I am a police officer from X Police Station, Siming District, Xiamen City. This is my work document. You are suspected of illegal work and are going to ask you now. Do you understand?
Translator
I'm a police officer at the X Police Station of Siming District in Xiamen. This is my badge. You are suspected of illegal working. Now I'm going to interview you. Are you clear?
The above bilingual dialogue among Chinese and English
occurred on May 9, 2020
at 5 am at 5 am in Xiamen City police station
There are many Xiamen University people who have provided similar interpretation services for Xiamen Public Security Bureau
. Behind the professional services
There is such a vivid and interesting course
There is a vivid and interesting course
Move the "interrogation room" to the classroom
The scene described at the beginning is not the first time Huang Jiahui went to the police station for interpretation, nor is it the first time he ran all night with the police.
at 5 a.m. Xiamen is still sleeping, while police officers from the police station and Huang Jiahui have not seen each other for nearly 20 hours.
It is no longer surprising for Huang Jiahui to receive a call from the police station. Among many emergencies of foreign-related cases, the police need to contact professional translators as soon as possible and rush to the crime scene. So, receiving a call from the police in the middle of the night became her routine.
At first, most of the students couldn't wait to go to the "mysterious" police station. However, when everyone enters the real workplace, they find that the interpretation work in foreign-related cases is much more complicated and difficult than usual conference interpretation, public business interpretation, etc.
Student translators often encounter such a dilemma during the police station interpretation process: a suspect suspected of illegal work cried to the only translator who communicated with the same language during the interrogation work.
"Do I want to comfort him? If not, how is it better to refuse?" This kind of moral struggle in his heart is not common in other interpreting occasions.
These translators who undertake police station interpretation tasks not only need to have strong bilingual skills and extensive encyclopedia knowledge, but also need to understand behavioral norms and moral codes in special scenarios. Finally, this is often lacking in student translators, and even many professional translators who have not received police station interpretation training.
At the same time, after conducting a large number of investigations and research, the interpretation team of Xiamen University found that the gap in interpreting talents in foreign-related cases in my country in recent years and the need for professional training cannot be ignored.
In the first half of 2020, the graduate student "Police Bureau Interpretation" course, which was affected by the epidemic, was launched online due to the impact of the epidemic. In this way, under the influence of the dual factors of practice and research, an English professional course called "Police Bureau Interpretation" came into being.
In early 2020, Zhao Xiao, an assistant professor at the School of Foreign Languages, first gave this course to graduate students in English interpretation major, while her partner, Fu Yanqi, an assistant professor at the School of Foreign Languages, gave it to undergraduate students in English in the fall.
Take class in the form of "script killing"
Before the class started, a difficult problem was placed in front of two teachers: because the public security criminal investigation work involves a large amount of confidential content, there are few cases that can be directly studied, and interpreters who cooperate with the public security organs must go through a lot of practice and training to provide professional services.How to arrange the course content of really gave the two teachers a headache.
After some thought, "Script Kill" , an entertainment activity that young people love this year, has come into Zhao Xiao's vision.
Students simulate according to their arranged roles
Study killing As a game of wits and courage, its purpose and fun lies in "finding the murderer"; while the script killing in "Police Station Interpretation" class hopes that students can "play the murderer", "translate the murderer", and "interrogate the murderer".
The scripts used in class are all the hard work written by Teacher Zhao Xiao , one word at a time. Although is a script, the story scenes and plots were not made up by her temporarily or made up.
In the daily practice, teachers and student translators have accumulated a lot of interpreting experience in real cases. In order to give students an immersive teaching experience, Zhao Xiao adapted and recreated them based on these interpretation experiences, on the premise of strictly abiding by confidentiality regulations, and wrote corresponding scripts for different characters involved in the case.
Every weekly class, students will be grouped in units of 3-4 people: 1 is a "police", 1 is a "suspect", and 1-2 are interpreters.
The script used by the classmates who play the "suspect"
Take the script clip mentioned at the beginning as an example. "suspect" needs to work hard to conceal your visa information to prevent the "police" from finding out that he is working in Xiamen with an expired tourist visa, thereby avoiding being deported. "Police" requires clever use of rhetoric to get the truth from the "suspect".
