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The historical development of interpreting precedes that of recorded history. In a sense interpretation has always existed, for with the evolution of human speech and with the differentiation of regional dialects and linguistic stocks, there came the need for intermediaries able to communicate across linguistic and cultural barriers. Formal court interpreting, however, is a relatively young profession; its genesis can be traced to the Nuremberg and Japan War Crimes Trials of 1945. In the United States official recognition of the profession was conferred on October 28, 1978, when the Court Interpreters Act, Public Law 95-539, was signed into law by President Carter. With this Act, which provides for interpretation services in all criminal and civil actions in the Federal district courts where the United States is plaintiff, the Congress of the United States acknowledged that court interpreting is a highly specialized profession and not simply a function that any bilingual person can perform.

Sponsors of a bill to amend the Court Interpreters Act of 1978 -presented in the U. S. Senate on November 14, 1985- write that failure to provide competent interpretation services to non-English speaking persons and the hearing-impaired in Federal judiciary proceeding:

Owing to the vital role played by interpreters in the administration of justice, the degree of professionalism required of court interpreters cannot be over-emphasized. The utilization of unqualified «bilingual» personnel may result in inaccurate testimony, mistrials, and appeals. As stated in the background report prepared by the New Jersey Supreme Court Task Force on Interpreter and Translation Services, the use of certified interpreters is of prime importance to ensure a true and accurate interpretation: «Since these professionals play a key role in the administration of justice, the interest and welfare of the public are best served by personnel whose expertise is recognized through established standards of quality, such as a process of certification» (47). Thus, an examination was designed by a group consisting of language specialists, international conference interpreters, court interpreters, and test construction specialists, that would make it possible to establish «minimum levels of competency and a demonstration of required qualifications before an interpreter may be admitted to status as a certified Federal court interpreter» (31)¹⁷². As of 1986, the Federal Court Interpreters Certification Examination process had identified 307 Spanish/English interpreters, out of approximately 8,000 candidates, who meet the requisite federal standards of language and interpreting proficiency («Report to the Director», Appendix A, p. 1).

Court interpreting differs from other types of interpretation situations in a number of significant ways. Unlike the conference interpreter, for instance, who generally interprets into one language, the court interpreter constantly interprets into two languages. Additionally, the range of registers extends from the formal and technical speech of expert witnesses -i. e. forensic chemists- to the slang and nonstandard speech of drug dealers and addicts. It is also important for court interpreters to be cognizant of the different legal systems in the countries involved, the unique linguistic demands of «legalese», and the specialized legal terminology. The situation is further complicated by a lack of standardization of the equivalent foreign language terms for the English terminology used in criminal proceedings in United States courts. Profer, indictment, motion to suppress, discovery, corporate surety bond, stipulation, substantive issue, and entrapment, are among the many terms that have not been codified to date. The word arraignment, for instance, can be interpreted in Spanish as «instrucción de cargos», «acusación formal», «procesamiento», or «presentación formal de cargos». Fortunately, noteworthy efforts to codify legal terms are currently underway¹⁷³.

Although Cubans make up the largest group of Spanish speakers in southern Florida (approximately 600,000 live in Dade County), the area's Hispanic community is heterogeneous: there are individuals from the different Spanish-speaking populations in the world, including an estimated 75,000 Colombians, 79,000 Nicaraguans, 36,000 Salvadorans, 28,000 to 48,000 Puerto Ricans, 21,000 Dominicans, and 10,000 to 16,000 Mexicans (Harrison 1988). Many other Spanish-speakers are certain to arrive. Recently, for instance, the political crisis in Panama has prompted the exodus of large numbers of people from that nation. Such changes in the ethnic composition of Florida's population have produced a linguistically complex situation of which the Spanish heard in the courts is a reflection. As a consequence, interpreters working in Miami courtrooms deal not only with geographical varieties of Spanish¹⁷⁴ and the varying degrees of formality and informality in the speech of individuals from varying socio-economic and educational backgrounds, but also with two of the linguistic consequences of languages in contact: code-switching (the use of both Spanish and English in an utterance, i. e. «when we left, como a las dos...») and the variety commonly known as Spanglish (i. e. «vamos a lonchar»). The examples cited are drawn from actual legal proceedings in Miami's federal courts and from authentic, electronically-recorded conversations: wiretaps, bodybugs, and videotapes, transcripts of which are introduced in Court.

In what follows, I will illustrate that federal court interpreters working in courtrooms of the Southern District of Florida are witnessing first-hand the genesis and proliferation of a non-standard Spanish variety due, largely, to the constant interaction of Spanish and English.

Spanglish is a language variety created in many Spanish-speaking communities in the U. S. by socio-historical circumstances. Loan words are common in this speech variety and although there is some grammatical interference from English, the differences with standard

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Spanish are mostly lexical. As Lucía Elías Olivares states in reference to the «Español Mixtureado» spoken in a Chicano community:

The following speech samples fall under the category of Spanglish. In each case the presence of English is mainly of a lexical nature rather than morphological or syntactical:

1) Q: What were your duties on the job site? (Interpretation of the question)

A: Yo era el bajolista. Yo era el que manejaba el bajó. (Bajó = a backhoe; retroexcavadora in standard Spanish)

2) «Las conocí a ellas ahí en el bildin». (Building)

3) «Necesita pushin» (Pushing)

4) «Estoy en estanbai» (Stand-by)

5) «El estaba ahí de guachimán» (Watchman)

6) «Tenía una lin en la propiedad». (Lien)

7) «Tengo un señor que quiere rentar mi avión y le quiero poner el seguro para rentarlo». (Rent)

