Prison settings

Baixauli-Olmos, Lluís. 2017. "The development of prison interpreting roles: A professional ecological model." Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 75: 65-87.

ABSTRACT: This paper explores prison interpreting from the perspective of professional role, understood as a socially, institutionally, ethically and culturally determined function. As a consequence of the growing need for language access services in most industrialized nations, ad hoc and professional interpreting solutions are provided routinely; but interpreters, currently lacking an established position of power in public service contexts, face numerous sources of tension. The purposes of this qualitative research are: first, to describe the professional function of PSI in penitentiaries adapting an existing ecological model with different nested environments or systems (individual, micro, meso, exo, macro, topo and chrono); second, to identify facilitating and hampering factors for an appropriate role development and, third, to offer a broad theoretical model that helps conceptualize the multiple interacting elements that shape the interpreter roles in penitentiary contexts.

internal-pdf://3829176152/Baixauli-Olmos-2017-The development of prison.pdf

Braun, Sabine. 2018. "Video-mediated interpreting in legal settings in England: interpreters’ perceptions in their sociopolitical context." Translation and Interpreting Studies 13 (3): 393-420.

ABSTRACT: The increasing use of videoconferencing technology in legal proceedings has led to different configurations of video-mediated interpreting (VMI). Few studies have explored interpreter perceptions of VMI, each focusing on one country, configuration (e.g., interpreter-assisted video links between courts and remote participants) and setting (e.g., immigration). The present study is the first that draws on multiple data sets, countries, settings and configurations to investigate interpreter perceptions of VMI. It compares perceptions in England with other countries, covering common configurations (e.g., court-prison video links, links to remote interpreters) and settings (e.g., police, court, immigration), and considers the sociopolitical context in which VMI has emerged. The aim is to gain systematic insights into factors shaping the interpreters’ perceptions as a step toward improving VMI.

Devaux, Jérôme. 2018. "Technologies and role-space: How videoconference interpreting affects

the court interpreter’s perception of her role." In Interpreting and technology, edited by Claudio Fantinuoli, 91-117. Berlin: Language Science Press.

ABSTRACT: Back in 2000, videoconference systems were introduced in criminal courts in England

and Wales so that defendants could attend their pre-trial court hearings from

prison. Since then, the number of cases heard via videoconference interpreting

technologies has been on the increase. In order to be able to conduct a hearing

remotely, courts and prisons are equipped with cameras, screens, microphones,

and loud-speakers which link up both locations so that participants can hear and

see each other. In terms of research, various reports on the viability of such systems

acknowledge the benefits of conducting court hearings remotely, whilst also

highlighting shortfalls. Interestingly, most of these studies were carried out in a

monolingual setting, and fewer studies examine the impact of videoconference interpreting

equipment in multilingual court settings. In this context the interpreter’s

role, and more particularly her role perception when technologies are used in a

courtroom, remains under-explored. This paper will demonstrate that, unlike in

face-to-face court hearings, technologies force some interpreters to create split role

models.

internal-pdf://2379085864/Devaux-2018-Technologies and role-space_ How v.pdf

Gallez, Emmanuelle. 2018. "Foreigners and Refugees Behind Bars: How Flemish Prisons Tackle Linguistic Barriers." The European Legacy 23 (7-8): 738-756. https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2018.1492809. https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2018.1492809.

ABSTRACT: As a result of intensive mobility and migration over the last twenty-five years, multiculturalism and multilingualism have become a reality in European prisons. This ?superdiversity? poses a serious challenge to the various stakeholders who need efficient and reliable communication. Yet this topic has been underresearched. According to statistics for the year 2014 issued by the Council of Europe, Belgium has a high rate of foreign inmates (41%). Against this background, the aim of this exploratory research is to describe how the Flemish penitentiary system tackles this linguistic challenge. Data were gathered through qualitative research methods such as desktop research and in-depth interviews with 8 stakeholders (prison directors, prison staff, social workers, and interpreters). Due to the scarcity of financial resources and the presence of organizational hurdles, the Ministry of Justice rarely assigns jobs in prison to interpreters; instead, they are replaced by cheaper and immediately available alternatives. The results suggest that linguistic isolation of foreign detainees leads to social isolation and may jeopardize their release and social reintegration.

internal-pdf://1020406623/Gallez-2018-Foreigners and Refugees Behind Bar.pdf

Hess, Maya. 2012. "Translating terror. The (mis)application of US federal prison rules in the Yousry case." The Translator 18 (1): 23-46.

