The use of reported speech and

the perceived neutrality of court interpreters

Andrew K.F. Cheung

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

A mock trial, with two-way consecutive interpreting between Cantonese and

English, was used to test perceptions of a court interpreter’s neutrality when
interpreting into Cantonese in reported rather than direct speech. Monolingual
Cantonese speakers played the part of witnesses using the interpreter. Three
groups were created: a control group (16 participants), receiving interpretation
of all English utterances into Cantonese in direct speech; and two experimental
groups (17 participants each). The experimental groups received interpreta-
tion with occasional switches to reported speech. These were introduced by
third person pronouns (e.g., “he said”) for one group (the ‘pronoun group’),
and by professional titles (e.g., “the judge said”) for the other group (the ‘title
group’). Participants afterwards completed a questionnaire, assessing neutrality
and alignment on a 5-point Likert scale. The title group not only perceived the
interpreter to be aligned with the English speakers, but also gave a significantly
different assessment of neutrality from the control group. The pronoun group
perceived the interpreter to be aligned with them, but did not differ significantly
from the control group in their perception of neutrality. Use of pronouns or pro-
fessional titles in the reporting clauses thus affected the interpreter’s perceived
neutrality differently.

Keywords: perceived neutrality, court interpreting, reported speech, speech

attribution, role-play

1. Introduction

In court proceedings involving more than one language, speakers of different

languages often rely on court interpreting to communicate with each other. The
court interpreter, who plays an important role in each of these parties’ efforts to
understand and be understood, must not only have excellent bilingual skills and
adequate legal knowledge, but above all maintain a high level of impartiality. Any

Interpreting 16:2 (2014), 191–208. doi 10.1075/intp.16.2.03che

issn 1384–6647 / e-issn 1569–982X © John Benjamins Publishing Company
192 Andrew K.F. Cheung

partiality on the part of the interpreter can have serious implications for the out-
come of the case.
Closely related to impartiality is perceived neutrality, which is the focus of this
study. While impartiality is generally defined as the “absence of bias or preferences
in favor of one or more [primary parties], their interests, or the specific solutions
that they are advocating” (Moore 2003: 53), neutrality in the context of court in-
terpreting places the emphasis on primary parties’ perceptions of the interpreter’s
interactions or behavior (Marcus, Dorn & McNulty 2011). Neutrality in this sense
is enhanced by use of direct speech which, by reproducing what speakers say as if
they themselves (and not the interpreter) were speaking, helps legal professionals
such as judges and barristers identify who is saying what. As a result, direct speech
is the form that court interpreters are expected to use.
However, Angermeyer (2009) and Cheung (2012) have shown that profes-
sional court interpreters occasionally deviate from the direct speech rule. Such
uses of reported speech, and any effect they might have on users’ perception of
interpreter neutrality (particularly when lay participants are involved), have nev-
ertheless been little studied.
Below, the following two sections of this paper review different theoretical
perspectives on the function of reported speech in interpretation, as well as the
relationship between reported speech and the interpreter’s perceived neutrality.
References to a number of studies on this topic are included. The design, method-
ology and findings of the present research are then illustrated: here, the focus is on
how the interpreter’s perceived neutrality is affected by the choice of a third person
pronoun or a professional title as the referent for the speaker whose words are
reported. The subsequent discussion takes into account not only the limitations
of the study, but also the added value it contributes by providing empirical data,
from the recipient’s perspective, on how the use of reported speech might affect
perception of the interpreter’s neutrality.

2. Direct speech vs. reported speech

The use of direct speech is the norm for professional interpreters (Harris 1990;
Pöchhacker 2004), whereas reported speech is considered the norm for lay inter-
preters (Dubslaff & Martinsen 2005). Professional interpreters use direct speech
to “create the illusion of dyadic communication and minimiz[e] [the interpreter’s]
presence” (Hsieh 2006), thus allowing the two parties involved to communicate
directly (Phelan & Parkman, 1995). The proponents of direct speech claim that
its use is likely to ensure the accuracy of the rendition (Colin & Morris 1996)
and promote the perception of interpreter neutrality (Dubslaff & Martinsen 2005;
 Reported speech and perceived neutrality of court interpreters 193

