Chapter 6: When Interpreters Intrude:The Use of Politeness in Immigration Proceedings

Two linguistic features that have interested scholars in the socio-legal and sociolinguistic field are speech style and register, which vary according to the addressee and the setting. A person talking to a friend on the street will adopt a casual style and register. The same person addressing a judge in a courtroom or a doctor in a hospital will often shift to a more formal style and register. Berk-Seligson (2001), in her experimental studies of jurors’ subjective reactions, shows that jurors react differently and subjectively to different speech styles and registers, and to verbal politeness and hedging. Moreover, she found that when interpreters began adding polite honorifics, they often initiated “a cycle of mutual polite address” (Berk-Seligson, 2001, p. 150). Her study reveals that verbal politeness plays a crucial linguistic and social role in the management of interpersonal interaction in institutional settings such as courtrooms. In the research presented here, I examine the role of politeness markers and polite forms of address in immigration courts.