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COURT INTERPRETING AT DENPASAR COURT 

 

Ida Ayu Made Puspani1  

Ni Luh Sutjiati Beratha2, Ida Bagus Putra Yadnya2, I  Wayan Pastika2 
 

1School of Postgraduate Studies, Udayana University 
2Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Letters, Udayana University 

E-mail: puspani2000@yahoo.com 

 

ABSTRACT 

This is a research on interpreting (oral translation) on a criminal case of 
drug user in the court proceedings at Denpasar Court. The study of the 
interpreting is concerned with two-ways rendition from Indonesian into English 
and vice-versa. The study is related to: (1) the description of modes of interpreting 
applied by the interpreter, (2) the application of translation strategies: shift, 
addition and deletion of information, (3) factors that underlie the application of 
the strategies, and (4) the impact of the application of those strategies towards the 
quality of the interpreting.    

The methodology applied in this study is qualitative based on eclectic 
theories (translation, syntax, semantics and pragmatics). The utilization of the 
theories is in accordance with the type of the data analyzed in regard to the 
translation phenomena as an applied study and its complexity.  

The interpreting at court applied the consecutive and simultaneous modes. 
The strategy of shift was applied when there were differences in structure between 
the source and the target languages. Addition of information was used when the 
interpreter emphasized the message of the source language in the target language. 
The deletion of information applied if the context in the target language has been 
covered, and it was not necessary for the interpreter to interpret the same thing 
because the message of the source language was pragmatically implied in the 
target language. 

The factors which underlie the application of the interpreting strategies in 
court interpreting were communication factor and the differences in the language 
systems between the source and the target languages. The impact of the use of the 
strategies towards the quality of the interpreting happened when the interpretation 
of the source language message into the message of the target language and the 
message in the source language was not completely render into the target 
language.   

The novelties of the research are: (1) relevance theory and its four maxims 
of communication can be applied to analyse equivalence of meaning of SL 
message rendered into the TL message Sperber and Wilson (1995), (2) the 
application of consecutive mode of interpreting can render more accurate 
rendition compared to the simultaneous mode, (3) the interpreter applied the 



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strategies of shift, addition and deletion of information in the process of 
interpreting in court proceedings, and (4)  some mistakes were found in the 
interpretation of Indonesian legal terms into English such as:  KUHAP (was not 
translated), BAP (was translated into  brief), sita  (was translated into seize), and 
ayat (was not translated). The translation of those terms should be: Indonesian 
Criminal Code, the minutes of investigation, confiscate, and paragraph.  

 
Key words: interpreting, consecutive, simultaneous, and strategy. 

1. Introduction 

 Interpreting as oral translation needs to focus more on the competencies 

and the situation of communication mediated by the interpreter in conducting the 

rendition. This type of translation is carried out in limited lapse of time from the 

utterances of the SL to rendition in TL. The study discusses the interpretation of 

the court proceedings (communication among the court personnel and the 

defendant) which is mediated by the interpreter. The success of the 

communication between the foreign defendant with English speaking background 

and the court personnel depends on the interpretation of the interpreter. In regard 

to the background, there are four problems discussed in this research: 

(1) What interpreting modes were applied by the interpreter at Denpasar 

Court? 

(2) Why did the interpreter apply the strategies of shift, addition and 

deletion of information in interpreting at Denpasar Court? 

(3) What were the factors underlie those strategies? 

(4) What were the impacts of the application of those strategies towards 

the quality of the interpretation and what kind of mistakes occur during 

the interpreting? 

This research aims at investigating interpreting texts which occurred in 

court proceeding at Denpasar Court Bali which was particularly conducted on the 

proceedings involving a drug user as a case study. The aims of the study of 

interpreting on drug user case are: (1) to describe the modes of interpreting in the 

court proceedings at Denpasar Court, (2) to find out the reasons of the application 

of the strategies of shift, addition and deletion of information, (3) to discover and 

analyse the factors which  underlie the application of strategies of shift, addition 



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and deletion of information and (4) to analyse the impacts of the application of the 

strategies of shift, addition and deletion of information towards the quality of the 

interpretation and also to describe the mistakes which  occurred during the 

interpreting. 

2. Concept and Theoretical Framework 

2.1 Concept 

2.1.1 Concepts of Interpreting 

 Pochhacker (2004: 11) states that interpreting is a form of translation in 

which a first and final rendition in another language is produced on the basis of 

one time presentation of an utterance in a source language. This means that the 

interpreter has to render the utterance of the SL message at almost the same time 

as he/she listens to the SL utterances into the TL utterances. The interpreters rely 

on their cognitive processing of the representation of the message in order to be 

able to render it to the TL. 

