Anglo/Yolngu Communication in the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

Endemic miscommunication is notorious in Australian police and courtroom situations involving traditionally-oriented Aboriginal people of a non-English speaking background. While many communication problems have been identified, they are generally inadequately understood and most remain unredressed. The researcher has undertaken an intensive investigation of the efficacy, features and dynamics of intercultural communication in two police interviews and in several court cases where he was involved as an interpreter in the Djambarrpuyngu language for Yolngu witnesses and defendants (Yolngu are traditionally-oriented Aboriginal people from the Northeast Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territory). The court cases comprise a lengthy coronial inquiry investigating the shooting of a Yolngu man by police, a murder trial, and another trial involving violent sexual assault. ... With interpreting assistance, miscommunication is radically diminished (but not eliminated) provided that interpreters are permitted to explicate or explain messages in effecting meaningful communication and, where the interview is partially interpreted, to alert participants to hidden miscommunication - often deriving from the unrecognised intrusion of interlanguage in native speaker/non-native speaker communication.