The undefined role of court interpreters in South Africa

Abstract

In South Africa there is no legislation defining the role of court interpreters. This has resulted in legal officials (magistrates and judges) forming their own opinions as to what the role of court interpreters is. As such court interpreters find themselves performing tasks that are outside their scope of duties, for example acting as magistrates, in turn compromising their own tasks in the process. The aim of this study therefore is to determine the degree to which the lack of a definition of the role of court interpreters affects the quality of court interpreting. In the study, the researcher was guided by the Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) approach. The research procedures that were followed in the study combined the top-down and bottom-up approaches. In the top-down approach, two legislations, namely, “The Magistrates’ Court Act 44 of 1944 (as amended)” and “The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 93 of 1996 (as amended)”, were examined in order to determine whether the role of court interpreters is defined and, if so, to what extent. In the bottom-up approach, examples of court proceedings were studied in order to determine specific roles that are played by court interpreters during trials. Extracts from transcripts of mechanically-recorded court proceedings were also analysed to establish whether magistrates made any references to the role of court interpreters in these trials. It is hoped that this study will shed more light on the role of court interpreters which could lead to better quality interpreting.