In relation to naming in interpretation, I discovered that when the modification was changed, the result was also a change in the illocutionary force of the given utterance. According to
160
Austin (1962) language is action and there is a hidden force in words that can shape people, social and individual relations. He states that all utterances perform Speech Acts comprised of:
1. A locutionary act. This is the utterance of the expression with sense and reference. It is also viewed as the production of words with meanings
2. An illocutionary act. This is the act performed in saying the locution; such that what is said has the force of that illocution. This is the issuing of an utterance with conventional communicative force achieved in saying something.
3. A perlocutionary act. This is the consequent effect of an utterance on the interlocutor;
that is, what is achieved by saying something (Austin 1962, P.139).
The illocutionary force of an utterance may be described using words such as: a command, suggestion, inquiry, vow, suggestion, request, insult, praise, plea, praise, reprimand, ridicule, etc. It is evident that when conveying speech from Dholuo to English, differences in modifications in naming choices result in changing the illocutionary act of the witness as well as those of the magistrate and other court officials. Garcés (1996) suggests that the interpreter is not the author of the message, but they must capture the meaning and style of the discourse, search for an equivalent in the other language, and be able to express it, all of which requires a lot of effort in the pursuit of maximum fidelity to the ST, faced with the knowledge that their words can have an influence on the decisions of the jury and of the severe consequences that a misinterpretation can have (Garcés 1996, P.3).
The interpreters are further tasked with the responsibility of preserving the style, the language level, the idiosyncrasies, and the idiomatic language these speakers might use or any other aspect, as well as have the linguistic and cognitive ability to be able to change registers, styles, content, and languages, since they must interpret from ST to TT and vice versa.
In this section, I present some examples explaining the modification choices in Dholuo naming as made by the witness and comparing those to the interpreters’ naming choices. My findings show that even though the prescription is for interpreters to strictly retain ideology and meaning in context, most often these change, as is illustrated in the examples that follow.
161
Example 6.4.a (See Hearing 2)
Example 6.4.a is taken from a hearing in Nyando District magistrate’s court where the accused person is charged with defilement. In this particular recording, the defendant is giving his defence and the prosecutor is cross examining him on the evidence he has given.
Mag: He is charged with defilement
Int: Ne odonjni go ketho mar ni nene ibambo nyathi matin
RT: You are charged with an offence that you raped a young child
In this example, the interpreter introduces a Goal in the second part of the sentence that consists of a relative clause which she uses to define the offence that the accused person is in the courtroom for. The relative clause: “that you raped a young girl” is in itself a new utterance absent from the magistrate’s speech. The magistrate’s utterance is represented in the tree diagram below:
S
S VP
NP Aux MV PP
P N
He is accused of defilement
In conveying this utterance into Dholuo, the interpreter introduces a Goal as shown in the tree diagram below:
162
S
S VP
V PP
NP
Aux MV
You are accused of raping a young child.
The Goal introduced is: “a young child” which is the goal of the verb in the PP: “raping”.
This noun phrase that functions as the Goal consists of a determiner, a modifier and the head noun. In choosing the modifier to use, the interpreter brings in her attitude which is different from that of the magistrate whose speech she is supposed to report without making any alterations.
First of all, the interpreter identifies the complainant as a child which already denotes that the person involved is young. In adding the modifier young to the head noun child, the interpreter manages to highlight the fact that the affected child is very young. Considering that the Goal in the predicate is an introduction into the utterance that was not in the ST, I can conclude that the interpreter manages to convey sympathy with the complainant in this case by her choice of naming words and pre modification, which introduces into the utterance an emotion absent from the magistrate’s utterance, that of sympathy.
This choice of the Goal is not just made randomly. The interpreter manages to convey where her sympathies lie when she refers to the victim as a young child as the use of “young child”
here implies very young. In looking at the entire hearing, it is later made known that the child in question is nine years old. The interpreter is the animator for the magistrate though, who is supposed to be impartial in the case and is not to show any emotions that will make her final decision look biased. This brings me to the conclusion that even though it is advocated for the
163
interpreter to be “invisible”, this is often not the case. Interpreters bring with them a lot of themselves as noted by Angelelli (2005) who states
The interpreter is present with all his/her deeply held views on power, status, solidarity, gender, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, socio-economic status, plus the cultural norms and blue prints of those social factors that are used by him/her to construct and interpret reality (Angelelli, 2005, P.16)
As witnessed in this example, the interpreter brings in her feeling of solidarity in showing sympathy for the victim in this case when she refers to her as “the young child”. We therefore have the magistrate’s statement of fact being changed to an expression of sympathy.
