Clients should take Precautions When Seeking Court Interpreters to Avoid Unnecessary Risks

Accurately interpreting from one language to another requires language proficiency and professional conduct. However, there are some instances where legal proceedings may not be understood by the participants, and a lack of proficient and clear interpreting may lead to errors and affect the actual integrity of the legal proceedings.It is a common misconception of people that any bilingual individual has the capability to interpret court proceedings and translate legal documents. However, the reality is opposite from the beliefs and rumours that we often hear about translation and interpreting. Legal interpreting particularly court interpreting is a complex process; it requires extensive linguistic knowledge of at least two languages and requires wide experience in interpreting services.Bilingualism is the main tool in the interpretation field. However, there are some people that are born and raised in foreign country and whose knowledge in the language of their parents is quite wide enough, but the bilingual people themselves usually only have a limited formal education. As a result, such individual may be able to perform simple tasks of interpretation in a simple situation, such as interpreting road directions to foreigners or interpreting the words that are written in a simple enrolment school form, but in the real scenario of a serious situation such as interpreting legal terms, laws, details of crimes, bilingualism or simple interpreting may not do the job. Interpreting tasks require a high proficiency in linguistic knowledge and skills in the field. When an interpreter lacks technical and language proficiency, the misunderstood interpreted statement may cause substantial harm to the party that required the interpreting services.Indeed, court interpreting requires professional linguists that have knowledge about courtroom disclosure or legal proceedings, courtroom terminology, vocabulary and protocol. Some languages are complex in using tones and intonations, and thus difficulties arise, and erroneous interpretation is possible. Court interpreting is serious work, thus, if a given professional linguist does not feel they are up to on this job, he or she should not pursue this profession. Just like any other profession, translation and language interpreting requires passion and discipline. It is always necessary to consider the outcome of every interpreting and translation service, rather than to jeopardize the translator’s dignity and face consequences of the entire legal proceedings.Furthermore, the presence of interpreters and translators is not only means to provide a communication link, they serves as mediators to make the entire legal proceedings effective as well. In addition, it is not only the responsibility of the court interpreter to perform an effective legal translation but it is ultimately the responsibility of the client to take some precautions in seeking professional interpreter as well.Through globalization, the need for translation and interpreting services is growing, and thus this industry has seen continuous growth until now. Thus, nowadays, it is easy for the clients to seek translation and interpreting services but it does not mean that they can always pick a professional and reputable one. Therefore, it is important that clients should be careful in choosing language providers!