Interpretapes

The set includes eight different texts that have been specially prepared to provide practice not only in rendering specific terminology, but also in expressing concepts that frequently arise when an expert witness or specialist takes the stand. The general areas that are covered include medicine and laboratory sciences, ballistics and firearms, tracking and sign cutting, and finance. There are six simultaneous exercises recorded at a moderate speed (approximately 130 words a minute) and two sight translations. The simultaneous exercises are all recorded in English, as an informal survey of staff court interpreters showed that expert testimony given by non-English speaking experts is quite rare. This means that most testimony of this type is interpreted in the simultaneous mode for a non-English speaking defendant. Written documents that are used in the course of a court proceeding, however, sometimes do originate in a Spanish speaking country and must be translated into English for the benefit of the Court. For this reason, one of the texts provided for sight translation practice is a Spanish-language document. Each of the texts developed for this volume is meant to introduce general concepts related to an area of testimony that might also be applicable to other related areas of expertise, as well as some specialized vocabulary limited to the specific topic involved. For example, there are three texts related to forensic science. That section includes a text on hair analysis, one on serology and one on DNA. While these texts do contain some terms and phrases specific to the topic at hand, they also include phraseology and contexts that would appear in testimony related to other types of laboratory studies such as fiber analysis. In this way, practicing interpreters can become familiar with the framework of testimony in a specific area and then be able to - plug in - the specific terminology needed for a particular case. Graded texts have been provided in two areas in order to introduce specialized vocabulary and concepts in a manageable way in an introductory text and then reiterate and build on these concepts in a subsequent text. This was the approach taken for DNA analysis and firearms testimony, two frequent but very challenging areas of expert witness testimony. Perhaps the most unusual selection in this volume is the text on sign cutting, a term many people may not have encountered before. This text was written by Laura Murphy, a federally certified staff interpreter at U.S. District Court in Tucson, Arizona, and is based on her personal experience interpreting in cases in which this type of testimony has been pivotal. It is a text that may seem less challenging at first glance than it truly is. An initial listening of the text or a precursory reading of the script produces only a few technical or specialized words; however, an attempt at interpreting the text will prove that it is quite dense and not at all easy to tackle the first time round. A text such as this one clearly shows that in expert testimony, it is not always the specialized jargon that presents the most difficulty. A spoken glossary is provided at the beginning of each of the texts for simultaneous practice. This glossary is meant to provide some options for specialized terminology even an experienced interpreter would have to prepare. Additionally, possible renditions are offered for some phrases for which a literal interpretation would be tempting, but not entirely accurate or appropriate. It is important to remember that these glossary items are meant as suggestions, and except for very specific, specialized terms, should not be considered the only correct version. The actual rendition of the text provided by the interpreter on the key CD often offers yet another possibility. In addition to the six texts for simultaneous interpreting practice, the set includes two texts for sight translation. The Spanish to English text is a document from Mexico concerning possibly fraudulent financial documents, and the text from English to Spanish is a police report on a homicide case. A facsimile of these documents is included in the written materials for use when practicing. One suggestion for these sight translation exercises is to record several attempts at offering a rendering and analyze them before consulting the version provided on the key CD.