Niska,1999; Christensen 2008). On the other hand, reported speech does not nec-
essarily improve understanding (Bot & Wadensjö, 2004) and can even confuse the
parties involved with regard to speech attribution — i.e., specifying who is say-
ing what (d’Ardenne, Framer, Ruar & Priebe 2007). Professional interpreters are
therefore generally advised to avoid using reported speech.
However, Bot (2005) argues that the use of reported speech does not nec-
essarily affect interpreter neutrality. In actual practice, studies have shown that
interpreters, both professional and novice, often deviate from the direct speech
convention (Angermeyer 2009; Bot 2005; Cheung 2012; Dubslaff & Martinsen
2005; Johnen & Meyer 2007; Takimoto & Koshiba 2009; van de Mieroop 2012). It
has even been argued that interpreter neutrality suffers less when reported speech
is used, since the use of direct speech implies that the interpreter identifies more
closely with what is being said (Wallmach 2002). Reported speech, by contrast,
can be understood by monolingual listeners as a sign that the interpreter is dis-
tancing himself or herself from the source language speaker or from the content
of the interpretation. Consistent with this idea, some researchers have argued that
interpreters should use reported speech to increase their visibility (Edwards 1998).
Other authors argue that the interactive reality of an interpreter-mediated inter-
view is acknowledged by the interpreter’s use of reported speech (Bot 2005), which
therefore ensures that the dynamics of interaction are fully reflected in the inter-
preted dialogue (Murray & Wynne 2001).
Reported speech can be used as a linguistic device to indicate a person’s at-
titude and position in a conversation (Holsanova 2006; Tannen 1989). In general,
interpreters may use reported speech for its inherent distancing function in differ-
entiating between “the currently speaking self and the meaning other” (Wadensjö
1998: 247). In addition, because reported speech allows the interpreter to “presup-
pose the shadowy presence of a first person ‘I’ ” (Ng 2009: 152), it can disambiguate
the authorship of the source language utterance (van de Mieroop 2012).
This disambiguating function of reported speech may lead to the interpreter
being perceived as either disassociating from, or aligning with, the source language
speaker. In the first case, use of reported speech creates a perception of the interpreter
as an independent person, distinct from the speaker (Shlesinger 1991). The resulting
sense of disassociation may mitigate the effect of the speech on the addressee, who
will therefore tend to see the interpreter as non-dominating and less manipulative
(Lings 1988, cited in Dubslaff & Martinsen 2005). For example, interpreters may use
reported speech when an interpreted utterance is face-threatening (van de Mieroop,
2012): here, the use of reported speech may be perceived as an “implicit stance that
avoids alignment with [the] source speaker” (Angermeyer 2009: 5). In addition, the
use of reported speech to convey hostile utterances may make the interpreter’s ren-
dition more like a description than an accusation or criticism (Komter 2005).
194 Andrew K.F. Cheung

However, the use of reported speech may also indicate that the interpreter is
aligned with the source language speaker, particularly when s/he is quoting an
individual with authority or preferred social identity (Hengst et al. 2005). In this
case, disambiguating the authorship of the interpreted utterance can serve to em-
phasize its official status (Johnen & Meyer 2007). This authority-enhancing func-
tion may be particularly important if the interpreter finds it necessary to increase
the illocutionary force of the rendition (Cheung 2012), reinforcing attribution
(i.e., the message that the interpreted utterances originate with the speaker) and
giving the addressees reason to evaluate them accordingly.
Because of its speaker-disambiguating function, reported speech can also
“function as a trigger for some kind of evaluation” (Johnen & Meyer 2007: 412).
For instance, interpreters may want what they say to be evaluated by the address-
ees because they have reservations about it; switches to reported speech have been
reported when interpreters are unfamiliar with specific terminology (Dubslaff &
Martinsen 2005), or when they wish to express uncertainty about whether they
have interpreted correctly (Apfelbaum 2004, cited in Johnen & Meyer 2007). In
such cases, the evaluation-prompting function of reported speech may be used to
indicate that “an additional interpretative procedure needs to be carried out by the
interpreter because of some sort of deficiency in the source language utterance”
(Johnen & Meyer 2007: 413).
While the discussion thus far has focused primarily on the interpreter’s use of
reported speech to communicate with the audience, s/he can also use it to commu-
nicate with the speaker. For example, Bot (2005) and van de Mieroop (2012) ob-
serve that interpreters use reported speech as a turn-entry device when they want
the speaker to pause for interpretation. Interpreters may wish to start their turn
when they sense the threat of cognitive overload (van de Mieroop 2012), which
may occur when the current turn is overly long or contains problem triggers, such
as proper nouns or numbers (Gile 2009: 171).
In sum, the use of reported speech (or deviation from the direct speech rule)
indicates some form of interpreter intervention. The next section discusses how
the use of reported speech may influence interpreters’ perceived neutrality.

