm (Napier,

2004).

2.2.4 Anticipation

Anticipation is believed to be occurred when the

interpreter predicts what will come next of the

source expression (Gile, 2009) and (Chernov, 2004);

although in some simultaneous cases the interpreter

does not know where the source expression will lead

to (Jones, 1998). The prediction may base on the

information, content, and context that the interpreter

has acquired before (Bartlomiejczyk, 2006).

2.2.5 Paraphrasing

The paraphrasing occurs when the interpreter takes a

longer phrase to explain a single word that cannot be

converted in the target expression at the moment

(Gile, 2009).

2.2.6 Repair

What is meant by repair here is nearly the same as in

(Jones, 1998) of the condition if the interpreter

makes a mistake; in which the interpreter should

cope up the mistake by revision as fast and distinct

as possible. In addition, as proposed by Kalina

(1998) as cited by (Bartlomiejczyk, 2006), the repair

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is taken by the interpreter whenever he or she has

delivered a misinterpretation of the intended

meaning; and much of the time it is done when the

interpreter has the better idea to express of what

have been uttered before.

Except the techniques presented above, since the

interpreting setting is in a courtroom in which all of

the participants are connected through the question

and answer session mediated by the interpreter, then

the interpreter has two chances to make clear of

what are being said during the prosecution. The

chances are questions asking for clarification and

questions asking for a repetition (Hale, 2004).

2.3 The Discourse Nuance and Device

in Court Interpreting

Discourse is the highest linguistics system which can

be function as a representation of particular social

purview. As its fundamental notion, discourse can

always have the motion in language as well as its

interaction toward the other aspects surrounding.

Language and discourse cannot be separated,

whether it is written or spoken. Reviewing to the

functional approach, discourse is viewed as a

language in its use and as an open system, which

means that a language can be various. Different

context will provide different language usage. In

short, a language is a means of communication; as

this ever claimed by (Schiffrin, 2007) that discourse

can be understood as a communication event, an

implementation of an individual who are having a

communication. Then, functional discourse analysis

will focus on the investigation of a language as the

communication device.

Specifically, since the study is in the field of

court interpreting in which many of participants are

getting involved in adversarial moment; the most

appropriate principle to take one ever asserted by

(Bourdieu, 1991) that in imposing power over other,

the most effecting one is by using linguistics control.

It is also strengthen by (Fairclough, 1989) that the

contributions of the non-powerful participant is

controlled and constrained by the powerful one. To

be precise, the connection between language, power,

control, and social structures can be summarized as

depicted in Fowler’s et al statement. The dominant

participant’s control over the subordinate one is

under the surveillance of the sociolinguistics

mechanism function in which the control is affected

by a regulation and constitution; meanwhile the

underlying semantic for the systems of ideas

encoded in language structure is provided by power

disparity as cited in (Hale, 2004).

Then how the interpreter role dealing with that

situation in a courtroom session can be analysed

through the techniques that are applied is by relating

it to the concepts as follows.

2.3.1 Discourse Marker

What is considered as the discourse marker in this

study refers to the concept proposed by Schiffrin

(1987, p. 328) in (Hale, 2004). She claimed that

discourse marker usually can be separated from the

sentence with no alteration of the proportional

content, because it is syntactically unbound to the

sentence. Its position tends to be in the first place of

an utterance and has a pause which comes after a

tonic stress. Furthermore, this marker can be

identified in such ways namely when the utterance’s

real condition is not affected by its present or absent;

it has situational relation to the utterance; and its

function is emotive and conative rather than

denotative or referential (Hölker, 1991). The

example of discourse marker such as “well”, “you

know”, “as we can see”, “you see”, “now”, etc.

