Research Report 14 - Deaf jurors' access to court proceedings via sign language interpreting: an investigation (by Jemina Napier, David Spencer and Joseph Sabolcec)
Updates and background for this project (Digest) A project funded by the NSW Law Reform Commission and
the Macquarie University External Collaborative Grant Scheme.
3. Research questions
3.1 This research project sought to investigate deaf jurors’ access to courtroom proceedings via interpreting. In particular, the aims of the research were:
- to investigate the accuracy of English to Auslan interpretations of excerpts from legal transcripts taken from real court cases;
- to determine deaf jurors’ level of comprehension of information mediated via interpreters as compared with hearing jurors’ level of comprehension of information received directly by listening; and
- to assess the ability for deaf jurors to access court proceedings via Auslan/English interpreters.
3.2 The project encompassed two phases:
- a preliminary study – an analysis of two interpretations and back translations of excerpts from a judge’s summation from English into Auslan; and
- a comprehension study, which sought to analyse interpretation accuracy and test juror comprehension of excerpts from a judge’s summation.
3.3 The key research questions were as follows:
- How translatable are legal concepts from English into Auslan?
- How accurately are legal concepts and terminology interpreted from English into Auslan?
- How much do hearing jurors comprehend of a judge’s summation?
- How much do deaf jurors comprehend of an interpreted judge’s summation?
- Is there a significant difference between levels of comprehension between deaf and hearing jurors?
- Are deaf jurors disadvantaged by relying on sign language interpreters to access information?
- What are deaf and hearing jurors’ perceptions of the content of the judge’s summation?
- What are deaf and hearing jurors’ perceptions of jury duties?
- What are Auslan/English interpreters’ perceptions of interpreting for deaf jurors?
- How effectively can deaf jurors access courtroom proceedings via sign language interpreting?
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