I never said that! The problem of translated records of interpreted police interviews with suspects

In forensic linguistic discussions of interpreted police interviews with suspects, the focus has been on ways in which semantic misrepresentation arises and how it could affect the administration of justice.

This paper looks at another linguistic layer of potentially adverse influence on the investigative process, that of translated transcripts of tape-recorded interviews conducted with the assistance of an interpreter.

In England transcripts of interpreter-mediated interviews are prepared in English and can subsequently be translated for the benefit of the non-English speaking suspect. This kind of translation poses interesting strategic questions per se, but is fraught with problems when the translator has no access to the original recordings and relies solely on the transcript, which in turn can itself be inaccurate.

In such cases the suspect’s original narrative may differ significantly from the one in the translated version of the interview, a problem with interesting implications for the criminal justice system.

In this lecture, Krzysztof Kredens takes a global look at the pre-trial procedure followed with non-English speaking suspects in England, identifies problems arising when they request a translation of the interview transcript, and makes some recommendations. To illustrate his points, he will use language data from a murder case heard recently at Birmingham Crown Court.