2.1 Direct speech in court interpreting

Although reported speech can indicate an interpreter’s disassociation from — or

alignment with — the speaker, questions remain as to how this is achieved. For
example, what mechanisms are used to indicate such a relationship, and are they
perceived by those following the interpretation? The communication dynamics in
adversarial common law courtroom settings can be complicated (Laster & Taylor,
1994). As a result, individuals who do not speak the language of the court may
 Reported speech and perceived neutrality of court interpreters 195

view an interpreter as an ally (Mikkelson 2000). How individuals perceive the re-
lationship between themselves and the interpreter may influence their behavior
and the court proceedings.
In court interpreting, the use of direct speech is linked to the admissibility of
evidence. Hearsay evidence (i.e., reporting what others have said about an event)
is inadmissible in the courtroom setting. However, an interpreter is clearly a differ-
ent individual from a witness or a defendant. For interpreted utterances to consti-
tute admissible evidence, it is commonly recommended that the court interpreters
should act as a conduit, effectively becoming the source language speaker. The
conduit concept is primarily directed toward the “jurisprudential theory of the
interpreter’s role as a matter of legal admissibility” (Roberts-Smith 2009: 14). To
create the illusion that the interpreter’s voice is that of the party being interpreted,
court interpreters are instructed to “always utilize the first person and […] never
interpret into the third person” (Gonzalez et al. 1991: 434). The use of reported
speech by a court interpreter may lead to unwarranted interference from the in-
terpreter (Zetterstrand 2004). Conversely, the use of direct speech helps court in-
terpreters remain “as invisible and inconspicuous as possible” (Hale 2004: 191),
thereby reinforcing the appearance of neutrality.
In adopting reported speech, an interpreter is not only interpreting the source
language, but can also be seen to be speaking on behalf of others (Leinonen 2004).
However, speaking on behalf of others is not supposed to be a function of court-
room interpreting (Colin & Morris,1996). Legal processes are primarily realized
through language (Maley 1994); it is the brief of legal professionals, as “masterful
language users” (Brennan 1994), to play clearly defined roles in the courtroom for
purposes of defense or prosecution. Accordingly, court interpreters will be seen to
have overstepped their professional boundaries if they are perceived to be speak-
ing on behalf of either party — hence the insistence on direct speech. Indeed, the
results of a national survey of judicial officers and interpreters in Australia showed
that both groups prefer to use direct speech (Hale 2011). It is therefore interest-
ing to note reported cases of interpreters alternating between direct and reported
speech (Angermeyer 2009; Cheung 2012; Lee 2010).
Although “speaking in the first person has the advantage of creating a clear
court record” (Moeketsi 2000: 231), the use of reported speech by interpreters may
facilitate interaction between the parties involved. For instance, court interpreters
may be given the opportunity to take their turn only after several individuals have
spoken (Cheung 2012), or to interpret only dialogue in which the listeners do
not participate (Angermeyer 2009). In these cases, reported speech can help the
listener to distinguish among multiple speakers, thus clarifying who is responsible
for each utterance (Cheung 2012). Because reported speech makes the attribu-
tion of the interpreted utterance explicit, it can be particularly useful in helping
196 Andrew K.F. Cheung