ABSTRACT: On 10 February 2005, a New York jury convicted Mohamed Yousry, an Arabic interpreter and translator, of two related offenses: (1) violating US federal prison rules, called Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), designed, inter alia, to prevent high-risk inmates from communicating with confederates on the outside; and (2) aiding and abetting an Egyptian terrorist organization (U.S. v. Ahmed Abdel Sattar, Lynne Stewart, and Mohamed Yousry, 2005). By tracing Yousry’s path from judiciary interpreter to prisoner, this article explores the legislative history of the SAMs, discusses their application/misapplication and sheds light on how this landmark case transformed the professional landscape for interpreters in the United States post-9/11. To highlight some of the implications for the profession and the discipline, it draws on current literature on translation and interpreting in situations of conflict. It also positions the verdict in the larger context of US national security and offers policy suggestions geared toward protecting this increasingly vulnerable profession.

internal-pdf://2994426229/Hess-2012-Translating terror. The (mis)applica.pdf

Maniar, Aisha. 2019. "Behind a wall of silence: interpreting services within immigration detention in the United Kingdom." FITISPos International Journal: Public Service Interpreting and Translation (6): 123-140.

ABSTRACT: Immigration detention, a form of administrative detention, is used increasingly by states as a form of migration control. The United Kingdom has one of the largest immigration detention estates in Europe. Spoken foreign language interpreting provision in such facilities is often found to be lacking or inadequate. Former Prison Ombudsman Stephen Shaw’s critical 2016 review into immigration detention made vital recommendations on various aspects of detainee welfare, including interpreting provision. Shaw’s follow-up report in 2018 noted that interpreting services had improved and were more widely available but that in many cases interpreters were unqualified and that quality remains poor. Based on the limited literature available, this paper will review the current provision of interpreting services in the immigration detention estate, the changes reported between Stephen Shaw’s 2016 and 2018 reports and make suggestions for improvements to the service.

La detención de inmigrantes, una forma de detención administrativa, es cada vez más utilizada como medio para controlar la migración. El Reino Unido cuenta con uno de los mayores volúmenes de detención de inmigrantes de Europa. Ocurre con frecuencia que la provisión de interpretación oral de lenguas extranjeras es inexistente o insuficiente. En el análisis crítico que el antiguo mediador penitenciario, Stephen Shaw, realizó en el año 2016 sobre detención de inmigrantes, se hacían importantes recomendaciones sobre diversos aspectos del bienestar de los detenidos, como la provisión de interpretaciones. El informe posterior que Shaw redactó en 2018 señalaba que los servicios de interpretación habían mejorado y que existía una mayor disponibilidad, pero que muchos de los intérpretes no estaban cualificados por lo que las interpretaciones continúan siendo de mala calidad. Fundamentándose en la limitada literatura que hay disponible, en este documento se analiza la provisión que existe actualmente en materia de servicios de interpretación en el estamento de detención de inmigrantes y los cambios realizados en el periodo de tiempo entre el informe de Stephen Shaw de 2016 y el de 2018, y se aportan sugerencias a efectos de mejorar el servicio.

internal-pdf://0460552932/Maniar-2019-Behind a wall of silence_ interpre.pdf

Martínez-Gómez, Aída. 2014. "Criminals interpreting for criminals: breaking or shaping norms?" The Journal of Specialised Translation 22.