Example 6.4.b (See Plea 3)
In this example, there are two accused persons who are charged with being in possession of Chang’aa: an illicit alcoholic drink. At this stage of their court case, they are only required to take a plea of either guilty or not guilty. Pleas are written out in English on a charge sheet and it is then the duty of the court clerk who also doubles as the interpreter to “read out” the charge in the language understood by the accused person.
ST: Being in possession of chang’aa contrary to section 27(1) (b) TT: You are charged that you were found with chang’aa.
In the ST, there is an utterance that is not a clause but a noun phrase. The noun phrase is used to name the offence that the accused persons are said to have committed. It is a noun phrase that is formed through nominalization i.e. the verb “to be” is modified to name a thing which is the offence committed. The noun phrase apart from naming the crime also serves to show the legal register that is usually to be found in the context of a courtroom such as this one. It serves the ideological purpose of declaring neutrality and observing the legal requirement that states that one is innocent until proven guilty. In that section of the ST, only the offence is named. However, in the rendition by the interpreter, there is the use of an independent clause that consists of a Goal and moreover, the voice of the utterance also changes from the active voice to the passive voice.
By introducing the passive voice in this utterance, the interpreter manages to maintain the formal nature of the discourse. Introducing the pronoun, you as the Goal of the sentence on the other hand as was done by the interpreter draws attention to the accused persons and turned the sentence into a straightforward charge rather than the mere announcement that it
164
was in the ST. This is an interesting twist because it appears that the interpreter has taken over the responsibility of making a charge more explicit than the magistrate who is the one with the legal authority to make a charge in the courtroom.
Example 6.4.c (See Judgement 1)
Mag: He said that the accused named the items as family items RT: Niwacho gik mowacho ni ikwalo go mago ne meku mag familia
RT: You said that those things he is saying that you stole belong to your family
In this example, the magistrate names what the accused is alleged to have stolen from a store as: the items. This is a noun phrase consisting of a determiner and a noun. The determiner is a definite article and serves the purpose of showing that these items were known as they had earlier been mentioned in the earlier parts of this text. However, the interpreter for his part decides to explain further what the magistrate meant by the “items” and names them as “those things he is saying that you stole”. While this is also a Noun phrase, the head word has changed to things as opposed to items and the noun is post modified using an independent clause: he is saying that you stole. The interpreter’s Noun phrase is represented in the tree diagram below:
NP
S’
Det N
Those things he is saying that you stole
Embedded in the noun phrase is the clause: he is saying that you stole, which is a post modification used to explain the things which is the head noun. This is supposed to be an equivalent to the Noun phrase: the items.
165
The NP as used by the magistrate, “the items” is quite a neutral phrase as opposed to saying
“those things he saying that you stole”, which brings with it the presupposition that the accused person did indeed steal. This change of tone goes contrary to what Gonzalez (1989) refers to as giving a legal equivalent. In this example also, the illocutionary act of the magistrate changes in the interpreter’s version. While the magistrate only makes a statement, the interpreter brings in the presupposition that the accused person stole the items in saying
“the things he says that you stole”. The magistrate, being a member of the legal fraternity, probably chooses his words carefully so as not to imply that he already considered the accused person guilty. Gonzalez (ibid) advises that in the process of interpretation, the interpreter should not only keep to the meaning of the sentence but should also be true to the tone as well. Also according to De Jongh (2008), in the courtroom, the interpretation should reflect the tone, intonation, register and educational level of every source language speaker.
In changing the illocution, (whether intentionally or otherwise), the interpreter interferes with the pragmatic meanings as well as with the ideation present in the ST.
Example 6.4.d (See Plea 1)
CS: Were jointly found being in possession of 50 litres of chang’aa without a permit from the district alcoholic drinks regulation committee
RT: you were found with about fifty litres of chang’aa when you did not have a permit from the people who write things about alcohol that are in the district
Naming in language allows a speaker or a writer to give further description of a noun through the process of modification. In example 6.4.d, the underlined noun phrase is the focus. The ST gave the name of the group of people who issue permits for alcohol as the District alcoholic drinks regulation committee. This makes them come across as a group of professionals whose duty is also highlighted in their name, that of regulation of alcoholic drinks. The fact that the modifier used is a pre modifier, i.e. it comes before the noun, makes the modifier more intrinsic to the noun.