lay participants, witnesses and defendants participate more actively in the court
proceedings (Angermeyer 2009).
There are a variety of hypotheses on why interpreters use reported speech: to
elicit audience engagement and provide ironic distance (Myers 1999); to delegate
authority or shift responsibility to the party whose utterance is being reported
(Hengst 2005); to identify the source anguage speakers or enhance illocutionary
force (Cheung 2012); and, particularly in court interpreting, to promote advocacy
and distancing (Angermeyer 2009). These hypotheses tend to focus on the inter-
preters’ intentions in using reported speech. However, there has been less discus-
sion of how the deictic switch from direct to reported speech can affect interpret-
ers’ perceived neutrality.
Interpreter neutrality is a highly complex notion (Metzger 1999). After re-
viewing different recommendations on the role of court interpreters from vari-
ous jurisdictions, Mikkelson (2008) concluded that “it is sometimes difficult if
not impossible for interpreters to maintain both actual and perceived neutrality”
(83). The law prescribes that an interpreter must display actual impartiality in the
courtroom. However, perceived neutrality is more related to the impression cre-
ated by an interpreter’s behavior.
Impartiality may be compromised if the interpreter intervenes unnecessarily
by way of an addition or omission. However, such forms of intervention may not
be easily noticeable to monolingual recipients of interpreting services (Cheung
2012; Martinsen & Dubslaff 2010). Hence, it may be difficult to understand how
users perceive the neutrality of interpreters in the case of any additions or omis-
sions. On the other hand, monolingual listeners are likely to observe an inter-
preter’s use of reported speech. For this reason, research on interpreters’ perceived
neutrality should take into account any difference in effect between direct and
reported speech.
As little research has examined how lay participants perceive interpreter neu-
trality, there are insufficient empirical data to support the claim that this is either
compromised or enhanced by the use of reported speech. Data generated from a
controlled experiment, such as the role-play experiment reported in this paper,
may help fill this knowledge gap and also highlight points of interest regarding
research design.

3. This study

The research design of this study is unique in two respects. First, realism was
maintained by requiring that the participants rely on the interpreter in two-way
interaction with speakers of a different language. Second, the participants were
 Reported speech and perceived neutrality of court interpreters 197

divided into two groups to test for any effect related to the interpreter’s use of two
different source speaker referents: a third person pronoun was used in interpreting
for one group, a professional title for the other.
With regard to the first of these points, studies on perceptions of court inter-
preting are not uncommon in the literature. However, previous studies on this
topic (Berk-Seligson 2002; Hale 2004; Jie & Zhong 2008) have mainly been con-
cerned with how the interpreter’s style affects the perception of the source language
speaker. Therefore, the participants in these studies had to rely on the interpreter
only to understand others, but not to be understood by others. The present study
differs from earlier research in this respect: it was designed so that participants
— instead of acting as mere onlookers in an interpreter-mediated event — would
themselves engage in a dialogue with speakers of a different language, relying on
the interpreter to achieve mutual understanding with others.
On the second of the above points, a clear distinction is made in this study
between the use of third person pronouns and professional titles in the report-
ing clauses. The form of reported speech analyzed is direct representation (Bot
2005), as Cheung (2012) noted that this reported speech style is commonly used
by court interpreters in Hong Kong when they deviate from the first person
rule. Direct representation refers to reported speech in which the translation is
prefaced with a reporting clause and the perspective of the person speaking re-
mains unchanged. In a courtroom setting, for instance, a direct representation
of the judge saying “please speak louder,” would be, “(s)he/the judge said: ‘please
speak louder.’ ” As this example shows, two speaker referents can be used here in
the reporting clause: a third person pronoun (“(s)he”), and a professional title
(“the judge”).
When speakers use direct representation in daily conversation to quote some-
one who is not physically present in the dialogue or to quote multiple parties, they
may use a reporting clause that contains a professional title, a noun, a name, or
any other specific term. Doing so renders the utterance less ambiguous, because
it specifies who is being quoted. The use of a third person pronoun in the report-
ing clause takes for granted that the listener knows who is being quoted. There are
often two dialogue parties in an interpreter-mediated dialogue. In the consecutive
mode, when a rendition prefaced by a reporting clause containing a third person
pronoun is made immediately after a source language utterance, the attribution
should generally be clear to the target language listener. Therefore, it is interesting
to note that, in a study of the use of reported speech by court interpreters in Hong
Kong, all of the quoted Cantonese renditions were prefaced by professional titles,
including “barrister”, “prosecutor” and “judge” (Cheung 2012).
Angermeyer (2009), Bot (2005), Cheung (2012), and Dubslaff and Martinsen
(2005) investigated the shifts between first-, second-, and third-person pronouns
198 Andrew K.F. Cheung

