Humor in the Immigration Courtroom? Not So Funny for the Defendant!

An Indiana University of Pennsylvania faculty member studied how humor or verbal play doesn’t always translate accurately into different languages during immigration hearings.

“Judges often attempt to interject humor into the proceedings, yet the interpreter’s target language rendition often does not reflect these attempts. This study seeks to identify the conditions associated with this phenomenon and show how this violates the principles of good interpreting,” IUP associate professor of Spanish Dr. Marjorie Zambrano-Paff said.

Dr. Zambrano-Paff collected the findings in her paper, “Mediated Humor in the Legal Setting: The Construction of New Identities,” which she presented at the International Society for Language Studies conference in June.

Her study examines humor in immigration courtrooms and highlights the difficulty bilinguals experience when interpreting ironic remarks, jokes, or verbal play and shows how their linguistic choices can change not only the meaning of the original message—that is, not only the jokes or verbal play—but also the pragmatic force, or what the judges intended; for example, to mitigate the seriousness of the case, or to show solidarity toward the defendant or witness.

“This constitutes a violation of the ethical standards for interpreters set forth by the Federal Judicial Center,” she notes.

Although the main focus of her study and paper is on the interpreter’s mediated rendition in instances where verbal play has occurred, attention is also paid to the judge’s humor or sarcasm so as to understand the judge’s perceived attitudes regarding the defendant’s credibility.