Interpreters, (Im)politeness, and the Moral Order in the Courtroom

In this article, (im)politeness is viewed as a social practice manifested in participants’ evaluations during talk-in-interaction. These evaluations are filtered through the prism of the moral order, which encompasses the norms of linguistic behaviour for a given discourse situation. The objective of the study is to analyse how court interpreters constitute the moral order through the evaluation of (im)politeness. A discursive analysis of five courtroom interactions in Ghana shows that the interpreters wield their power to circumscribe the boundaries of (in)appropriate communicative practices via evaluative practices, which themselves are subject to evaluation from more powerful participants. These evaluative practices are an important means for interpreters to constitute their identities as enforcers of politeness norms. The study demonstrates how (im)politeness and the moral order in the courtroom can be volatile concepts, prone to varying interpretations. It also highlights the interconnectedness between power, (im)politeness and identity in the courtroom.