Why You Need Specialized Court Interpreters by Lucy Justina

Interpreters mediate conversations between two people speaking in different languages. They have to have a thorough command of both languages and understand what is being said. They also have to quickly communicate the same idea to the other person and carefully choose the right set of words.

Interpreters are quite different from translators as they work in real time and don't get the chance to review their output! 

Interpreters are needed for many different situations. However, you may need a specialized interpreter for specific jobs. Here are some essentials for any court interpreter: 

Language Skills

This is the minimum requirement for any interpreter. A knowledge of both languages and some general vocabulary. In addition to the general vocabulary, court interpreters also require an understanding of the vocabulary used in court. Any deviation from the true legal meaning could pose a huge problem in the court proceedings.

Court interpreters also have to conduct sight interpretation. This is in when legal documents written in one language are read out by the interpreter in another language. 

Confidentiality

A lot of confidential information is disclosed during legal proceedings. This means that court interpreters are required to observe a strict code of confidentiality. Interpreters shouldn't ever disclose any of the confidential information they hear in the court outside of it.

Accuracy

The documents and words spoken in the courtroom are very important. Interpreters should interpret accurately, clearly, and never expand or reduce content as they see fit. Wrongly or partially-interpreted content can hugely affect the outcome of the proceedings.

It is the interpreter’s duty to convey exactly what is being said and not read between the lines. This is  only only if they remain detached from both the parties involved in the case. In order to offer unbiased interpretation, the interpreter should avoid meeting with the parties before or during the proceedings. They shouldn't even consider the ruling of the case.

Qualifications

Since a court interpreter's job can be very different from that of a regular interpreter, it's essential that they complete the appropriate training and are certified. There are court certifications, training accredited by judicial bodies, and many institutes that offer both training and certification for court interpreters. Court interpreters must be both qualified and certified.

A court interpreter needs to know much more than just the two languages they interpret. Finding the right one will make your life so much easier.

Lucy is a freelance blogger. She likes learning by doing new things and sharing her knowledge through blogs.

Translation and Copyright

I watched a fascinating web series on intellectual property (IP) the other day, which got me to thinking about how copyright, which is absolutely everywhere nowadays, affects translators. Rather that getting bogged down with the ins and outs of the law, since it differs from country to country, I'm going to look at the general concepts of IP while focusing on copyright and how it affects translators.

The symbol for copyright-free, like all
the images we use on The Lingua File.

Intellectual property is a concept whose goal is to promote the advancement of the human race and encourage people to make more, create more, and design more. Since there are few things more encouraging than money, it manages to do this by giving those who create things a temporary monopoly so that they can make money on their ideas.

Patents

What kind of thing you create dictates what kind of IP protection you can get. If you invent something, your invention can be protected as a patent. Of course, you can't patent things that already exist. Generally, patents are defined as new, non-obvious inventions with an industrial applications.

Trademarks

A trademark designates a brand rather than a product. The brand indicates the product's origin and can be a powerful thing. Brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Microsoft, for example, exist so that consumers know that the products they buy and use come from one of those manufacturers and not from competitors such as Pepsi, Burger King, and Apple.

Copyright

This is the area of IP that should be of interest to those who, like me, are translators. Copyright generally covers what we would consider artistic creations, as it does not cover ideas or concepts, but rather how they are expressed. Everywhere is a bit different, but things covered by copyright include:

Written works, books, poems, plays, motion pictures, films, television shows, music and recordings, paintings, sculptures, and photos. While this list isn't exhaustive, you start to get the idea. Most of a translator's workload will include copyrighted materials.

I'll admit, sometimes when I translate I get a bit of an ego. When I reconstruct a sentence in a marvellously clever way, I genuinely believe that the translation is my baby, my creation. However, under most copyright law, particularly here in the UK and in the US, my creativity can sometimes be considered the copyright of the original author.

Derivative Works

This is when translations are deemed to be derivative works, and why wouldn't they be? I did use the source text as the "inspiration" for my work. Derivative works often include translations and cinematic adaptations. You could even argue that cinematic adaptations of literary works are actually translations, since they use a source material to create a target material.

The only way you would get to keep the copyright would be if you could prove that your work has a certain level of originality. This is almost impossible as a translator if you are trying to be faithful to a source text. However, if you have been given a certain level of freedom, you could argue that your own creative inputs have provided the necessary originality. As long as your translation isn't part of a work for hire...

Work for Hire

A number of legal jurisdictions include the concept of "Work for Hire" (WFH) as part of copyright law. This means that no matter how original you've been, you cannot claim copyright over your translation when the work was done as part of your salaried work, rather than in the freelance sense.

So how do you get copyright for your translations? Ask nicely, I suppose...

The Language Of Law

If you've ever read a contract, had the horrendous misfortune to deal with bureaucracy, or had a run-in with the law, you'll have come across the wonderful linguistic minefield that is legal language and jargon. Today we'll be looking at legal English as it has been used in the United Kingdom.

Once the Romans conquered England, Latin became the de facto language of the law in the country. Though it was later on that Latin would noticeably change day-to-day English, it did take root in the legal system earlier since it was the Romans who ruled and enforced the law.

The opening page of the Law of Æthelberht

After the Romans left England, the Anglo-Saxons brought their own rules and, as a result, law was discussed, explained, and enforced using Anglo-Saxon or Old English. By the beginning of the 7th century, it was the Law of Æthelberht that established the rules of the Kingdom of Kent. These published rules were indeed written in what is now known as Old English. This was the first example of published law in a Germanic language, and one of the earliest examples of written Old English. With the arrival of the Normans, the language of the legal system in England took a turn. Anglo-Saxon was removed and Anglo-French became the language of legal proceedings. Though records were still kept in Latin, English terms managed to find their way into the lexicon of law. In terms of style, since words of French and Latin origin were considered to be of a higher register than those of Germanic origins, French and Latin words were often preferred in a legal setting over their Germanic counterparts. That said, lawyers would still provide word pairings from both etymological roots in order to make things clearer.