 

2.1.2 Modes of Interpreting 

There are four modes of interpreting in accordance with the way how the 

interpretation is conducted: (a) consecutive, (b) simultaneous, (b) whispering, and 

(d) relay interpreting. Consecutive interpreting is conducted when the utterances 

of the SL in the form of short utterances and there is a pause from the speaker of 

the SL and then the interpreter carries out his/her rendition. Simultaneous 

interpreting is conducted when the interpretation is carried out at almost the same 

time as the utterances uttered by the speaker and there is no pause between the 

utterances of the speaker and the rendition of the interpreter. Whispering 

interpreting is conducted to one or more participants in a conference in which 

these participants do not have the knowledge of the language used by the speaker 

so an interpreter sits beside them renders it in a whispering manner the speech of 

the speaker into their language. Relay interpreting is conducted in a large scale of 

conference for example  the speaker speech  is in language A and the first 

interpreter renders it into language B, then the other interpreters who work for 

other clients behind the screen interpret the first rendition into each language of 



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the other interpreters operate in. This study investigates two modes of interpreting 

in court proceeding i.e.: consecutive and simultaneous. 

2.2 Theoretical Framework 

The theory applied in this study is an eclectic theory due to the complexity of 

the interpreting phenomena in analysing the equivalence of SL and TL message in 

the process of interpreting. The foundation of theory is translation which  deals 

with the theory of interpreting proposed by Pochhaker (2004), translation strategy 

(Nida  in McGuire, 1985:30), translation shift (Catford in Venuti, 2000);  syntax 

(Alwi, et. al.,1998:345 and Foley and Van Valin, 1984: 149), semantics (Frawley, 

1992:17-35), and pragmatics (relevance theory by Sperber and Wilson,1995) 

2.2.1 Interpreting Strategy  

The translation strategy applied by the interpreter in court proceedings are: 

shift, addition and deletion of information. The application of each strategy 

depends on the condition of the utterances uttered by the participants of 

communication within the process of the proceedings. 

2.2.2 Maxims of Communication 

Relevance theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1995) states that there 

are four types of maxims in order to figure out a communication to reach success 

in transferring the message from the speaker to the hearer. These maxims are: (1) 

maxim of quality which is related to expectation with respect to informativeness, 

(2) maxim of quantity which deals with the effort to give well-founded of 

information, (3) maxim of relevance which is related to relevant contribution, and 

(4) maxim of manner which is related to clarity. They also identify translation as 

language in use in interpretative way to achieve complete interpretative 

resemblance towards the source text message with the rendition or reproduction of 

all its communicative clues and give all the cognitive effects at the same relative 

processing cost. 

 

3. Discussion 

Based on the problems mentioned previously, the analysis of this study 

can be described as the follows: 



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3.1 Interpreting Modes at Denpasar Court 

The modes of interpreting applied by the interpreter during the interpreting 

at the court are consecutive and simultaneous. The consecutive mode is applied 

when the participant in the communication uttered short utterances in the form of 

questions and the respond from the participants in the proceeding between the 

judge and the defendant and pauses occurred. When the utterances uttered by the 

participants of the communication in the proceedings consist of long stretches of 

utterances without any pauses; the interpreter applied simultaneous mode. 

3.2 Interpreting Strategies 

There are three strategies applied by the interpreter on the interpretation of 

the court proceedings. First, addition of information strategy which is often 

applied in the process of interpreting criminal court proceedings. The application 

of this strategy is only to emphasize the equivalence in the target language and to 

fulfil the acceptable contexts in the target language. Second, deletion of 

information strategy is sometimes applied in interpreting when the context in the 

target language is entailed, the interpreter does not have to interpret the same 

matter, as pragmatically what has been implied in the source language has been  

covered in the target language. Third, shift strategy in interpreting the criminal 

court proceeding  often happened, due to the complexity of the utterances and the 

lapse of time needed to render the rendition of the SL message into the TL. 

3.3 Factors which Underlie the Application of the Interpreting Strategies 
      (Shift, Addition, and Deletion of Information) 

There are some factors that underlie the application of those strategies: (a) 

shift strategy occurred due to the different structure between the source and the 

target language, (b) the strategy of the addition of information occurred when the 

interpreter emphasized the meaning of the message of the source language in the 

target language, and (c) the strategy of deletion of information occurred when the 

message of the source language rendered into the target language had covered the 

implied meaning in the target language. 

 
 
 
 



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3.4 The Impact of the Application of the Strategies towards the Interpreting 
      Quality 

The application of the strategies has impact on the quality of the 

interpretation; when the strategy applied to the interpretation can cover the 

rendition of the meaning of the source language message to the closest meaning of 

target language message, the rendition is considered to be accurate and acceptable. 

If the rendition of the meaning of the source language message into the meaning 

of the target language does not cover the meaning of the message of the source 

language as what it was intended and some meaning of the message do not appear 

in the target language then this type of rendition has low quality. 

4. Novelties 

 There are four new findings discovered in the interpreting process in the 

court proceedings: 

(1) Relevance theory and its four maxims of communication can be applied to 

analyse equivalence of meaning of SL message rendered into the TL 

message (Sperber and Wilson, 1995). 

(2) The application of consecutive mode of interpreting can render more 

accurate rendition compared to the simultaneous one. 

