Interpreter-mediated Police Interviews

This book shows how the participation of interpreters as mediators changes the dynamics of police interviews, particularly with regard to power struggles and competing versions of events. Employing a range of approaches including conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics and legal narrative theory, Interpreter-mediated Police Interviews provides a detailed study of the impact of interpreter mediation on this area of the justice system.

It reveals how turn-by-turn decisions of communication by all three participants, including the interpreter, affect the trajectory of the institutional discourse. By providing a better understanding of police interview discourse and exploring the practical implications of interpreter participation, this book contributes to the improvement of interpreter-mediated investigative interviews and will be of great interest to legal professionals as well as interpreters and their trainers.