The right to be seen, heard, and understood: Interpreting power in Australian technology-empowered virtual courtrooms

Australia’s courts operate within one of the world’s most linguistically diverse contexts, home to over 300 languages including numerous Indigenous ones. Ensuring linguistic equity and procedural fairness for all language communities requires attention not only to content accuracy but also to how questions and answers are formulated and interpreted. This study examines how power is embedded and negotiated in interpreter-mediated courtroom discourse by analyzing the effects of interpreting mode, delivery condition (audio-only vs audio-visual), and language direction on pragmatic accuracy (PA). PA is operationalized through speech-style features, particularly fillers and hedges, in lawyers’ questions and defendants’ answers, and their potential implications for power dynamics and evaluations of witness credibility. Using a mixed-methods design combining a controlled interpreting task with a post-experiment questionnaire, the study quantifies PA and examines participants’ perceptions of speech-style features under different interpreting conditions. The findings show that pragmatic rendition accuracy varies systematically by interpreting mode and language direction, with higher accuracy in consecutive interpreting and Mandarin-to-English renditions, while delivery condition shows minimal effects. By foregrounding the intersection of interpreting practice, discourse style, and technology, this paper offers practical recommendations for interpreters, legal practitioners, and policymakers striving toward inclusive and empowering courtroom processes.