ABSTRACT: The concept of norms has been applied in Interpreting Studies to achieve a greater understanding of the principles regulating this activity in close connection to each particular context and its specific features. In less explored settings, such as prisons, a norm-based analysis can become a useful tool to describe a partially unknown reality. This study aims to explore the degree of compliance to norms by non-professional interpreters in prison settings. For these purposes, the main norms of interpreter behaviour (as defined in codes of ethics) will be examined through the lens of a corpus of 19 interpreted prison interviews, as well as users’ and interpreting experts’ reactions to them. Results will show that, on occasion, non-professional interpreters challenge relevant norms (accuracy, impartiality, confidentiality...) in a conscious or unconscious manner. Such deviations may be due to lack of translational competence, voluntary moves to improve one’s own or a fellow inmate’s face before the prison administration, or adjustment to users’ expectations, among others. The reactions they trigger among users and interpreting experts vary depending on the norm challenged, the role of each stakeholder or their communicative goals.

internal-pdf://2507471562/Martínez-Gómez-2014-Criminals interpreting for.pdf

Martínez-Gómez, Aída. 2014. "Interpreting in prison settings." Interpreting 16 (2): 233–259.

ABSTRACT: This paper presents an overview of the strategies adopted by prison systems around the world to enable communication between foreign language-speaking inmates and corrections staff. Following a survey-based research design, the study targeted prison systems where the incarcerated population is at least 10% foreign-born. Information was gathered about the following issues: the legal framework ensuring communication rights of prisoners, interpretation and translation service provision, and non-mediated initiatives to overcome the language barrier. The findings show that interpreting in prison settings is still an area in the making, in terms of both professional practice and scholarly research. However, despite the paucity of legislative support and the widespread dependence on ad hoc measures and natural interpreters (mainly prisoners, and sometimes staff), a slow shift towards professionalization can be observed in some countries. These modest advances in prison interpreting seem to be taking place in countries which also pioneered — or are pioneering — the professionalization of community interpreting as a whole. This trend seems to bear very little relation to the degree of development of national prison systems, or to the proportion of foreign-born inmates in the overall prison population.

internal-pdf://2442186094/Martínez-Gómez-2014-Interpreting in prison set.pdf

Martínez-Gómez, Aída. 2015. "Invisible, Visible or everywhere in between? Perceptions and actual behaviours of non-professional interpreters and interpreting users." The Interpreters' Newsletter 20: 175-194.

ABSTRACT: The notion of the invisible interpreter, once – and for long – an uncontested principle, has recently started to be deconstructed in favour of the image of the interpreter as an active third party in the interaction. This study aims to contribute to this process through an analysis of interpreter visibility in a prison setting using a corpus of 19 interpreted interviews and pre-interview surveys. It describes the self-perceptions of non-profession- al interpreters and the expectations of interpreting users about the interpreter role, and contrasts these with actual behaviours during the interpreted event. Results indicate that these interpreters tend to perceive themselves as less visible than they in fact are and that interpreters’ visibility in actual interaction is negotiated by all parties through conversa- tional acceptance and rejection mechanisms.

internal-pdf://3829176342/Martínez-Gómez-2015-Invisible, Visible or Ever.pdf

Martínez-Gómez, Aída. 2015. "Non-professional interpreters " In The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting, edited by Holly Mikkelson and Renée Jourdenais, 417-431. London and New York: Routledge.