In an attempt to replicate this in Dholuo, the interpreter in the TT refers to them as “people who write things about alcohol that are in the district”. In the ST noun phrase, the head noun is committee and the rest of the words are simply modifiers and like all modifiers, can be removed without affecting the grammatical structure and meaning of the clause in which that noun phrase occurs. Due to this, and due also to it being pre-modification, more
166
prominence is given to the group of people being a committee; a professional body. In the TT on the other hand, the head noun is people and the rest of the words are simply modifiers.
However, because this is post modification, it is even more peripheral to the noun than if it were pre- modification. The two units that serve as modifiers are both relative clauses. By choosing to name the key word of the noun phrase as people, the interpreter loses the fact that these are not just any people but a group of professionals with a particular purpose in relation to the very reason why the accused persons were in the courtroom: to regulate alcoholic drinks.
NP
S′
Det N S′
The people who write things about alcohol that are in the district
The tree diagram above shows the deep structure of the Noun phrase that is conveyed by the interpreter where the modifiers are relative clauses that fail to show that the chief function of these people is to regulate alcoholic drinks.
Example 6.4.e (See Judgement 1)
Judgement 1 is a case where the accused person is charged with theft of domestic items from his step-father. The accused person was acquitted of the crime.
Mag: The assistant chief was with the complainant and two other youths Int: Assistant chief ne nigi jodong gweng’ ariyo
RT: The assistant chief was with two village elders
In example 6.4.e, there is a change in the Goal of the sentence that distorts the facts. In the ST, the magistrate says that the assistant chief was with three people; the complainant and two other youths. In the TT, the assistant chief was with two people and they are village elders. The number of people that came is reduced from four to three and the age group of the
167
people is also different. Whereas in the ST they are young people implied by the use of the word “youths”, in the TT they are old people implied by the word “elders”. The distortion of facts in this example appears gross to me as the youths are the extreme opposite of elders.
My observation in this particular judgement however is that the interpreter involved was not very competent in Dholuo. In the entire case, he makes gross errors that I cannot explain away in terms of slips but actually show a lack of competence in Dholuo. When the jobs for court clerks are advertised, the requirement is for one to be competent in English, Kiswahili and the language of the catchment area where he/she will work. There is evidence of knowledge of Kiswahili and English because these are examinable subjects in the secondary school syllabus and are compulsory for all students. There is however no certification for the indigenous languages and so no evidence apart from the speaker claiming he/she can speak the language.
The Kenyan situation on interpreter competency can be juxtaposed with the situation in other countries. In Australia, the interpreters are accredited. The National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters does the accreditation. It also sets the accreditation standards for interpreters and has several levels of accreditation for different languages. In the United States, an examination was designed by a group consisting of language specialists, international conference interpreters, court interpreters, and test construction specialists that would make it possible to establish minimum levels of competency and demonstration of required qualifications before an interpreter may be admitted to status as a certified federal court interpreter (De Jongh 1990).
In a pilot study on the role of court interpreters in South Africa, Lebese (2011) comes to the conclusion that in South Africa, a legislation that clearly defines the role of courtroom interpreters does not exist. This is the same for Kenya where my study is based. The situation in Kenya is even more complex. The court clerk often also doubles up as the court interpreter.
The only qualification that they have is their ability to speak the language of the witness or accused as well as speak the English language. No training on interpretation whatsoever is provided for the courtroom interpreter in Kenya and the assumption is that if one can speak a language, then they are automatically able to translate it into another language. This notion is dispelled by Moeketsi (1999a,) who states “the dismal performance of the interpreter is as a result of poor training and lack of proper definition of the interpreter role” (Moeketsi 1999a,
168
P.43) I concur with Moeketsi and add that in Kenya, the training is not poor, rather it is non-existent.
In 6.4, the focus was on modification changes and the effects that they had on illocution.
When modifiers that were not in the ST were added to names, there was ideation that come into the TT that was absent in the ST and at other times, emotions that were not supposed to surface in the courtroom also come out. Also sometimes, the interpreter changed the syntax of the utterance for example by substituting a phrase with a clause thus also bringing in additional information that changed illocution. At other times the change was so that the head noun was lost creating a totally different message from that in the ST contributing to meaning loss.