THE MULTIPLE ROLES OF INTERPRETERS IN ASYLUM HEARINGS IN ITALY 1 "Demander d'asile, c'est avant tout demander une place dans un monde mondialisé" (Issartel et Derivois 2012: 271)

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Mediating English as a Lingua Franca for Minority and Vulnerable Groups mediAzioni 41 (2024)
ISSN 1974-4382
Copyright © 2024
The text in this work is licensed under CC-BY 4.0. D8
THE MULTIPLE ROLES OF INTERPRETERS IN ASYLUM
HEARINGS IN ITALY1
AMALIA AMATO, FABRIZIO GALLAI
UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA, UNINT ROMA
amalia.amato@unibo.it
fabrizio.gallai@unint.eu
Citation: Amato, Amalia and Fabrizio Gallai (2024) “The multiple roles of interpreters
in asylum hearings in Italy”, in Amalia Amato and Letizia Cirillo (eds.) Mediating English
as a Lingua Franca for Minority and Vulnerable Groups, mediAzioni 41: D8-D39,
https://doi.org/ 10.6092/issn.1974-4382/19754, ISSN 1974-4382.
Abstract: Italy has recently been one of the main entry points for asylum seekers and
refugees into Europe (UNHCR 2023). Credibility assessment of claims in asylum
procedures heavily hinges on the applicants’ ability to (re)construct their refugee
identity in written declarations and oral testimonies, which are in turn shaped and
reshaped within the interaction in the further course of the procedure, not only but also
by interpreters. Over the past 30 years, a growing number of publications testifies to the
importance of asylum interpreters’ roles and ethics and show that asylum interpreters
rarely fulfil the expectations of normative role prescriptions. This paper aims to gain a
better understanding of some critical aspects of interpreting in the asylum context in
Italy, an understudied area of interpreting so far, mainly for difficult access to data. It
is based on a combination of participant observation, semi-structured interviews to some
of the participants in the hearings and documentation about our dataset, which was
collected at a Prefecture in central Italy in 2023. After an overview of the normative
aspects of the right to asylum in the world and, more specifically, in Italy, we discuss
the main issues concerning the complex profile and role of asylum interpreters and
provide a description of the Italian international protection system. We then
contextualise the dataset and the linguistic-ethnographic methods adopted to unravel
the complex interactional dynamics under investigation. Based on our data analysis, we
conclude that, in order to provide quality services, more specialised interpreter training
is needed – not only in terms of language, legal knowledge and terminology,
intercultural and communication skills, but also in terms of interviewing techniques and
interactional mechanisms, as well as awareness of roles and respective boundaries in
the asylum hearing.
1 This article was jointly conceived and written by the two authors. In the final version Amalia
Amato authored sections 2.; 2.1.; 3.2.; 6.; 6.1.; 6.2.; 6,4.; 6.5.; 6.6. and Fabrizio Gallai sections
1.; 2.1.1.; 3.; 3.1; 4.; 4.1.; 4.2.; 5.; 5.1.; 5.2.; 6.3. The authors are grateful to the reviewers for
their suggestions.

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Keywords: right to asylum, asylum hearings, asylum interpreting, interpreter roles,
refugee status determination.

