Quality in Legal Interpreting and Pragmatics: Are they compatible?

I draw on Relevance Theory in order to highlight the difficulties associated with rendering pragmatically accurate interpretations and the related need to include these in the definition of quality and competence in training and Codes of conduct. In particular, this study focuses on the police interpreter’s strategic use of discourse markers (DMs) and analyses real-life data consisting of transcribed excerpts drawn from interpreter-mediated police interviews in the UK. My data shows that interpreting practice is variable with respect to the inclusion of DMs. In particular, renditions include DMs not found in the original but which are understood as being attributed to the original speaker. While the addition of a DM might be regarded as evidence for a mediating interpreter, such additions are justified by the aim of providing a rendition that achieves relevance by increasing the sense of affective mutuality between the interviewee and the interviewer (BLAKEMORE & GALLAI 2014). And the more the hearer feels that the mutuality achieved is between him and the original speaker, the more he will feel that he is hearing the voice of the original speaker. Thus, the interpreter’s ‘interference’ may (paradoxically) contribute to the impression of invisibility required by public institutions.