2.3.2 Text, Co-Text, and Context

To have detail analysis, this study also adopts the

concept of text, co-text, and context; because the

data of the study an oral text in the courtroom

situational which highly predicted will share

particular context within. In brief, the notion of text

is taken from the definition given by (Fairclough,

1995) that asserted text as the linguistics unit of

spoken or written language that had a content and

form as a means of message transmitter. Meanwhile

co-text is sentence or any substance that proceeds or

follows the other text in the discourse. In other word,

it is another text that accompanies the other one in

relational matter (Kridalaksana, 2011). The last one

is context. According to (Yule, 1983) context was

defined as the environment or situation in which the

language was used. It implies that all information,

intention, meaning that related to particular utterance

depend on the context. Further, (Schiffrin, 2007)

asserted that context in the perspective of speech act

which stand its point on the share of knowledge

would justify how the knowledge lead the language

usage and understand its interpretation. When the

speaker and the hearer share the same knowledge, it

will minimize or even eradicate the

misunderstanding and misinterpreting. In short, to

have a rounded discourse, thus three elements

should work in harmony and integrated supportively.

Interpreter as the Discourse Analyst: A Case Study of Court Interpreting

The realization of meaning can in the text is based

on the interaction between the language user and a

context. To know a text is to know the context first.

In the more specific matter of communication

context can be who the communicator is, to whom

the utterance is being communicated, what is the

intention of the communication, in which situation

the communication is set up, in what media and

relation the communication is held, etc.

2.3.3 Turn-Taking and Question-and-

Answer

Turn-taking and question and answer (QA) cannot

be neglected in a conversation, since those are the

main cornerstone of a communication. Turn-taking

is a mechanism managed by the participants about

how each of the members takes in turn to speak up

and who is talking to whom (Bussman, 1996).

However in the court interpreting, it will be an

interesting topic to discuss, since in fact the turn-

taking goes through a mediated communication by

the interpreter. It has a unique and complex activity

if it goes within a court interpreting process; because

of the unavoidable processes of organizing,

managing, constraining and directing the movement

of talk. The management of turn is handled by the

interpreter’s decision in managing and orchestrating

the turns that based on and due to the surface of

linguistics and social meaning which innate in the

given situation and its expectations. In short, the role

of interpreter of making decisions must produce a

natural and communicative conversation (Roy,

2000). Meanwhile, QA placed its significance in

the court interpreting as a discourse device which

functions as an adjacency pairs. Has the similar

value with the turn-taking, QA also can be the thing

that has to be embraced by the interpreter in term of

flawless communication in a court session regarding

the two witness examination situations mentioned

before namely the examination-in-chief and cross-

examination.

2.4 Conversation Analysis and

Component of Communicative

Event

Since the discussion later in the study is framing its

own basic in term of how the interpreter cope with

the pragmatic and situational prosecution

communication, then a conversational analysis in

line with the theory of communicative event

component will be beneficial to earn such inference.

Conversation analysis (CA) has an examination of

language as social action in which interactional talk

is taken to be systematically organized (Wooffitt,

2005) and ordered (Wooffitt, 2005) and (Have,

1999) produced in everyday occasion (Hutchby, I.,

Wooffitt, 1998). In relation to discourse analysis,

then this study adopts the principles of CA

suggested by (Schiffrin, 2007) as follows:

 The analysis should be empirical.

 The data is a real time language usage

by the people.

 The analysis tries to

elaborate sequentially (why does A

follow B?) as well as distributionally

(why does A occur with B and not with

C?).

 The coherent should be more than

just linguistic form and meaning.

 The linguistics form and meanings mutually

contextualized each other; and set up

together, to create a discourse, with social

meanings and interpretive schemes.

 There is an interactive negotiation

and achievement between the structures,

meanings, and action in everyday spoken

discourse.

 The utterance, aim, and action

are sequentially situated. Meaning to say

that the utterance is interpreted and produced

stem from the local context of other one.

 The utterance, aim, and action in which

the speaker’s decision to select of various

linguistics devices as a mean of way of

uttering are constrained by six principals:

 The intention of the speaker;

 The strategies that have

been conventionalized in making

recognizable intention;

 The function and meaning of

the linguistics form within the emerging

context;

 The other utterance’s sequential context;

 The discourse mode properties, such

as narration, description, exposition, etc;

 The social context namely the

setting, identity and relationship of

the participant, and situation structure.