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“Demander d’asile, c’est avant tout demander
une place dans un monde mondialisé”
(Issartel et Derivois 2012: 271)
1. Introduction
Since 2015, Europe has faced a substantial increase in the number of asylum
seekers in need of international protection (UNHCR 2016). In recent years, Italy
has been one of the main entry points into Europe for asylum seekers and
refugees (UNHCR 2023). According to the Italian Ministry of Interior, between
1st January 2023 and 31st July 2023 72,460 applications for refugee status were
filed in Italy and 33.880 applications were examined in the same period
(Ministero dell’Interno 2023). Despite the high number of asylum applications
and the fact that “language plays a critical role” in the refugee status
determination process (Maryns and Jacobs 2021: 146), interpreting in this
setting in Italy is still understudied, mainly for difficulty in access to data.
Credibility assessment of claims in asylum procedures heavily hinges on the
applicants’ ability to (re)construct their refugee identity in written declarations
and oral testimonies, which are in turn shaped and reshaped within the
interaction in the further course of the procedure, not only but also by
interpreters (Jacquemet 2009; Pöchhacker and Kolb 2009; Blommaert 2001;
Maryns 2006; Smith-Khan 2017, Sorgoni 2019).
This article aims to gain a better understanding of some critical aspects of
interpreting in the asylum context in Italy. Section 2 gives an overview of the
normative aspects of the right to asylum in the world and, more specifically, in
Italy, whilst Section 3 discusses some of the main issues concerning the complex
profile and role of asylum interpreters highlighted in literature. In Section 4, we
provide a description of the Italian international protection system, and in
Section 5, we then contextualise the dataset and the linguistic-ethnographic
methods adopted to unravel the complex interactional dynamics under
investigation. In Section 6, we focus on data analysis and discuss interactional
challenges based on examples, and in Section 7, we provide some concluding
remarks.
2. Right to asylum
The first mention of a universal human right to asylum is enshrined in article 14
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) which states that “Everyone
has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”.
In 1950 the European Convention on Human Rights (and the following
additional protocols) made the notion of refugee less restrictive and uncertain.
It further extended the right to protection by introducing some limitations to the
right of States to prevent border-crossing, thus reducing their control on access
to and stay on their national territory and the right to deportation of foreign
nationals. A refugee status was mentioned for the first time in the introduction

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of the Refugee Convention signed in Geneva (1951), which under A(2) defines a
refugee as a third country national or a stateless person who has
… well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality,
membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the
country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling
to avail himself of the protection of that country.
In 1967 the UN adopted the Protocol to the Geneva Convention, recognizing that
there was a need to change the Refugee Convention heavily linked to the post
World War II experience, to account for the growing number of refugees all over
the world.
The European Union in 1990 issued the Dublin Convention, now replaced by
Dublin Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013, which establishes criteria and
mechanisms for determining the member State responsible for examining an
asylum application lodged in one of the member States by a third-country
national. This legal instrument had at least two consequences: asylum seekers
had no longer the possibility to choose where to lodge their application, and
their application for refugee status had to be dealt with by the authorities of the
first EU country they entered. Recent geopolitical conditions (terrorism and civil
wars in Sub Saharan Africa and Libya, conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan,
and the war in Ukraine) have increasingly made EU member States the countries
of first arrival – Italy being one of these.
Directive 2004/83/EC established international protection at EU level which
included both the refugee status and the subsidiary protection status for third
country nationals or stateless persons who have “well-founded fear of
persecution or real risk of suffering serious harm” (Art. 4.4). The notion of
‘serious harm’ includes death penalty or execution; torture or inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment; serious and individual threat to a civilian’s
life or person by reason of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or
internal armed conflict (Art. 15) (authors’ emphasis).
Directive 2005/85/EC on the same issue aimed at
… [introducing] in the short term, common standards for fair and efficient
asylum procedures in the Member States, and in the longer term, Community
rules leading to a common asylum procedure in the European Community.
(Art. 3)
Joint efforts were made to create a European asylum system with a shared
understanding of international and subsidiary protection, common rules about
the application procedure for refugee status, mutual help among member States
and shared criteria to determine which State is responsible for examining an
application. These led to the adoption of Directive 2011/95/EU, the setting up
of a joint IT system for fingerprints (EURODAC)2 and the creation of an EU
2 https://edps.europa.eu/data-protection/european-it-systems/eurodac_en

