Study On The Standardization Of Court Interpreting In The United States And Implications For China

There is no doubt that court interpreting is of indisputable importance, as the realization of legal justice depends much on efficient court interpreting in a bilingual court trial. Despite the fact that foreign-related cases are emerging in number, little attention has been paid to the development of court interpreting. In mainland China, research on court interpreting is in its early stage of development which hasn't caught much attention from either linguistic scholars or legal experts.The United States, as a nation of immigrants, also one of the very first to employ court interpreting in trials, has formed a quite thorough and scientific system in standardization of court interpreting. Thus it is of great importance for the development, professionalization and standardization of court interpreting in China, to know and learn from the system of standardization of court interpreting in the United States which has been working efficiently for decades. The construction of standardization of court interpreting system and the application of this system into the situation of court interpreting in mainland China are the two major research issues in this thesis.Firstly a thorough and systematic introduction to the standardization system is given from four aspects including training of court interpreters, certification of court interpreting, management of court interpreters, and relevant rules and laws, followed by a theoretical summary of the four aspects.Then with analysis on the comparison of application conditions of court interpreting in the United States and China, a conclusion is made that difference in trial procedures and language environment exerts great impact on the development and standardization of court interpreting. Afterwards, analysis is done in the current situation of court interpreting development in mainland China with focus on existing problems and causes of these problems.Finally the author proposes a series of design and suggestions, based on the theoretical framework concluded from the standardization system in the United States, and condition analysis of court interpreting in China which reflects major features of development of court interpreting including different trial procedure, few bilingual speakers, low popularity of English, and density of foreign-related cases in first-tier cities in mainland China. The final conclusion is reached that, it would benefit a lot from learning from the standardization system in the United States for development and standardization of court interpreting in mainland China, while current situation of court interpreting in China should be given sufficient consideration before selective application of the advanced theories.