Information Reformulation In Police Interview Interpreting

Interpreting requires constantly receiving,processing and resending information.While retelling a story,interpreters reorganize,explain or summarize the original version where necessary,in order to clearly convey the message.The strategies of information reformulation are applied especially when the original speech is ambiguous or redundant.However the speech is rephrased,interpreters should ensure that they do not omit any key information or divert from the original meaning.Police interrogation is a special context for interpreters.On the one hand,language accuracy is of vital importance in a legal discourse.The transcript of this interrogation is based on the interpreter’s rendition.Hence interpreters bear a heavy responsibility to faithfully convey all key messages.On the other hand,interpreters have to reconstruct messy or redundant speeches.The speakers ask and answer questions impromptuously.The information they provide is usually fragmented and unclear.Therefore,interpreters need to pay special attention to reformulate information.This paper studies the strategies of information reformulation applied in a police interrogation of suspected drug users.The first chapter is a description of the drug case interrogation,indicating the requirements for interpreters based on the language features of the police and two suspects.The second part is an analysis of strategies used by the interpreter on site to reorganize original messages.The strategies include generalization,restructuring,and explanation.The third chapter points out problems and risks caused by information omission,misinterpretation and other reformulation strategies,and proposes to control the risk by directly asking questions to speakers and double checking by reviewing the transcript.Rephrasing speeches without missing key information is an essential capability for interpreters.To effectively reformulate information in order to facilitate communication,interpreters should analyze the logic link behind each piece of information and avoid omission,misunderstanding or excessive explanation.