ABSTRACT: Non-professional interpreters are individuals with a certain degree of bilingual competence who perform interpreting tasks on an ad hoc basis without economic compensation or prior specific training. Their awareness of the skills required to perform their interpreting duties correctly and the ethical constraints thereto is shaped by their own intuitions and subject to the expectations expressed by the parties to the encounters they mediate in. Most often they conduct their tasks individually and in isolation, which translates into little visibility, lack of group solidarity and prestige, and lack of public credibility, even if they may receive immediate social recognition by the monolingual speakers for whom they enable communication. In fact, every bilingual individual is a potential non-professional interpreter, as they are selected on the basis of their (apparent) competence in the two languages involved – spoken or signed – and their immediate availability. Non-professional interpreters range thus from relatives or friends or acquaintances – including children – of a person requiring language mediation; to in-house employees at the institution where interpreting is needed; to volunteers belonging to a wide array of civil organizations; to virtually any passer-by. Their presence is evident in the homes of minority-language community members; and it is most frequent in public services, where the interpreting profession is still little institutionalized (in health care centres, welfare and government offices, schools, police stations, prisons, churches, etc). These interpreters are relatively visible in business contexts, especially local ones (banks, post offices, shops), but also in mass media; and their presence is sporadic but crucial in conflict or emergency situations. Non-professional interpreting even occurs in the most professionalized settings (i.e. conference or court interpreting).

internal-pdf://0719885282/Martínez-Gómez-2015-Non-Professional Interpret.pdf

Martínez-Gómez, Aída. 2016. "Facing face: Non-professional interpreting in prison mental health interviews." European Journal of Applied Linguistics 4 (1): 93-115. https://doi.org/10.1515/eujal-2015-0024.

ABSTRACT: Face, or the public self-image that each individual claims for him-/herself, is continuously constructed and negotiated in interaction. In interpreter-mediated events, the interpreter’s actions may threaten, maintain or enhance the primary participants’ face, as well as their own. This single case study of a real-life interview between a prison psychologist and a foreign language-speaking inmate, interpreted by another inmate, aims to explore how and why the three members of the triad engage in face-threatening acts (Brown and Levinson 1987) and face-boosting acts (Bayraktaroglu 1991). The transcribed audio recording of the interview shows how this non-professional interpreter actively seeks to protect and improve his fellow prisoner’s face, as a potential expression of his in-group loyalty, but ultimately prioritizes his own social image in an attempt to present himself as cooperative and trustworthy before the psychologist. This analysis shows how underlying issues of social distance, power and trust forcefully shape conversational behaviors in the prison environment.

internal-pdf://4229661150/Martínez-Gómez-2016-Facing face_ non-professio.pdf

Martínez-Gómez, Aída. 2020. "Who defines role? Negotiation and collaboration between non-professional interpreters and primary participants in prison settings." Translation and Interpreting Studies 15 (1): 108-131.

ABSTRACT: This article analyzes the communicative behaviors of non-professional interpreters and primary participants in the context of therapy/counseling sessions in a prison setting. It describes the negotiation and collaboration patterns established among all members of the communicative triad in order to co-construct the interpreter’s role dialogically, in a corpus of 26 mental health interviews in a prison setting between therapists/counselors and allophone prisoners, with other inmates as interpreters. Using Goffman’s (1981) concept of footing as the main analytical tool, it sheds light on the conversational strategies that all members of the triad use to initiate, accept, or resist the interpreter’s shifts to different footings, especially those that depart most dramatically from widely accepted “translator” ones.

internal-pdf://0304088485/Martínez-Gómez-2020-Who defines role_ Negotiat.pdf

Martínez-Gómez Gómez, Aída. 2017. "Language rights and interpreting services in Spanish prisons." Babel: Revue Internationale de la Traduction = International Journal of Translation 63 (6): 813-834.

ABSTRACT: Criminal justice systems throughout the world are becoming increasingly aware of the challenges posed by language barriers. However, that awareness is still limited to the realm of court proceedings, whereas legislation aiming to protect language rights of foreign prisoners is scarce and vague. In the particular case of Spain, only a few provisions in the Prison Rules envisage the notion of language assistance, making it explicit that such support is to be provided by other prisoners or staff.This paper aims to analyze the implications of an underdeveloped language policy in the realm of Spanish penitentiary institutions, focusing on how the specific measures stemming from that policy affect the rights of imprisoned foreign nationals. Against the backdrop of the limited legislative coverage of language issues, communication strategies seem to be based on the linguistic assimilation of foreign language-speaking inmates, either to communicate directly with staff or to serve as interpreters for newly arrived fellow inmates. Causes and consequences of these strategies are discussed in this paper, including an analysis of the quality of the interpretations that nonprofessional prisoner-interpreters are able to provide.

