Do interpreters make a difference to juror evaluations of witnesses? [CD-ROM]

incl. ref.

Research into courtroom discourse has suggested a strong correlation between the way witnesses speak and the way they are evaluated by juries or the bench (Giles & Sasoon, 1983; O'Barr, 1982). Some of the factors that have been found to negatively impact evaluations include witnesses' hesitant speech, upward intonation and non-standard or foreign accents (Wodak-Engels, 1984; Frumkin, 2007). When witnesses give evidence through an interpreter, an extra layer of potential bias can be added. Experimental studies have shown that interpreters'changes to the style of the original, such as the addition or omission of hesitations or fillers and hedges, can have a significant impact on the jurors' evaluation of the credibility of the witness (Berk-Seligson, 1990; Stephan and Stephan, 1986; Mendoza, Hosch, Ponder, & Carrillo, 2000; Hale, 1997, 2002, 2004), but no research has been done to determine whether the source language or the accent of the interpreter have any impact. This paper will present an overview of research into the influence of interpreters on the perceptions created by jurors. It will then present the results of a recent study that aimed to discover whether mock jurors were influenced by two factors: 1. the original language of the witness (Arabic, Chinese or Spanish), and 2. the accent of the interpreter when interpreting into English. The study found that there was no difference according to language, and that participants found the defendant more honest, credible, trustworthy, and persuasive when the interpreter had a slight foreign accent. Importantly, they were less likely to find the witness guilty if they were presented with his testimony through an accented versus a non-accented interpreter. The paper will speculate on the reasons behind these counter-intuitive results.