Bochevar A.G. COURT INTERPRETERS TRAINING IN EUROPEAN UNION
Bochevar A.G.
Senior lecturer
Department of foreign languages,
Odessa State University of Internal Affairs
COURT INTERPRETERS TRAINING IN EUROPEAN UNION
With the increase in mobility and migration within the European Union, there is also a commensurate increase in the number of relationships of all kinds (be they commercial, legal, academic or personal) between citizens of different nationalities, cultures and with different languages. This in turn leads to a wide variety of situations demanding language translation and interpretation services. Since many of these situations must be either sanctioned or witnessed by the authorities (frequently by courts or other legal institutions), it is quite common to require official translations of documents originally written in another language.
Official translation services are organized differently in the Member States of the European Union with very different professional frameworks (heterogeneous systems and practices). For instance, in the United Kingdom and Ireland the profession is not regulated, whereas in civil law countries such as Spain or Greece the profession of sworn translator is subject to different access rules and performed under different working conditions regarding statutes, fee payment or certification.
The differences between national legal systems of the Member States of the European Union increase trading costs, introduce uncertainty as to the applicable law and cause imbalances among individuals. Undoubtedly, the Union's objective is to strive for closer integration of the Member States to achieve its smooth functioning
in all areas. Some areas of substantive law in particular need harmonization, while others are resistant to this process. Some of them have been successively harmonized for a long time: these include maritime law, aviation law, commercial law with elements of cross-border exchanging of services, competition law and private international law. For other areas, however, such as real estate law, there is little practical need for harmonization . There are also typical national fields of law, that are conditioned socially, religiously and culturally or that fall under family and inheritance law and that are also resistant to harmonization. Criminal law and education also belong to this typical national area.
According to the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights, any trial in the absence of an interpreter for the benefit of a defendant who does not speak the language of criminal proceedings is a clear breach of EU and international law. The protection of rights of
accused persons in criminal proceedings has been thus identified as a fundamental right within the European Union. Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, along with Article 47 of the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union guarantee the right to a fair trial [1; 7].
The European Commission has two separate language services, DG Translation and DG Interpretation. They recruit staff independently of each other and on different criteria. Linguists at the Commission work exclusively for one or the other. Translators work with written text, interpreters with the spoken word. So these are two different careers [2; 54].
Translation and interpretation are obviously not a purely linguistic act. Firstly, the text to be translated must be decoded with respect to its meaning. The meaning ascribed to this text results from the conventions of the source language, from the specialized knowledge and from the translator’s / interpreter’s valuation and judgment on the text content. To effectively render the text content, the translator / interpreter has also to take into account the capabilities of the recipient. The professional knowledge required of the translator is not confined to linguistics and logically extends to several aspects that result from professional and conventional experience or purely from life occurrences. Thus the basic requirements for translating a legal text are as follows: proficiency in legal language(s), knowledge of the legal system(s) and interpreting / translation skills. The translator must have a specific translational competence that enables him to replace the source text with the equivalent target text. This competence is always limited to certain language pairs including certain specialized legal language pairs [1; 7].
Undoubtedly, legal texts contain certain lexical items (terms) that are constitutive for their cognitive reception. The sender of the legal text transmits with its product not only the knowledge and the sense itself, but also the way in which this knowledge and this sense are expressed. For the translation of legal texts, that is for the targeted restructuring of the translation texts not only the knowledge about application of appropriate terms is indispensable, but to the same extent the knowledge of useful and appropriate structuring of the text. Although the structures are not recognized as legal terms, their adequate application is desirable in particular communicative situations. The terms are therefore the most important components of a legal text, but the "professionality" of the respective legal text is not only limited to terms [2, 56].
Thus, a legal interpreter and translator cannot understand the information implicit in specialised texts without legal training. In consequence, without accurate comprehension it is impossible for the legal translator / interpreter to make the text understandable to a foreign recipient. To meet these requirements, current professional practice should be based on appropriate training arrangements for interpreters and translators in order to gradually establish a system of continuous professional development. The legal translator / interpreter training at university level cannot fulfill market needs, since the competences necessary for this occupation as well as the requirements for the relevant national examination are not sufficiently defined. The translator / interpreter education programs have to be established deliberately to enable students to develop the best possible qualities that will help them to exercise their complex role in the future [5, 4].
As usual, court interpreter training schools in EU provide their students with the following knowledge and skills:
- Overview of the fields of work (court interpreting, police interpreting, asylum interpreting): requirements and competences
- Legal basis of court interpreting
- Principles of general communication
- Principles of institutional communication
- Professional conduct
- Introduction to whispered simultaneous interpreting
Advanced course covers introduction to document translation, translation exercises, sight translation, further lessons on note-taking with exercises, exercises and analysis of the work taking account of all the competences acquired during the seminar, mock trial presided over by a judge, etc [2; 3].
It’s quite clear that such alternative and cross-language training of court interpreting is not only possible but also very useful. There is evidence that many EU member states are already successfully organizing such training opportunities on a small scale. Unfortunately, there is still lack of the necessary networking among the various projects in this field. The Commission is in great need of qualified court interpreters and this demand could be met by cross-language training. This applies above all to the need for interpreters of languages of limited diffusion. There is already plenty of literature on the subject and a number of possibilities exist to build up networks as well as to introduce a more uniform training concept within the EU. It would be possible to work out a model which would take into account the minimum standards demanded by the Commission and encompasses the following issues: theoretical principles and problems of interpreting and legal translation, basic concepts of intercultural and trans-cultural communication, legal systems, language for special purposes and professional ethics as well as practice-oriented aspects like interpreting techniques and situational behavior, note-taking and preliminary and introductory exercises for various working modes. This would also be very beneficial for the mobility and the crossborder work of translators and interpreters as well as trainers.
References:
- Assist. Prof. Dr. Joanna Osiejewicz. Legal education of court interpreters and sworn translators upon the Directive 2010/64/EU. International Journal on New Trends in Education and Their Implications January 2015 Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Article: 19 ISSN 1309-6249, p.7.
- Colin, J. and Morris, R. (1996). Interpreters and the legal process. Winchester, UK: Waterside Press, p.3.
- Mikkelson, H. and Mintz, H. (1997). Orientation workshops for interpreters of all languages: How to strike a balance between the ideal world and reality. In Carr, S., Roberts, R., Dufour, A., and Steyn, D. (Eds.). The critical link: Interpreters in the community. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co, pp. 55-63.
- Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council 2010/64 / EU of 20 October 2010 on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings, Official Journal L 280 of 26.10.2010.
- Mira Kadric. Court Interpreter Training in a European Context. EU High-Level Scientific Conference Series MuTra 2005 – Challenges of Multidimensional Translation: Conference Proceedings, 2007, p. 4