internal-pdf://1371499327/Martínez-Gómez-2017-Language rights and interp.pdf

Nakamura, Kelli Y. 2008. "“They Are Our Human Secret Weapons”: The Military Intelligence Service and the Role of Japanese-Americans in the Pacific War and in the Occupation of Japan." Historian 70: 54-74. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6563.2008.00203.x.

ABSTRACT: Assesses the work of nisei soldiers in the US War Department's Military Intelligence Service (MIS) during World War II and the subsequent occupation of Japan. At first perceived as disloyal by both the United States and Japan, the nisei succeeded in bridging both cultures while remaining loyal to the United States. During the war, they became accomplished interpreters through the MIS Language School. They learned Japanese military terminology, translated documents, and interviewed prisoners. During the occupation, they befriended Japanese civilians in a period of food shortages and destruction, worked as translators, interrogators, and radio announcers, and dealt with personal issues involving relatives in Japan. Their success in implementing occupation policies helped build close ties between Japan and the United States in the postwar period.

internal-pdf://2262243883/Nakamura-2008-“They Are Our Human Secret Weapo.pdf

Rossato, Linda. 2017. "From confinement to community service. Migrant inmates mediating between languages and cultures." In Non-professional Interpreting and Translation: state of the art and future of an emerging field of research, edited by Rachele Antonini, Letizia Cirillo, Linda Rossato and Ira Torresi. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a spin-off study from the research project In MedIO PUER(I), launched at the University of Bologna in 2007 (see Antonini 2010a; Antonini 2010b; Cirillo et al. 2010; Bucaria & Rossato 2010; Antonini this volume), and sets out to investigate the under-researched phenomenon of language and cultural brokering among migrant inmates. In countries such as Italy, where immigration is still a recent experience and resources for institutional interpreting are scarce even in ordinary public contexts, professional language services are virtually non-existent in secluded environments such as prisons. Foreign inmates and jail personnel face linguistic problems that they tend to handle through spontaneous forms of mediation: a convicted migrant, who is fluent in Italian, may act as a mediator between fellow-country inmates with poor knowledge of the host language and jail officers. This form of language and cultural brokering is a common form of ad hoc interpreting that responds to the communication needs of both inmates and detention institutions. This paper sets out to map the phenomenon and to investigate whether this practice has an impact on inmates’ self-perception and rehabilitation process.

internal-pdf://1960709819/Rossato-2017-From confinement to community ser.pdf

Taibi, Mustapha, and Anne Martin. 2012. "Court translation and interpreting in times of the ‘War on Terror’: The case of Taysir Alony." Translation & Interpreting 4 (1).

ABSTRACT: The case of Taysir Alony, the Al-Jazeera reporter who was imprisoned because of alleged collaboration with a terrorist organisation, raises several questions about the situation of police and court translation and interpreting in Spain. Alony and his co-defendants’ indictments were based, at least partially, on tapped conversations which were translated literally by verbatim translators or translators who did not belong to the same speech community as the speakers. Moreover, parts of the translated conversations and documents were framed in a manner that created a climate conducive to conviction. Given the context of the ‘War on Terror’ in which the translations and the ‘evidence’ were interpreted, this case raises questions such as interpretation vs. interpreting, the translation of culture and the role of the translator/interpreter. This paper scrutinises these questions taking into consideration the historical, political and ideological context of the case. Using some instances of verbatim, manipulated or reframed translation, it is argued that the dominant discourse on the ‘War on Terror’ manages to construct a narrative that serves its interests – either through indoctrinated translators or blatant manipulation.

internal-pdf://1129566363/Taibi-2012-Court translation and interpreting.pdf