8) «Mi respuesta fue que no tenía otro chois porque ya lo estaban haciendo». (Choice)

9) «El avión está lisiado» (Leased)

10) «Ahí hay alguien que se lo estaba likin a ellos». (Leaking)

11) «...para ver que ya habían clareada las flores». (Cleared [Customs])

12) «El chofer del forlif» (Forklift)

13) «Todos los que trabajan en ese guarejaus me conocen». (Warehouse)

14) «Tengo esteimens». ([Bank] Statements)

Another mode of communication results from the use of a variety of Spanish together with English, what is known in linguistics as code-switching, the constant alternation of the two languages in the same utterance or conversation. Code-switching can involve a word, a phrase, a sentence or several sentences. Switching «is different from borrowing a word from the other language and integrating it phonologically and morphologically into the base language. In code-switching the switched element is not integrated; instead there is a total shift to the other language» (Grosjean, 146).

The difficult task of studying code-switching is compounded by the challenge of obtaining spontaneous speech samples. Labov has demonstrated that the vernacular (in which minimum attention is paid to monitoring speech) is the style that is most regular in its structure and its relation to the evolution of language (1972a, p. 112; 1972b, p. 208). However, simulation of a natural bilingual setting in which the speech of informants is unaffected by the presence of the observer -even when the interviewer is an in-group member- is an obstacle in the collection of data. In her attempts to elicit code-switching, Poplack found that code-switching occurs about as infrequently with a non-group member as it does in formal speech styles and that when the interaction takes place with a group member in informal speech contexts, there are about four times as many switches (1978; 1983, p. 113). She observes that even when contextual conditions appear to be met, the data may diverge qualitatively and quantitatively from the speaker's linguistic behavior in the absence of the observer (1983, p. 113).

The following samples of code-switching are from a conversation between two Cuban males which was recorded on videotape by undercover federal agents. As such, they represent naturalistic bilingual behavior and constitute reliable samples of vernacular speech -the spontaneous, unreflecting use of language in the absence of the observer:

Voice 2: «El piloto, I don't know if you got any guy que es, pues gran piloto. Tú sabes, que ... who would hacer la cosa así, con un piloto. Pero la cosa es to siguiente: El vuelo sale desde el punto que uno quiere que salga. It comes con un flight plan, entra-pam, pam. Aterriza en [...], pasa Customs, y de ahí sale pa' donde uno ( unitelligible). Vaya, a typical flight».

Voice 2: «...porque el radar te picked up...»

Voice 1: «...Porque hay... hay radares que te cogen. Right on the water, even the boats. They get the boats también like that».

Voice 2: «Ese es piloto. You might have seen him in [...] El tipo, es un tipo que anda en un Camaro... «

Voice 2: «...yo tengo un tipo que [...] El tipo's worked for Customs for years...»

Voice 2: «Tú no conoces ningún tipo que tenga un avión that would do something like that?"

Voice 2: «Pero, you know how Customs works out in [...]? Tú sabes, que tú entras pa' dentro y el avión te lo chequean estos tipos de Customs, ¿tú sabes? And you got certain times to come in. You can't come in a cualquier hora, ahí por [...]».

Concerning this important aspect of bilingualism, Francois Grosjean states that codeswitching takes place unconsciously; speakers «are often quite unaware that they are switching from one language to another. Their main concern is with communicating a message or intent, and they know that the other person will understand them whether they use one or two languages. In some bilingual or multilingual communities, code-switching is the norm rather than the exception» (148-49).

Southern Florida is a multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual blend. Rapidly changing demographic patterns, occasioned by the arrival of Spanish speakers from throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, Europe, Central and South America, have produced a linguistic complexity unparalleled in U. S. history. These unique circumstances present, simultaneously, a severe challenge to those who would faithfully interpret Spanish/English, and an extraordinary opportunity to study the evolution of language. Today southern Florida is truly a sociolinguistic laboratory, where the interplay of new combinations of Spanish dialects, spoken by persons of diverse socio-economic backgrounds and in a novel setting, is rapidly unfolding.

Because the language repertoire in the Miami area is composed of varieties of Spanish which do not conform to the rules of the standard variety of the language, but serve to fulfill the communicative needs of the speakers, court interpreters must have command of the different varieties of the Spanish language. The ability to interpret Spanglish and to deal effectively with code-switching is of prime importance in achieving the communicative competence which is so vital in the legal setting.

«Court Interpreters Improvement Act of 1985». 99th Congress 1st Session, S. 1853.

Elías Olivares, Lucía. «Language Use in a Chicano Community: A Sociolinguistic Approach». Spanish in the U. S. Setting: Beyond the Southwest. In Lucía Elías-Olivares, ed. Rosslyn, Va.: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education, 1983: 120-28.

Grosjean, Francois. Life with Two Languages. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.

Harrison, Carlos. «Region more Latin, but less Cuban». The Miami Herald. Monday, September 12, 1988, 3B [Estimates provided by Strategy Research Corp.]

Labov, W. «Some Principles of Linguistic Methodology».

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Language in Society 1.1 (1972a): 97-121.

___. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972b.

Poplack, Shana. «Bilingual Competence: Linguistic Interference or Grammatical Integrity?» In Spanish in the U. S. Setting: Beyond the Southwest. L. Elías-Olivares, ed. Rosslyn, Va.: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education, 1983: 107-29.

«Report to the Director». Federal Court Interpreters Advisory Board (FCIAB). Administrative Office of the U. S. Courts, Washington, D.C. (November 1987).

Supreme Court Task Force on Interpreter and Translation Services. Background Report #21: Interpreting and Translating as Professions, New Jersey. January 20, 1984.

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 73, Number 1, March 1990