Cover not available

Article published In: Interpreting
Vol. 22:1 (2020) ► pp.56–86

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

The interpreter as a sequential coordinator in courtroom interaction

‘Chunking’ and the management of turn shifts in extended answers in consecutively interpreted asylum hearings with remote participants

 | Institut Interdisciplinaire de l'Innovation, CNRS | Telecom Paris
 | Telecom Paris
Published online: 10 April 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.00034.lic
Abstract
We present here an ethnographic study of asylum court interpreting with remote participants and video links. First, we describe the multimodal resources interpreters have at their disposal to manage turn-taking and begin interpreting while an asylum seeker’s answer to a question has not come yet to a recognizable completion point. We distinguish between ‘implicit’ configurations, in which a collaborative turn transition is apparently achieved through reorientations of body and gaze, the use of discourse markers, or other conversational strategies, like overlaps and cases where a turn transition is achieved through the use of ‘explicit’ resources such as instructions to stop and requests to give brief answers. We show that the collaborative production of such long answers is affected by the remote placement of the interpreter, and that recurrent trouble in the management of turn transitions between the asylum seeker and the interpreter during extended narratives may be detrimental to the asylum seeker’s case.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data collection and fieldwork
  • 3.Consecutively interpreted question-answer sequences in asylum court hearings
  • 4.The interpreters’ involvement in the production of turn transitions: Implicit coordination work
    • 4.1‘Smooth’ turn transitions and the power of gaze
    • 4.2Overlaps
    • 4.3Response tokens
  • 5.Suspensive requests and instructions to stop answering
    • 5.1Holding gestures
    • 5.2Verbal instructions
  • 6.The case of the interpreter in the courtroom
    • 6.1Displaying an orientation to speak
    • 6.2Explicit coordination work when the interpreter is in the courtroom, away from the asylum seeker
  • 7.The inferential consequentiality of the management of turn-taking between the interpreter and the asylum seeker
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (39)
References
Beach, W. (1993). Transitional regularities for casual “Okay” usages. Journal of Pragmatics 191, 325–352. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berk-Seligson, S. (1990). The bilingual courtroom. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bohmer, C. & Schuman, A. (2008). Rejecting refugees: Political asylum in the 21st century. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bot, H. (2005). Dialogue interpreting in mental health. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Briggs, C. (2002). Interviewing, power/knowledge, and social inequality. In J. F. Gubrium & J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research: Context and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Danet, B. & Bogoch, B. (1980). Fixed fight or free-for-all? An empirical study of combativeness in the adversary system of justice. British Journal of Law and Society 7 (1), 36–60. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davidson, B. (2000). The interpreter as institutional gatekeeper: The social-linguistic role of interpreters in Spanish-English medical discourse. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (3), 329–405. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, P. & Galatolo, R. (2006). Narrative expansions as defensive practices in courtroom testimony. Text & Talk 26 (6), 661–698. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duranti, A. (2014). Anthropology of intentions. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Englund Dimitrova, B. (1997). Degree of interpreter responsibility in the interaction process in community interpreting. In S. Carr, R. Roberts, A. Dufour & D. Steyn (Eds.), The critical link: Interpreters in the community. Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 147–164. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Freed, A. & Ehrlich, S. (2010). Why do you ask? The function of questions and institutional discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2002). Ethnomethodology’s program. Working out Durkheim’s aphorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gavioli, L. (2012). Minimal responses in interpreter-mediated medical talk. In C. Baraldi & L. Gavioli (Eds.), Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 201–228. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1961). Encounters: Two studies in the sociology of interaction. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. (2013). The co-operative, transformative organization of human action and knowledge. Journal of Pragmatics 461, 8–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2007). Community interpreting. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, J. & Clayman, S. (2010). Talk in action: Interactions, identities and institutions. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Inghilleri, M. (2012). Interpreting justice: Ethics, politics and language. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, J. (2011). Translatability of speech style in court interpreting. The International Journal of Language, Speech and the Law 18 (1), 1–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014). A pressing need for the reform of interpreting service in asylum settings: A case study of asylum appeal hearings in South Korea. Journal of Refugee Studies 27 (1), 62–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lerner, G. H. (1996). On the “semi-permeable” character of grammatical units in conversation: Conditional entry into the turn space of another speaker. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff & S. Thompson (Eds.), Interaction and grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 238–276. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Licoppe, C., Verdier, M., & Dumoulin, L. (2013). Courtroom interaction as a multimedia event: the work of producing relevant videoconference frames in French pre-trial hearings. Journal of Electronic Communication 23(1–2), 1–28.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Licoppe, C., Verdier, M., & Veyrier, C.-A. (2018). Voice, power and turn-taking in multi-lingual, consecutively interpreted courtroom proceedings with video links. In R. Skinner, J. Napier, & S. Braun (Eds.). Here or there. Research on interpreting via video link. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 299–322.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mason, I. (2012). Gaze, positioning and identity in interpreter-mediated dialogues. In C. Baraldi & L. Gavioli (Eds.), Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 177–200. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mondada, L. (2001). Conventions for multimodal transcription. [URL] (accessed 7 October 2019).
Pomerantz, A. & Denvir, P. (2007). Enacting the institutional role of chairperson in upper management meetings: The interactional realization of provisional authority. In F. Cooren (Ed.), Interacting and organizing: Analyses of a management meeting. London: Routledge, 31–51.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roy, C. (2000). Interpreting as a discourse process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. (1984). On some gestures’ relation to talk. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 266–298.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, T. (2004). No no no and other types of multiple sayings. Journal of Human Communication Research 30 (2), 260–293. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). Stance, alignment and affiliation during storytelling: When nodding is a token of affiliation. Research in Language and Social Interaction 41 (1), 31–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wadensjö, C. (1998). Interpreting as interaction. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2010). On the production and elicitation of expanded answers to yes/no questions in interpreter-mediated trials. In M. Baker, M. Olohan & M. Calzada Pérez (Eds.), Text and context: Essays on translation and interpreting in honour of Ian Mason. Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 1–26.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (18)