To have detail elaboration, later in

the

discussion, the study probably only concern on

several principles presented above and also takes the

principles of communicative event component. To

have Hyme’s communicative event component as

the tool of the inference session is an appropriate

option. Actually, this is based on the proportional

argument that the court interpreting is part of

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community interpreting where particular speech

community plays its parts. Therefore, as proposed by

(Angelelli, 2000) then the most comprehensive

component to use in the analysis namely the setting

as the context provider for the utterance; the

participant which have different social and

linguistics aspect, so the interpreter is permitted to

negotiate meaning; the purpose-outcomes and the

purpose-goals in which the interpreter has the

chance of negotiation if he or she does not engaged

with the participant outcomes and has the

opportunity to clarify if he or she think fail to cope

the participants’ intended meaning or goal; those

opportunities are also happened in the form of

speech if the interpreter does not get into the

different register, variety, etc.

3 METHOD

3.1 Setting

This study took the 24th prosecution of Jessica

Kumala Wongso as the main provider data source,

since there was a court interpreting activity. The data

was downloaded from youtube.com in a video

recorded data. To be precise, there were four

question and answer court sessions. However, this

study employed a purposive sampling. Therefore the

main data was only the first court session that was

the question and answer session between the English

speaking expert witness and the lawyer. The

duration of the session was about 1 hour and 20

minutes. As the question and answer court session

was conducted in a conversation, thus the unit

analysis of the data was an utterance. From the more

than a hundred utterances, only 40 utterances were

taken into the next analysis regarding to the validity

that has been done since the observation,

transcription, identification, and classification

phases.

3.2 Instrument and Procedure

Regarding to its unit analysis, this study applied

content analysis method. The sequential steps to take

could be mentioned such as observation,

transcription, identification, classification,

description, interpretation, elaboration, and

inference. For the proportional method, this study

adopted padan translational and padan pragmatis,

and for its technique in providing the data simak

method was appropriate to take. In gaining the valid

data from a recorded file then it was used simak

bebas libat cakap technique. And for the subsequent

techniques, rekam technique was taken as well as

catat technique in order to ease the transcription

processes (Sudaryanto, 2017). As the most

appropriate and common transcription system that

scientifically often applied within any of interpreting

transcription steps, the Jeffersonian transcription

system (Hutchby, I., Wooffitt, 1998) was taken. And

to have precise analysis the study also employed

intrarater and interrater.

3.3 Data Analysis

As this study was a descriptive qualitative study,

therefore the first phase to have was by investigating

the techniques which were used in the court

interpreting. Based on these findings later the next

analysis was by justifying how certain discourse

marker is transmitted into the target expression. To

go sharper in the exposition of the discourse devices,

the analysis in the turn-taking and the question-

answer aspects were elaborated more in the realm of

discourse analysis. Finally to earn the inference, the

conversational analysis and the theory in component

of the communicative event were adopted.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

To embrace the cornerstone of the deeper analysis,

first, this study stated that the context of the

discourse was the prosecution of Jessica Kumala

Wongso. In detail, it took the judicial event in which

the Australian pathologist was invited as the expert

witness. In this hearing, the study only concentrate

on the examination-in-chief session, thus the

dialogue or the question-answer session would be

between the attorney and the expert witness that

indeed mediated by the interpreter. In short,

specifically, the context was the question-answer

between the lawyer and the expert witness in the

scope of examination-in-chief where the main

purpose was to earn some supportive tribunal facts

of the lawyer’s version. Unsurprisingly, that notion

is also supported by Hale’s claim about the nature of

the lawyer; as it was mentioned that it was a

noticeable act that the lawyers strategically

maintained the language usage to reach their

purposes that implemented through various of

linguistics means (Hale, 2006). In addition, since it

was a question-answer session, then there was turn-

taking that had to be maintained, not only by the

lawyer and the expert witness, but dependently by

Interpreter as the Discourse Analyst: A Case Study of Court Interpreting

the court interpreter. Therefore, later the interpreter

maintained the turn-taking by signaling through his

techniques in transferring the discourse marker that

would be elaborated in the next part of this study.

