Recognition and expression of rapport features in interpreter-mediated police interviews with victims

Gomez Bedoya, Maria (2022) Recognition and expression of rapport features in interpreter-mediated police interviews with victims. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore how trainee interpreters deal with rapport-building features in interpreter-mediated police interviews with victims in the United Kingdom and Spain. The initial assumption, later corroborated in my review of university programmes, is that rapport-building techniques are not addressed in higher education interpreting training. As a result, trainee interpreters may not be aware of police rapport-building techniques adopted by police officers during investigative interviews. Additionally, the thesis purports that interpreters are learned in translating content but are often unaware of the importance of form and pragmatic meaning. This may result in missing or misinterpreting linguistic instances specifically employed to build or maintain rapport with the victim during the interview.

To research the above, I examine rapport-building in British and Spanish police guidelines and police training materials. This is complemented with ethnographic observations of real police interviews which enabled a systematic identification and classification of linguistic instances of rapport-building in British English and Peninsular Spanish in the context of interviewing victims. This allows for the design of simulated police interview scenarios that are interpreted by trainee interpreters in two training contexts, one in the UK and one in Spain. A discourse-pragmatic analysis of interpreting renditions is then used to describe the challenges faced by these interpreters when interpreting rapport and rapport-relevant expressions.

The study concludes that trainee interpreters tend to modify rapport features, particularly by changing the pragmatic force of the utterance and in relation to the victim’s expression of feelings. These findings have theoretical and practical implications in interpreting training and provide a better understanding of factors impacting the outcome of interpretation in the context of rapport-building translation.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies
Depositing User:	Kitty Laine
Date Deposited:	15 Dec 2022 10:51
Last Modified:	15 Dec 2022 10:51
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/90202
DOI:

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