earticle

영어

Police interpreting is a major area in interpreting studies and despite its significance it has not received its fair share of academic attention. It remains overshadowed by the more visible and more investigated field of court interpreting. The latter is also overshadowed by the larger field of community interpreting: an umbrella term that encompasses interpreting and translating for migrants/ refugees/ residents in a more multicultural community such as Australia, the UAE, North America or indeed in several larger economies in Asia and Western Europe. Interpreting for the police, sensu stricto, refers to the context where the police are conducting an investigation with a person who does not speak and/or understand the local language used by the police. This situation entails a specific arrangement where local and international laws necessitate the provision of an interpreter to the person being accused/charged. The paper, however, focuses on interpreting for the police at the international level where interpreters are engaged by the local police in a case that transcends the local geographic boundaries and has a trans-national jurisdiction and attention. Here, the focus is on the professional interpreter and the context they work in and the challenges they face.