After all, to have the analysis of the techniques was

preliminary one; as it was the basic part for the next

analysis.

From the analysis of the techniques implemented

in the court interpreting of Jessica Kumala Wongso

prosecution, then the results was presented table 1 as

follow:

Table 1: The interpreting techniques in the

examination-in-chief session.

Technique Number Percenta

Omission

15 37.5%

Reformulation

10 25%

Addition

7 17.5%

Paraphrasin

6 15%

Repair

2 5%

Antici

ation

0 0%

TOTAL

40 100%

It was clearly stated that the most common

technique employed is omission with 37,5%, while

the rarely used technique was repair which has 5%

in the usage intensity. Concerning on the top four

above, it could be breakdown into two categories of

transmission namely Indonesian-English (I-E) and

English-Indonesia (E-I) in each technique. In the

omission, the I-E conversion higher than the E-I one,

namely 86,6% for I-E interpreting and 13,3% for E-I

interpreting. In the reformulation, the I-E rendition is

80% and the E-I rendition is 20%. Meanwhile in

paraphrasing technique the I-E was equal to the E-I

rendition. The most distinct fact was found in the

addition technique, since the I-E rendition got lower

position than the E-I rendition, that was only 14,3%

for I-E rendition and 85,7% for E-I rendition.

Excluding from the 40 utterances of that named

to be the data in which some techniques were

proportionally applied, there were also 6 utterances

that convey the act of clarification and repetition,

and 100% the data shown that the rendition was

from E-I, or from the foreign expert witness to be

translated into Indonesian. In addition there were 5

the utterances that contain discourse marker; and the

discourse markers that were found such as “baik”,

“ya”, “jadi”, and “saya ulangi ya”, and the English

discourse marker namely “well”, “now”, and “so”.

In the discourse marker utterances, 3 out of 5 was I-

E rendition, the rest was E-I rendition.

Going into deeper discussion, this study will

begin with the relation of the omission,

reformulation, and addition that are found in the

result. The omissions that were found believed to be

the strategy that used to overcome redundancy and

unimportant utterance produce by the lawyer; or

even more, since the context occur in the setting of

judicial moment then the tone has to be succinct and

straight. No long-winded and incoherent saying is

prevalent. For example as follows:

Example 1

Lawyer : [Baik, saya mau tanya.

Apakah formalin, ketika

proses embalming (.) itu

bisa menghancurkan

atau merusak atau

meniadakan sianida yang

ada di dalam tubuh.]

Interpreter : [Can a formalin destroy

cyanide?]

Witness : [yes it can.]

Interpreter : [ya, dapat]

The next is reformulation. Reformulation was

done as to simplified long utterances for the sake of

flawless turn-taking, and also to overcome the

difficulties of memorizing things. In this study, the

reformulation is almost similar to omission. The

reason is the present of not only long utterance but

also the superfluous and not to the point sentence,

which may represent the unwell-structured sentence.

It can be seen as follows:

Example 2

Lawyer : [Apakah saudara setuju

bahwa biomer = bio marker

atau ciri-ciri atau tanda-

tanda dari kematian

daripada e::: seorang karena

sianida itu adalah

terdapatnya sianida atau

tiosianat yang ada di dalam

tubuh korban antara lain di

dalam urine ,di dalam

darah, atau di dalam liver?]

Interpreter : [Do you agree that one of

the bio markers for cyanide

poisoning is the findings of

cyanide or thiocyanate in:::

e::: in::: parts of the body

such as in urine, blood, and

liver ?]

Meanwhile addition which has different portion

of I-E rendition compare to the other two, may occur

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because the need to explain things tend to be done in

the E-I rendition in order to share the knowledge not

only to the participants of the prosecution but also to

the out there since this hearings is well-known

incident. The example can be viewed as follows:

Example 3

Expert Witness : [Depending on the

circumstances of the

death, particularly if it

were suspicious the only

proper autopsy to be

performed is a complete

post mortem examination]

Interpreter : [tergantung pada

keadaan-keadaan yang

terjadi di seputar kematian.