in interpreter-mediated interactions. However, there has been less discussion of

the differences between the use of third person pronouns and professional titles
in reporting clauses in similar settings, although the choice of one or the other
may have different implications for how the interpreter is perceived. As no known
studies have investigated how addressees perceive different source speaker refer-
ents in the reporting clause, determining whether pronoun and professional title
referents exert different effects on listeners’ perceptions is thus of great research
interest.

3.1 Method

Sixty participants were recruited and divided randomly into three groups: a con-
trol group, experimental group one (referred to below as the pronoun group), and
experimental group two (referred to below as the title group). Because this study
is the first known experiment to test the perceptions of interpreter neutrality in
a role-play setting, it was decided to use the data from the first five participants
as a pilot study to finalize the questionnaire to be completed by participants just
after the conclusion of the role-play. Although this reduced the number of valid
questionnaires returned in the main study, it provided an opportunity to improve
the wording of several questionnaire items. Five individuals who had agreed to
participate did not do so. The final number of participants was thus 50: 16 in the
control group, 17 in the pronoun group, and 17 in the title group.
To control for variability, all of the participants were female Cantonese speak-
ers with little knowledge of English. The youngest was aged 50 and the oldest, 61.
They were chosen for their availability during the day, which is when the experi-
ments were conducted, and their limited or non-existent knowledge of the English
language. All of them reported no previous courtroom experience and said they
had never used interpreting services in any language.
Each participant took part in one role-play session, in which they played the
role of a police witness in a domestic violence trial. They were given some back-
ground information on the court case and told that they would be required to
provide a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to questions posed by the defense counsel — e.g., “Is
your name so and so?” and “Was it you who called the police at a certain hour on
a certain day?”
Each role-play session involved one research participant, two English-speaking
men playing the roles of legal professionals (a Caucasian judge and a South Asian
barrister), and a Cantonese-speaking Chinese female interpreter. The two English
speakers wore formal legal court dress and the interpreter wore business attire.
To reduce variability, the same individuals played the judge, the barrister and the
interpreter in all three groups and in all role-play sessions.
 Reported speech and perceived neutrality of court interpreters 199

The script for the role-play exercise comprised 35 English utterances, to be

interpreted consecutively into Cantonese. The same English utterances and their
corresponding Cantonese interpretation were used across the three groups. The
only difference among the three groups was whether these English utterances were
translated by direct or reported speech. All of the renditions in the control group
were made using direct speech. The participants’ Cantonese replies were interpret-
ed into English. Reported speech was limited to the occasions when Cantonese
was the target language, whereas the direct speech rule was strictly followed when
the court language, i.e. English, was the target language.
In both experimental groups, 12 of the 35 English into Cantonese turns were
rendered as direct representations. The reported speech segments were also the
same for both experimental groups, although the reporting clauses contained
different speaker referents. In the pronoun group, the reported speech segments
began with keoi hwa (“he said”). In the title group, depending on the identity of
the source-language speaker, the segments began with the professional title of the
English speaker — either faa kwun hwa (“the judge said”) or daai leot si hwa (“the
barrister said”).
Each role-play session began with the judge’s opening remarks, followed by
the defense counsel’s cross-examination of the witness. The role-play ended with
brief closing remarks by the judge. The first reported speech segments occurred
at the beginning of the mock trial, when the judge introduced himself and the
interpreter, and when the defense counsel began his cross-examination. After the
barrister’s first question, direct speech was used until the middle of the role-play
exercise.
For the two experimental groups, the interpreter switched to the use of report-
ed speech halfway through the examination, when the barrister asked the research
participant to verify a statement that she had supposedly made previously at the
police station. Regardless of the participant’s reply, the barrister asked the judge
to refer to a document, and the barrister and the judge then engaged in a brief
dialogue. This dialogue between the two English speakers was loud enough for the
witness to hear, and the two English speakers paused for the interpreter. Although
the witnesses did not participate in the dialogue, it was interpreted consecutively
for them into Cantonese. In the control group, the interpreter used direct speech
throughout the role-play session. In the two experimental groups, the barrister’s
request to refer to the document, the judge’s reply, and the subsequent dialogue
between the judge and barrister were rendered in reported speech.
The cross-examination continued after the end of the dialogue between the
two English speakers. In the two experimental groups, the barrister’s first question
was rendered as reported speech when he resumed questioning the participants,
after which direct speech was maintained until the barrister’s statement “My lord,
200 Andrew K.F. Cheung