Before the mock interrogation, students who play the "police" and "suspect" need to ask the teacher for the script in advance and strictly keep the translator confidential. . The translator can only obtain some simple basic information from the "police", such as case type, purpose of trial, etc., and at the same time, it must be fully prepared before translation to deal with the various challenges encountered in the interpretation process.
"Ultra-intentional" episode
Some challenges cannot be predicted in advance.
These challenges sometimes come from the unreasonable attitude of the "suspect", inconsistent rhetoric, and even stubborn; sometimes they come from the "police", who may frequently mention various professional legal terms during the interrogation process, or use special interrogation strategies, etc.
During the class for two weeks, students reviewed the problems encountered in the "script killing" process
In the biweekly, students will watch the "interrogation" video of the previous class, summarize their existing problems and think about ways to improve.
"Once in the simulation inquiry about gender cases, I felt that the too detailed scenario description was not very comfortable, so I deliberately avoided part of the expression in the translation, which eventually led to the shift of the simulated case. " The student in class recalled.
. On another simulation class about domestic violence case, there was another student translator who had lost his mother and could not control his emotions. actually shed tears with the inquired person.
Seeing these little episodes in course , Fu Yanqi said: "Only when a student put himself in his shoes and put himself into the corresponding role, he can experience more than translation.For example, many students feel confident before class that they will definitely not favor either party, but during the simulation process, we found that many students naturally stand on one side when translating and do not achieve complete neutrality. ”
Through this new attempt, the teachers said: "What we want to do is not to instill knowledge into students, but provides everyone with a scenario to allow students to slowly accumulate experience and improve their abilities. This is an experiential and perceptual learning. "
. For students, it is not only the only way to play the translator in simulated inquiries that is to practice interpretation.
The outside world has such a misunderstanding about the work of interpreting : "You are the translator, just be good at English. "But Fu Yanqi introduced that the working language of interpreters is Chinese and English, and it is not only possible to interpret with good English.
Therefore, A qualified translator needs to be trained in both Chinese and English. Therefore, whether it is the "suspect" who speaks English or the "police" who speaks Chinese, everyone constantly exercises their language expression skills during the inquiry process.
Various materials used by students during class
ml0 In addition, Fu Yanqi also mentioned the psychological ability, communication ability, adaptability, etc. When students play different identities, they can better understand the role and communication purpose of each speaker, so as to provide more appropriate translation services in practice.
Go out of the classroom
It is very coincidental that Qu Zhiwei, an undergraduate student in English in 2017, received the first "Police Station Interpretation" class after taking the first "Police Station Interpretation" class. The interpretation needs of a police station in Siming District , "entered the bureau" for the first time.
Qu Zhiwei received the interpretation task and sent a circle of friends from the police station
From receiving the call to starting work, Qu Zhiwei only had half an hour to prepare. He brought the "Notice of Rights and Obligations" translated in advance, an interpretation notebook, pen and translation certificate, and immediately entered the working state.
"Illegal work", "accused on the spot", "refusing to plead guilty" - These are all the information Qu Zhiwei can get from the police officer. The rest depends on himself.
This inquiry started at around 8:30 pm, and lasted until 2:30 am the next day.
"When I walked out of the police station, in addition to feeling that I was unable to stand firm, I also thought of those police comrades who stayed up late to work like this almost every day. They are really not easy either. "He said.
Someone asked him, since it is so troublesome, why don't the translator talk to the suspect directly in English and advise them to plead guilty soon?
Qu Zhiwei believes that this is not appropriate: "Translator should stick to his bottom line of professional ethics and avoid getting along with the suspect alone, and cannot do inquiries instead of the police. ”
He posted this experience in his circle of friends, which also attracted the support of his classmates. Everyone liked and supported his work.
" Overall, I think there is still a certain gap between actual combat and simulation. Because translators need to maintain a certain professional quality and make flexibly adjustments based on actual conditions, this degree is difficult to grasp. "Qu Zhiwei reflected on and summarized after the end and shared it with the students in the class.
Not long ago, Qu's first experience in police station interpretation was also rewritten into a script for the classroom teaching of "Police Station Interpretation".
Source: Xiamen University
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