Akan tetapi apabila

kematian itu dicurigai atau

patut dicurigai, maka

otopsi yang seharusnya

dilakukan adalah otopsi

penuh atau otopsi yang

lengkap dan

menyeluruh]

From the condition presented above, it could be

inferred that the interpreter was well-realized that

the prosecution he had was as a discourse, a

phenomenal one in Indonesia. Therefore, he could

definitely awaken his awareness as this session was

the examination-in-chief session where the expert

witness was invited to be elicited the judicial facts

that support the lawyer’s version of facts in court.

Specifically, the interpreter had gained two functions

in the court interpreting processes. As a CBR and

SCM, the interpreter often came up with the act that

remained him to situation and role he had that

reflected through the techniques he took. This

condition also represents that all of the interpretation

acts are also clearly match with the principle of the

conversational analysis; that the interpreter engaged

to a conversation and he can cope the setting,

identity and relationship of the participant, and

social structure as part of the social context. Later, it

will be discussed in the next session of this study in

relation to the need to held clarification.

The things to put into the next consideration are

the interpretation of the discourse marker. There are

some discourse markers that pragmatically

equivalent transmitted into the source expression

regarding, again, the context, that is the court session

of examination-in-chief of the expert witness. There

are “baik” into “now”, jadi” into “so”, and “well”

into “ya”. However, the interpreter also saving time

and be efficient in converting the discourse marker

using reformulation strategy of the source

expression “saya ulangi ya” into the target

expression of “OK”, this is because he has LBR

awareness. For example as follows:

Example 4

Lawyer : [Saya ulangi ya. Ada

bukti BB4. Bukti BB4 ini

diambil 70 menit

sebelum..eh..setelah dia

meninggal. Bukti ini

diperiksa 15 hari kemudian.

Itu dulu.]

Interpreter : [OK. BB4 e::: was (.)

e::: taken seventy e:::

from = was taken e:::

based on = was taken from

the gastric liquid seventy

minutes after death. And

then BB4 was examined

fifteen days hereafter]

In addition, the source expression does not

contain any discourse marker, but by using addition

strategy the interpreter put the word “baik” in the

target expression. It functions as the turn-taking

emphasizer, as an indication that the turn-taking

from the witness to the lawyer can smoothly flow.

For example as follows:

Example 5

Lawyer : [If this = if the result is real,

there is no cyanide found in

the victim apart from the

small amount in the gastric

sample taken out of

autopsy, then the

corrosiveness e::: is more

likely to be due to the

normally present

hidrocloric acid and she

was suffering from_erosive

gastritis]

Interpreter : [ (#2 seconds) baik, kalau

sample (.) ee::: kalau

sample = sample tersebut

ee::: diambil dan tidak

ditemukan adanya ee:::

sianida ee::: maka adanya

korosif yang ditemukan

pada tubuh korban tersebut

diakibatkan oleh a = asam =

Interpreter as the Discourse Analyst: A Case Study of Court Interpreting

hip = hipoklorida (#1

second) dan ini

menunjukan bahwa yang

bersangkutan menderita

gastritis erosive]

What makes the findings more interesting is that

there was a direct translation or word for word

translation that was employed by the interpreter in

rendering the discourse maker, that was “well” into

“ya”. However when considering the whole

utterance, he also used omission of “as I

understand”. The utterance is as follows:

Example 6

Expert Witness : [well in this particular case

it will a pain put in the vein

= in the femur

vein in the embalming

process, as I

understand]

Interpreter : [ya, sebag = dalam proses

ee::: pemberian formalin

biasanya dimasukan

melalui pembuluh femur]

It could be inferred that the discourse marker

“well” strengthen by the final clause “as I

understand” in the source expression could be aimed

to show convincing opinion based on the witness’

scientific understanding. This notion opposed Hale’s

statement that the occurrence of the discourse

marker “well” indicating the witness’ maintaining of

frustration (Hale, 2006). In the other hand, here the

interpreter still kept the discourse marker in the

rendition into “ya” but omitted the clause of “as I

understand”. This condition supported the findings

of Hale (Hale, 2004) where the hedges and fillers

were omitted for the sake of hesitation deletion. In

short, this step was taken by the interpreter to raise

the certainty of the witness’ opinion. Nevertheless,

to have a holistic and detail scrutiny it needed

another discipline such as socio-pragmatic or

forensic linguistics.

