Paper Giant

Recommended ReadsSeptember 25th, 2018

More interesting than the trolley problem: ethical dilemmas faced by interpreters

McKinley Valentine
McKinley Valentine, Senior Content Strategist

*At a police station in an Eastern European country, a young man on a stag-night trip from England is being interviewed following a street brawl which he had apparently initiated. A police officer tells him that he faces a prison sentence but adds that ‘there’s another way of dealing with this situation’ and leaves the room for a short time.
*
You are aware that the young man has just been invited to offer a bribe but he has no idea this is the case. What do you do?

Clearly, interpretation includes giving cultural context and implicit meaning, not just the literal word-for-word translation, but how far does that go? Does translating the bribe solicitation make you complicit? The Centre for Forensic Linguistics gives the above real-world example (and two others (PDF)) to call for practice guidelines and professional support for interpreters faced with stressful and ethically fraught situations.

Trump interpreters have been reporting their own dilemmas. On the one hand, they want to transmit what he says as clearly and intelligibly as possible, but on the other hand, he doesn't speak clearly and intelligibly – is it misleading to leave out his malaprops and child-like phrasing?


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