(3) The interpreter applied the strategies of shift, addition and deletion of 

information in the process of interpreting in court proceedings. 

(4) Some mistakes were found in the interpretation of Indonesian law terms 

into English. 

5. Conclusion and Recommendation 

5.1 Conclusion 

Based on the data analyses which were compiled from the transcription of 

the court interpreting on the session of a criminal case on the drug user 

proceedings, some conclusion can be drawn out: 

The modes of interpreting (consecutive and simultaneous) were 

interchangeably applied. The consecutive mode was applied when the utterances 

from the speaker were short and there was a pause among the participants of 

communication such as:  in question and answer at the beginning of the 



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proceeding, the witnesses’ examination, the defendant examination and at the 

closing of a proceeding session. Simultaneous mode of interpreting was applied 

on the reading of the defendant exception by the lawyer, the respond of the 

prosecutor to the defendant`s exception, the reading of the accusation of the 

prosecutor towards the defendant, the reading of the defence of the defendant by 

the lawyer and the reading of the verdict from judge to the defendant.  

The application of the interpreting strategies applied by the interpreter was 

due to the different system of the languages and the short lapses where the 

interpreter should be ready with his interpretation in the target text, so shift in text 

level was unavoidable when the interpreter applied simultaneous mode of 

interpreting. The speaker simultaneously uttered his/her utterances therefore the 

interpreter only interpreted the gist of the speaker’s utterances in the TL.  

There are three factors which underlie the application of shift, addition and 

deletion of information strategies in interpreting process. First, the application of 

shift is applied due to the simultaneous utterances uttered during the reading of 

the exception, the accusation from the prosecutor, the reading of the exception of 

the defendant by the lawyer, and the reading of judge decision towards the 

defendant so the interpreter had to apply the simultaneous mode of interpreting 

hence, rendering the gist of the utterances of the speaker. In these situations the 

interpreter applied shift strategy to cover the meaning of the SL into the TL. 

Second, the application of addition of information was applied in order to 

emphasize the equivalence of meaning in the TL. Third, the factor which  

underlies the application of deletion of information strategy was caused by the 

message in the TL had been covered in the rendition done by the interpreter so 

there is part of the SL is not interpreted in the TL but the meaning was already 

implied in the TL.  

The application of strategy of interpreting in court might have impacts on 

the message of the SL which was rendered into the TL. When the application of 

shift strategy in text level caused shift of meaning of the SL in the TL, this could 

distort the communication among the participants. The application of addition and 



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deletion of information emphasizes the gist of the message of SL which was 

rendered into the TL.  

 

5.2 Recommendations 

 The research on interpreting in court can be used as a parameter to 

measure the quality of an interpreter deployed in court. Some countries like 

Australia and USA have accreditation for translators and interpreters; NAATI 

(National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters) and NAJIT 

(National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators). All interpreters 

and translators in those countries should follow the accreditation if they want to 

practice as professionals. The existence of the accreditation for translators and 

interpreters can facilitate communication mediated by interpreter either in courts 

or conferences. 

 In order to ensure the quality of interpreter and translator who are 

deployed in courts or conferences the Indonesian Government (particularly 

Secretariat of Home Affair and the Ministry of Human Right and Law) should 

stipulate law on accreditation of translators and interpreters in Indonesia. This 

proposal can be applied in Indonesia and give protection for the skill holds by the 

interpreters or translators in defining their quality and services.  Meanwhile, the 

existence of HPI (Indonesian Translator Organisation) is only an association and 

sworn translators (translators who are sworn to take the job as translators) which 

is conducted by University of Indonesia. Recommendation for the interpreters 

either those deployed in the courts or conferences to prepare gloss-words (in 

bilinguals) related to legal terms or the topics in which they will carry out in the 

rendition so it can ease their task in interpreting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

The completion of this dissertation is due to the active involvement of 

many parties. Therefore the writer would like to thank and highly appreciate Prof. 

Dr. Ni Luh Sutjiati Beratha, M.A.; Prof. Dr. Drs. Ida Bagus Putra Yadnya, M.A.; 

Prof Dr. I Wayan Pastika, M.S.; as the Supervisor, Co-supervisor I and Co-

supervisor II, for their supervision and guidance during the completion of this 

dissertation. 

My appreciation is also extended to all the teaching staff and the Board of 

Examiners of the Doctorate Program in Linguistics of the School of Postgraduate 

Studies of Udayana University i.e.: Prof. Drs. I Ketut Artawa, M.A, Ph.D, Prof. 

Dr. I Gusti Made Sutjaja, M.A, Prof .Drs Made Suastra, Ph.D, Prof. Dr. Aron 

Meko Mbete, Prof. Dr. Ni Nyoman Padmadewi, M.A who have given criticism 

and input for the improvement of this dissertation. 

 At last the writer would also like to thank the administrative staff and all 

the parties who have helped the accomplishment of her study at the Doctorate 

Program in Linguistics, School of Postgraduate Studies of Udayana University, 

Denpasar.