A Practice Report On Interpreting For Drug-relatedlegal Interrogations

While there are more and more foreigners living in China, the number ofcrimes is rising along the way. Among them, drug-related cases have the largestproportion. In such cases, most of the suspects are Africans who have a strong accentand a poor education background. However, the interrogation is an important part ofthe legal procedure. The interpretation performance has a great influence on the casein terms of the authority and fairness.This thesis is based on an interpretation program that took place from May2014to January2015. It is about20times of interrogation interpretation,1.5hourseach time. With the understanding of the program and through the analysis of thecases, this thesis mainly focuses on three aspects: beforehand preparation, difficultiesand coping strategies in information transmission and the interaction between theinterpreter and other parties.The thesis demonstrates that as a part of the legal system, the drug-related caseinterrogation is very procedural and logical. Also, to meet the challenge caused bystrict judicial requirements and the suspects’ poor education level, an interpreterneeds to prepare two sets of expressions. Meanwhile, in the fast interrogation process,an interpreter needs to have a quick response with high accuracy. This thesis is aimedto provide some guidance for future interpretation work in this field.