Regarding to the 6 utterances that found in the

study, which held in E-I rendition; it can be inferred

based on Hyme’s communicative event component

in term of form of speech, purpose-outcomes and the

purpose goals that the interpreter had the chance to

clarify (asking question in order to get the intended

meaning) or the ask a repetition for the unclear

saying; that those event might be derived from

linguistics factor and contextual factor. From the

linguistics factor, the clarification aimed to get clear

definition of specific term such as in

Example 7

Expert Witness : [both on its external

surface and on its cuts

surface]

Interpreter : (asking for clarification of

the “cuts surface” term) –

[what is the difference of

cuts surface and the

external surface?]

or asking for repetition in purpose to have clear

utterance such as in

Example 8

Expert

Witness

: [and acute asthmatic attack]

Interpreter : (move his ear closer to

make the utterance clearer

and asking for

clarification)

Expert

Witness

: (repeat the utterance in

broken way)

[and_acute_asthmatic_attack]

Interpreter : [serangan asma yang akut]

Further analysis could also be held relating to the

notion of discourse. Since the context was an

examination-in-chief session where the witness was

invited in purpose to help strengthen the lawyer

judicial facts version, therefore the clarification or

negotiation was always addressed to the witness as

the subordinate participant. Meanwhile, in fact, the

lawyer utterances itself were mostly long and

sometimes pointless. Nevertheless, the interpreter

never interrupted or asked for clarification. This was

strongly believed that because the interpreter had

full awareness of the dominant position of the

lawyer in the court session, and he had the power to

over control the turn-taking as well as lead the way

of the question-and-answer flow. The interpreter,

thus, should reinforce the purpose of the lawyer by

having SCM.

From the discussion elaborated above, then the

notion of this study has the same nuance of what has

been stated by Hale (Hale, 2004) that the interpreter

must have realized that a prosecution shares its own

discourse that the interpreter has to come up with. In

line with the statement proposed by (Dordevic,

2012), this study do agree that to earn a pragmatic

communicative event, then an interpreter must learn

the basic analysis of discourse in helping his or her

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performance in comprehension, conversion, and

rendition. In addition, this study also provides the

answer of what have been asserted by Eades (2010)

in (Correa, 2013) that the interpreter does provide a

‘buffer’ between the lawyer and the witness. This

study probably has a limitation on the obtained

limited data that may be will set asides particular

question of the implication of other interpreting

techniques. Even so, since the study has rigor and

deep analysis related to the role of court interpreting,

then it will be a promising an convincing writing to

be taken into a cornerstones for the next research.

Specifically, this study has clear implication to the

next research of court interpreting as the way how

the interpreter should take his or her role

appropriately. The future study should address this

issue since there are still many gap left behind in the

realm of empirical study as well as educational

range.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Orchestrating the awakening of the interpreter‘s

barrier remover and conscious mediator is one of an

alluring work to do. It will be inadequate to only

mastering the techniques in interpreting as the

discourse of the interpreting vary from its settings.

To have the practical interpreting in a tribunal

session demands particular competence; and has to

be aware of the given contextual situation.

Therefore, adjusting a lesson plan or curriculum

which only concern in the institutional jurisdiction

and purposes will not be sufficient in interpreting

competence acquisition. The interpreting academic

praxis should arrange the lesson plan in accordance

to the future real time condition. In short the next

professional interpreter must receive the exposure as

much as possible. At last, in practical and

educational implication, there is a chance to make

such study in specific field of interpreting namely

Interpreting for Specific Community (ISC).

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