Bilingual legal interpreter education

Abstract

The dramatic growth in the number of immigrants in the United States has been paralleled by an ever-increasing demand for interpreters in the courts. The fifth, sixth and fourteenth amendments of the Constitution support the provision of due process and equal protection under the law for all residents. Legal interpreters are therefore needed to provide equal access to justice for linguistic minorities. However, it takes more than bilingualism to make a legal interpreter. The legal interpreter must also be able to manipulate dialect and geographic variation in his/her working languages, possess wide general knowledge, understand both the legal process and the related terminology, and also understand the various discourse styles used in the courtroom. But, despite the stringent requirements needed to perform legal interpreting, academic institutions have been slow to develop suitable programmes. While a few ongoing but limited legal interpreting programmes exist at the undergraduate level, the only comprehensive and graduate programmes are the Master of Arts in Bilingual Legal Interpreting and the Graduate Certificate in Bilingual Legal Interpreting at the University of Charleston, South Carolina.