I'm asking you again! Chinese student interpreters' performance when interpreting declaratives with tag questions in the legal interpreting classroom

摘要

This paper presents the findings of a small empirical study in which interpreting students were asked to interpret authentic legal discourse from a video clip showing a lawyer cross-examining a witness in a New Zealand murder trial. The paper focuses on the way in which Mandarin-speaking students chose to interpret declaratives with tag questions. These were a common question form in the clip, which involved a lawyer engaging in aggressive cross-examination of an ambulance officer. The authors present an analysis of the manner in which Mandarin-speaking students interpreted the declaratives with tag questions, using assessment criteria developed by the first author. It is hoped that the findings may be beneficial to (legal) interpreter educators and students working between English and Mandarin.