Scope and objective The purpose of this book is to introduce you to the profession of court interpreting. Like many interpreting specialties, this field is very complex and requires familiarity with a number of subjects, including law, translation and interpreting theory, linguistics, intercultural communication, anthropology, and psychology. It would be impossible to cover all such subjects in depth. The intent of this book is, rather, to present an overview of the field and alert teachers and students to avenues of further inquiry. Court interpreters work not only in courts of law but also in law offices, law enforcement agencies, jails and prisons, and other public agencies associated with the judiciary. They may be known by a variety of names, including legal interpreters, judiciary interpreters, and forensic interpreters. In this book court interpreter/interpreting will be the primary term, although others are used as the occasion requires. All of the settings mentioned above will be addressed throughout the book. It is worth noting that community interpreting or public service interpreting (more or less equivalent terms that are used in different parts of the world) usually encompasses legal interpreting as one of its various settings. Aword about pronouns: To avoid cumbersome use of “he/she” or “his/her” and the ungrammatical use of “they/their,” I will use the feminine pronoun for interpreters throughout this book, unless the context dictates otherwise, since the majority of interpreters are women. For simplicity’s sake, I will use the masculine pronoun for all other general references to individuals mentioned in the book. This is strictly a pragmatic decision and in no way reflects the actual distribution of roles between males and females. Finally, I will use the term “limited language proficient” (LLP) to refer to those who are not fluent in the language used in court and therefore need the services of an interpreter when they have contact with the legal system. Also for the sake of simplicity, I will minimize the use of academic jargon throughout the book to make it easier to read. The references listed at the end of each chapter, particularly those billed as recommended reading, contain further information on the subjects covered in that chapter.
