Deaf jurors’ & sign language interpreting project
Deaf jurors’ & sign language interpreting project
Deaf jurors’ access to court proceedings via sign language interpreting
Project leaders: Dr Jemina Napier, Department of Linguistics & David Spencer, Department of Law
Research assistant: Joe Sabolcec
Funding: Macquarie University External Collaborative Grant Scheme, in partnership with the NSW Law Reform Commission.
The majority of research on legal interpreting to date has focused on court interpreting. Typically the person requiring the interpreter is the victim, witness, defendant or complainant. No linguistic studies have been carried out on the efficacy of interpreting for the purposes of a deaf juror. This pilot study sought to investigate (1) the translatability of legal concepts from English into Auslan; and (2) the level of comprehension of six deaf jurors as compared to a control group of six hearing jurors; in order to assess the ability for deaf jurors to access court proceedings via signed language interpreters. Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches in the experimental design of a comprehension test with post-test interviews, content and discourse analyses, it was found that an interpretation from English into Auslan was highly accurate, and that there was no significant difference in the level of comprehension between deaf and hearing participants. In sum, it was concluded that with trained and skilled interpreters, deaf people would be able to effectively access court proceedings via signed language interpreters, and perform their function as jurors; although further research is needed to investigate this issue in more depth.
Following on from these findings, the NSW Law Reform Commission made a recommendation to the NSW Attorney General that deaf people should be allowed to serve as jurors (which is now being considered). An application has been lodged with the Australian Research Council Discovery Project Competitive Grant Scheme, which if successful, will allow for a 3 year project (commencing in 2009) to extend this pilot study and further investigate whether deaf people can serve as jurors while relying on access via sign language interpretation.
Publications resulting from the 'Deaf jurors’ & sign language interpreting project':
Napier, J., Spencer, D. & Sabolcec, J. (in press). Guilty or not guilty? An investigation of deaf jurors’ access to court proceedings via sign language interpreting. In D. Russell & S. Hale (Eds.), Legal Interpreting Special Volume. Research on Interpretation Series, Vol. 4. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
Napier, J. & Spencer, D. (2007). A sign of the times: Deaf jurors and the potential for pioneering law reform. Reform: A journal of national and international law reform.
Napier, J., Spencer, D. & Sabolcec, J. (in press). A shared responsibility in the administration of justice: A pilot study of sign language interpretation access for deaf jurors. In S. Hale, H. Slatyer, & L. Stern (Eds.), Quality in Interpreting: A shared responsibility - Proceedings of the 5th International Critical Link Conference. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Conference presentations resulting from the 'Deaf jurors’ & sign language interpreting project':
Napier, J., Spencer, D., & Sabolcec, J. (2007). “We find the defendant not guilty”: An investigation of Deaf jurors’ access to court proceedings via sign language interpreting. Paper presented at Critical Link: the 5th International conference on community interpreting, Sydney, Australia, 11-15 April 2007.
Napier, J. (July 2006). An investigation of deaf jurors’ comprehension of court proceedings via sign language interpreting. Keynote presentation at ‘Raising the Profile’: Conference of the Sign Language Interpreters’ Association of New Zealand (SLIANZ), Dunedin, NZ, 8-9 July 2006.