- An upcoming study in the linguistics journal Language found that 27 Philadelphia stenographers, presented with recordings of Black English grammatical patterns, made transcription errors on average in two out of every five sentences, and could accurately paraphrase only one in three sentences.
Black people are overrepresented within the criminal-justice system, and race relations in America will never truly budge until “equality under the law” is more than a quaint phrase. But equality is, of course, impossible if the black people grappling with courts and imprisonment are routinely misunderstood.
Unfortunately we've got a ways to go before this is something that people will even consider. On the other site, I see arguments regularly about how AAVE is somehow "broken" English rather than a consistent dialect. And that's without getting into cultural differences, which are present if you're willing to see them.
I think this problem is true for Spanish interpretation too. There are different registers on top of different countries; imagine the US vs. British English divide only multiplied by like 15. Even saying "you" can vary depending on the area. My Spanish is pretty good, and when I did administrative hearings once upon a time, interpreters used to get shit wrong constantly. Sometimes to the point of the translation being the literal opposite of what the person actually said. I was fortunate in that if I heard it, i could ask them to confirm the translation (I had to be careful not to put words in anyone's mouth since I was ultimately deciding the case). But I'm sure it happened plenty of times without anyone being the wiser. (I had another case where this happened to a Hindi speaker, and thankfully her attorneys also spoke it so were able to object.)
- The solution here is not difficult.
No, it is not. You record court proceedings. I haven't designed a courtroom since 2005 (see what I did there) but in 2005, we were on third generation recording software. And, by the way, if you get a software hiccup in the recording it's a near-automatic mistrial so it's not like nobody acknowledges the importance of the recordings. Stenographers still do their job but it's primarily for instant playback and written documentation of the proceedings.
"I need a lawyer, dog" is overt, punitive racism. Is a real problem. Should be shut down immediately and with prejudice. But is not a function of court reporters lacking cultural literacy.
- No, it is not. You record court proceedings.
Aren't there still courts out there who don't use AV equipment to record proceedings? Additionally, if a court does use audio recording but judges refer back to written transcripts, the problem is still there if the transcripts are flawed.
- But is not a function of court reporters lacking cultural literacy.
It's safe to argue though that cultural literacy is needed throughout the entire system though, because without it even verbatim transcripts won't cut it.
Not arguing. Just thinking out loud.
I haven't installed every court in the United States. However, criminal proceedings generally go to a superior court. The software and equipment aren't expensive - about two months' salary for a stenographer (to put it in perspective).
And we're talking about court reporting - not court interpreting. It's not at all safe to expect non-elected, trade-school trained technicians to interpret what they're hearing based on a specialized (rather than generalized) milieu. If a defendant is being misinterpreted, the onus is on their counsel to force a clarification, not on the court reporter to selectively parse nuances of register in order to render their best-fit response. This is how dog lawyers happen.
I'm currently reading Punishment Without Crime by Alexandra Natapoff, which is about America's misdemeanor system and the flaws in it that need to be addressed. Reading this article with that book in the back of my mind really adds another layer to it.