I have no further questions”, which was rendered as reported speech. The role-play
exercise concluded with the judge’s closing remarks, which were interpreted in di-
rect speech for the control group and in reported speech for the two experimental
groups. Most of the reported renditions were designed to occur toward the end
of the role-play, to reinforce the participants’ impression of the interpreter’s style.
Each participant was required to fill out the questionnaire immediately after the
role-play session.

3.2 Questionnaire

At the end of each session, the participants were escorted out of the mock court-
room to another room, where they were asked to complete the questionnaire with
assistance from a Cantonese-speaking research assistant. The assistant explained
that the purpose of the questionnaire was to collect the participants’ perceptions of
the interpreter with regard to quality of interpretation and neutrality. Each ques-
tionnaire item was then read out by the assistant, and the participants’ responses
recorded. As Table 1 shows, there were five questions (scored on a Likert scale,
ranging from 5 = strongly agree to 1 = strongly disagree), originally written in
Chinese.

Table 1. Post-role-play perception survey

Questions 5 4 3 2 1
Strongly Agree Don’t Disagree Strongly
agree know disagree
1. The content of the interpretation was
intelligible
2. The content of the interpretation was
fluent
3. The interpreter aligned with the two
English speakers
4. The interpreter aligned with me
5. The interpreter was neutral

Although monolingual recipients of interpreting services may be unable to judge

whether the content of a rendition is accurate, they can still assess its quality in
terms of fluency and intelligibility. These two items were included in the survey,
but will be analyzed in a separate study. Of interest here are the three items con-
cerning the interpreter’s perceived neutrality.
 Reported speech and perceived neutrality of court interpreters 201

4. Results

Fifty valid questionnaires were collected, and then entered and processed using
the SPSS software. Descriptive statistics are reported first, followed by one-way
ANOVA results and Tukey ad-hoc comparisons.
As Table 2 shows, the pronoun group had the highest mean scores for four of
the five survey items — ‘intelligible’, ‘fluent’, ‘aligned with me’, and ‘neutral’ — and
the lowest for the ‘aligned with English speakers’ item. The title group: (i) had the
highest mean score for the ‘aligned with English speakers’ item; (ii) had the lowest
mean score for the ‘fluent’, ‘aligned with me’, and ‘neutral’ items; (iii) was in the
middle for the ‘intelligible’ item. The control group had the lowest mean score for
the ‘intelligible’ item, and was in the middle for all the others.
Table 2. Mean scores on survey items
Group Intelligible Fluent Aligned with English speakers Aligned with me Neutral
Control 3.50 4.06 2.31 1.63 3.75
Pronoun 4.59 4.49 1.35 3.76 4.35
Title 4.00 3.82 4.06 1.41 2.06

A one-way ANOVA procedure was performed to test the significance of the

differences between the three groups’ scores for the five survey items. The one-
way ANOVA results show that all five survey items differed significantly across
the three groups: ‘intelligible’, F (2/47) = 6.752, p = .003; ‘fluent’, F (2/47) = 6.752,
p = .012; ‘aligned with English speaker’, F (2/47) = 6.752, p = .000; ‘aligned with me’,
F (2/47) = 6.752, p = .000; and ‘neutral’, F (2/47) = 6.752, p = .000. The ‘intelligible’
and ‘fluent’ items were designed to capture how participants perceived the quality
of the interpretation; the other three items focused on the interpreter’s neutrality,
and the discussion below is concerned essentially with these.
The Tukey procedure (p = .05) was used to assess the pair-wise differences be-
tween the three groups’ mean scores for the five survey items. The results show
that, for the ‘aligned with English speakers’ item, all three groups differed signifi-
cantly from each other: pronoun group vs control group (p = .024); pronoun group
vs. title group (p = .000); and title group vs. control group (p = .000).
For the ‘aligned with me’ item, the pronoun group differed significantly from
the control group (p = .000) and the title group (p = .000); there was no significant
difference between the title group and the control group.
Finally, scores for the ‘neutral’ item differed significantly between the title
group and the other two: title group vs. control group (p = .000); title group vs.
pronoun group (p = .000). There was no significant difference between the pro-
noun and control groups (p = .223).
202 Andrew K.F. Cheung

A bivariate correlation analysis was also performed, to better understand

whether the participants’ perceptions of interpreter neutrality were affected by the
ways in which they perceived the other survey items. The results are presented in
Table 3.

Table 3. Pearson bivariate correlations among five survey items.

Intelligible Fluent Aligned with Aligned Neutral
English speakers with me
Intelligible 1 .712** −.387** .390** .431**
Fluent .712** 1 −.501** .462** .388**
Aligned with English speakers −.387** −.501** 1 −.439** −.726**
Aligned with me .390** .462** −.439** 1 .454**
Neutral .431** .388** −.726** .454** 1
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Each of the five survey items showed significant correlations with all the others.
For the ‘aligned with English speakers’ item, these correlations were in all cases
negative.

5. Discussion

The results of the survey are partially consistent with the general view that the use
of reported speech may affect an interpreter’s perceived neutrality. The pattern of
significant scores on the ‘neutral’ item indicates that the interpreter was perceived
to be less neutral in the title group than in the control group. However, there were
no significant differences between the control and pronoun groups. Accordingly,
the significant difference between the title and pronoun groups suggests that the
way the interpreter refers to the speaker s/he is reporting may have a greater effect
on perceived neutrality than the use of reported speech per se.
In addition to framing an utterance, reported speech may also serve to rep-
resent hierarchies and power relations (Hamilton 1998). In the present study, the
results for the ‘neutral’ item suggest that this is indeed the case when reported
speech is attributed by specifying the professional title of the source language
speaker: attributing the reported speech in this way might suggest that the inter-
preter is demonstrating solidarity with the speaker and detachment from the ad-
dressee, especially when the latter is the less powerful party party in the exchange.
Consistent with this view are the results for the ‘aligned with English speakers’
item, on which the title group returned a significantly higher mean score than the
control and pronoun groups.
 Reported speech and perceived neutrality of court interpreters 203

Interestingly, the pronoun group differed significantly from the control group
on the ‘aligned with English speakers’ item. The two reporting devices thus ap-
pear to have had opposite effects on neutrality as measured by this parameter: by
contrast with the solidarity suggested by the use of professional titles, introduc-
ing reported speech with third person pronouns seems to distance the interpreter
from the source language speaker. A possible description of this difference is that
the use of professional titles was perceived as more addressee-exclusive, and the
use of third person pronouns as more addressee-inclusive.
In this respect, the idea that the use of a third person pronoun favours closer
alignment between interpreter and addressee is strongly supported by the results
for the ‘aligned with me’ item. While there were no significant differences between
the title and control groups on this item, the pronoun group differed significantly
from both. The reason for this might be that the interpreter’s use of the pronoun
form was seen as inferring a conceptual opposition between the speaker (“he”)
and an inclusive grouping of the interpreter with the addressees (“us”).
Normally, an impartial interpreter appears non-aligned. Consistent with the
results for the ‘aligned with English speakers’ item, the title group again differed
significantly from the control group on the ‘neutral’ item. This time, however, there
was no significant difference between the pronoun and control groups (though
they differed significantly on both the ‘aligned with me’ and ‘aligned with English
speakers’ items). This finding seems counter-intuitive: on the one hand, partici-
pants in the pronoun group perceived the interpreter as more closely aligned with
them than was the case in the other two groups; on the other hand, they did not
differ significantly from the control group in their perception of how neutral the
interpreter was. This absence of any significant difference between the control and
pronoun groups indicates that the use of reported speech with third person pro-
nouns did not significantly affect the interpreter’s perceived neutrality. A possible
explanation for this is that the pronoun group’s perception of neutrality may have
been influenced by what the participants expected the interpreter to do for them,
rather than what they thought s/he should do as a professional court interpreter.
The participants’ expectations may also have been influenced by the fact that
they had much in common with the interpreter in terms of gender, race, language
and appearance. While the legal professionals in the role-play were male, non-
Chinese, dressed in formal court attire, and non-Cantonese-speaking, the inter-
preter was female, ethnic Chinese, Cantonese-speaking, and less formally dressed.
In addition, the interpreter was the only person who helped the participants un-
derstand and follow the court proceedings.
The commonalities between the participants and the interpreter, together with
the interpreter’s practical role, may have led the participants to expect that she
would be on their side. When the interpreter for the pronoun group used reported
204 Andrew K.F. Cheung

speech with third person pronouns to refer to the speaker, the participants may
have interpreted such a gesture as an indication that the interpreter was aligned
with them, consistent with their expectations. Accordingly, the survey results in-
dicate that the interpreter was perceived as both neutral and aligned with the par-
ticipants. However, this study did not investigate what the participants expected
from the interpreter, or how the participants conceptualized interpreter neutrality.
Future research should focus on these points.

5.1 Limitations of the study

The study has two important limitations regarding the generalizability of the find-
ings. First, the focus on the language of the lay participants meant that the question
of how the legal professionals perceived the interpreter’s use of reported speech
was not examined. While legal professionals will most likely expect an interpreter
to use direct speech when interpreting into the court language, their views on in-
terpreters’ use of reported speech when interpreting into a language other than the
court language have not been widely discussed or investigated.
Second, the role-play approach has its limitations for a controlled study.
Although the Cantonese renditions were scripted, it was impossible to control the
various actors’ attitudes, facial expressions, gestures and tone of voice. Non-verbal
factors such as these could therefore have influenced the participants’ perceptions
of the interpreter.

6. Conclusion

This study examined interpreting service recipients’ perceptions of the neutrality

of an interpreter who interpreted the users’ dialogue with speakers of a differ-
ent language in a mock court hearing. The findings are partially consistent with
the general belief that interpreters’ use of reported speech affects their perceived
neutrality. Thus, the use of reported speech with professional titles to refer to the
speaker had a statistically significant effect on neutrality. This was not seen when
reported speech with third person pronouns was used, although in this case the
interpreter was perceived to be aligned with the participants.
The results also add to the literature on interpreter neutrality, by indicating
that the way in which the interpreter refers to the source-language speaker may
determine the perceived distance between the interpreter and the speaker. For ex-
ample, if the interpreter is visualized as standing between the two interlocutors in
a triadic exchange, the use of reported speech may move the interpreter closer to
or farther from either party. Moreover, the interpreter’s use of either professional
 Reported speech and perceived neutrality of court interpreters 205

titles or third person pronouns in the reporting clause may determine his or her
perceived orientation toward the addressees. As the questionnaire results suggest,
the use of third person pronouns may be perceived as a sign of the interpreter’s de-
tachment from the source-language speaker, whereas the use of professional titles
may be perceived as indicating that the interpreter is aligned with the speakers.
The law requires court interpreters to be impartial. However, they must also
be perceived as neutral by all parties in the interpreter-mediated exchange. A dis-
cussion on interpreting service recipients’ perceptions of interpreter neutrality is
currently lacking in the literature. The findings reported here call for a deeper
understanding of the needs of interpreting service recipients and a more extensive
examination of the rules that govern the behavior of court interpreters: this will
make it possible to ensure that neutrality is not only achieved, but also seen to be
achieved.

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Author’s address
Andrew K.F. Cheung
Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Kowloon, Hong Kong
ctandrew@polyu.edu.hk
208 Andrew K.F. Cheung

About the author

Andrew Cheung is Assistant Professor at the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies of
Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He completed his MA in Conference Interpreting at the
Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpreting Studies of Fu-jen Catholic University and did
his PhD at the University of East Anglia. His research interests include corpus-based interpret-
ing studies and quality perception of interpreting services.
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