Cited by 18 other publications

Cavents, Dries, Jelena Vranjes & July De Wilde
2025. Interpreters’ use of embodied resources to manage rapport challenge in video remote interpreting. Perspectives ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Hale, Sandra
2025. Legal Interpreting. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Zhao, Xiao & Jiahui Huang
2025. Interpreter mediation as other-initiated self-repair in court: Effects on the defence in Chinese bilingual criminal trials. Lingua 313 ► pp. 103850 ff. DOI logo
Blythe, Joe, Fakry Hamdani & Scott Barnes
2024. Tactile engagement of prospective next speakers in Indonesian multiparty conversations. Language in Society 53:4 ► pp. 671 ff. DOI logo
Määttä, Simo & Tuija Kinnunen
2024. The interplay between linguistic and non-verbal communication in an interpreter-mediated main hearing of a victim’s testimony. Multilingua 43:3 ► pp. 299 ff. DOI logo
Wadensjö, Cecilia
2024. Interaction in Interpreting. In Reference Module in Social Sciences, DOI logo
Feng, Cheng, S. Zhu, Y. Chen & J. Liang
2023. Studies on Global Remote Interpreting: A PRISMA Systematic Review. SHS Web of Conferences 162 ► pp. 01031 ff. DOI logo
Nikolaidou, Zoe, Hanna Sofia Rehnberg & Cecilia Wadensjö
2023. ‘Do I Have to Say Exactly Word by Word?’ (Re)producing and Negotiating Asymmetrical Relations in Asylum Interviews. Journal of International Migration and Integration 24:S4 ► pp. 745 ff. DOI logo
Singureanu, Diana, Graham Hieke, Joanna Gough & Sabine Braun
2023. ‘I am his extension in the courtroom’. In Interpreting Technologies – Current and Future Trends [IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature, 37], ► pp. 72 ff. DOI logo
Wadensjö, Cecilia, Hanna Sofia Rehnberg & Zoe Nikolaidou
2023. Managing a discourse of reporting: the complex composing of an asylum narrative. Multilingua 42:2 ► pp. 191 ff. DOI logo
Warnicke, Camilla & Mathias Broth
2023. Embodying dual actions as interpreting practice. Translation and Interpreting Studies 18:2 ► pp. 191 ff. DOI logo
Hansen, Jessica Pedersen Belisle
2022. Recruiting repair: Making sense of interpreters’ embodied actions in a video-mediated environment. Discourse Studies 24:6 ► pp. 719 ff. DOI logo
Vranjes, Jelena & Bert Oben
2022. Anticipation and timing of turn-taking in dialogue interpreting. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 34:4 ► pp. 627 ff. DOI logo
王, 春丽
2022. Multimodal Interpreting Studies: A State-of-the-Art Review and Prospects. Modern Linguistics 10:11 ► pp. 2598 ff. DOI logo
Hansen, Jessica Pedersen Belisle & Jan Svennevig
2021. Creating space for interpreting within extended turns at talk. Journal of Pragmatics 182 ► pp. 144 ff. DOI logo
Klammer, Martina & Franz Pöchhacker
2021. Video remote interpreting in clinical communication: A multimodal analysis. Patient Education and Counseling 104:12 ► pp. 2867 ff. DOI logo
Pöchhacker, Franz
2021. Multimodality in interpreting. In Handbook of Translation Studies [Handbook of Translation Studies, 5], ► pp. 151 ff. DOI logo
Tiselius, Elisabet & Birgitta Englund Dimitrova
2021. Turn-taking in dialogue interpreting. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 8:2 ► pp. 328 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue