Interpreting Prosecutors’ Control

Under China’s inquisitorial court trial system, public prosecutors, who take ondual role to accuse the defendant and supervise the carriage of justice, enjoy thepower of forced interrogation and the authority of supervision over defendants. Toensure control over defendants and the exercise of institutional power, prosecutorstend to employ different linguistic devices to restrict the attitude, speech rights, andthe scope of answers of defendants. However, in interpreter-mediatedforeigner-related court trials, according to the author’s observation, the controlunleashed by prosecutors are usually attenuated or eliminated because of theinadequate delivery by the court interpreters, causing failures of control over theforeign defendants.In view of this phenomenon, this study aims to investigate into the possiblecauses of such inadequate delivery and to make suggestions to court interpreters for abetter delivery of prosecutors’ control. Through an observational and analyticalapproach, a qualitative research is carried out to examine the firsthand bilingual datathrough courtroom participation. The recordings of court trials are transcribed andanalyzed in an effort to explain interpreters’ inadequate delivery of prosecutors’control over defendants.Taking Speech Act Theory as an analytical tool and relevant pragmatic conceptsas parameters, the author assesses the illocutionary force of prosecutors control andmakes comparison with that of the interpretation through15case studies, so as tolocate the losses and alterations of illocutionary force and the causes thereof. Specificto such “inadequate delivery” phenomenon, the author also attempts to give somesuggestions and guidance on interpreting strategies that will improve delivery of theprosecutors control in light of Skopos Theory.