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dedicated agency for asylum (EASO, currently EUAA - European Union Agency
for Asylum).3
2.1. Refugee Status Determination in Italy
Until 1990 Italy applied a geographical reservation to the Geneva Convention
and only accepted refugees from Eastern European countries. Following the
removal of this limitation, a National Commission for the Right to Asylum
(Commissione Nazionale per il Diritto di Asilo) was established at the Ministry of
the Interior, and asylum proceedings in Italy fell within the administrative justice
system. During the civil wars in former Yugoslavia the Italian government
introduced a humanitarian stay permit for displaced people from that country,
an approach which was maintained during the Arab Spring. In order to handle
the increased flow of asylum seekers, so-called Territorial Commissions for
Recognition of International Protection (hereinafter TCs) (Commissioni
Territoriali per il riconoscimento della protezione internazionale) were entrusted
with hearings and the granting of refugee status (Law 189/2002). The Italian
asylum policy in that period was characterised by ad hoc provisions responding
to humanitarian emergencies caused by conflicts in neighbouring or
geographically close countries.
In 2007 and 2008 Italy transposed Directives 2004/83/EC and 2005/85/EC.
This was a turning point because besides the refugee status, subsidiary protection
had to be granted to people at risk of torture and generalised violence due to
national or international conflicts. A humanitarian stay permit was introduced
for people who did not qualify for refugee status but could not go back to their
country for serious reasons.
Later on, some restrictions to this approach were introduced: Decree Law
113/2018 replaced humanitarian stay permits with other temporary stay permits
having a shorter duration; the Minister of Foreign Affairs issued a list of
presumed ‘safe countries’, whose nationals are not entitled to apply for asylum
in Italy (at least in principle).
To lodge an application for refugee status, applicants must go to the local
police headquarters (Questura) or police station (Commissariato) where they fill
in a form and are asked to provide details about themselves, their family, and
their journey, and then are summoned to undergo an asylum hearing. The aim
of asylum hearings is refugee status determination (hereinafter RSD), which is
the process by which governments or UNHCR determine whether a person
seeking protection is considered a refugee under international, regional, or
national law (Arcella 2022: 87).
The hearing, on which the decision to grant or deny the protection depends,
consists in collecting the applicant’s account and evidence (medical, psychiatric,
travel documents, marital status, birth certificates of children, etc.) and assessing
it with other relevant information to test the credibility and consistency of the
3 https://euaa.europa.eu/

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applicant’s account.4 Applicants are also requested to provide a brief account of
why they left their country and cannot go back.
Asylum hearings and the assessment of international protection applications
are entrusted to officers (civil servants) working for the TCs based at Italian
Prefectures5 (Italian Ministry of the Interior circular letter 2019: 17). TCs’
activities are coordinated by the National Commission for the Right to Asylum
in Rome, which is also responsible for the revocation and termination of
international protection status. The TCs are chaired by an officer of the
Prefecture and are composed of two administrative officers of the Ministry of the
Interior – hired through a competitive examination and with specialisation in the
field of asylum and international law – and one expert on international
protection and human rights appointed by the UNHCR (United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees). Applicants who do not speak Italian have the right
to express themselves in their own language or another language they speak or
are reasonably supposed to speak and be assisted by an interpreter paid by the
State – since the hearing must always be conducted in Italian –6 and a lawyer at
their own expense.7
Negative decisions can be appealed only before civil courts having a
specialised section on immigration and free movement of EU citizens established
by Law no. 46/2017. The court is composed of three judges, and the appellant
is entitled to legal aid.8
2.1.1. Structure and content of a hearing
EU law enforcement agencies, immigration centre authorities, and national
courts use interviewing protocols based on modules and techniques developed
by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO until 2014 now EUAA) which are
compared and discussed in a study by Krainz and Bergaus (2017). The synopsis
of the various phases of an asylum interview in Italy, and the corresponding
types of ‘productive’ questions are shown in Table 1.
The asylum hearing is conducted by an officer in charge of the case belonging
to the local TC, who also produces the written report and is assisted by an
interpreter. The final decision, based on the officer’s report and account, is made
jointly by the four members of the Commission (see 2.1.).
At first sight this procedure seems straightforward, but its interdisciplinary
content – civil (marital status and family), criminal (identity), and administrative
4 Credibility is not mentioned in the Convention, but the words credibility/credible appear 37
times in the UNHCR (2019) Handbook on Procedures (see also UNHCR 2013).
5 Prefettura/prefecture is the local Agent of the State Administration with general powers and
functions of government representation at provincial level.
6 Article 25, Directive 2013/32/EU transposed by Legislative Decree 25/2008, article 10.4. This
article states that “at all stages of the procedure related to the submission and examination of
the application, the applicant is guaranteed, if necessary, the assistance of an interpreter in
his/her language or another language he/she understands”, and lists the accepted vehicular
languages, namely English, French, Spanish and Arabic.
7 Article 16 Legislative Decree 25/2008.
8 Article16 Legislative Decree 25/2008.

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(border control) – makes it very complex (Noll 2015), which also affects the
interpreter’s job.
Multilingualism and cultural differences add a further layer of complexity
in asylum procedures, since “the applicant and decision maker will, in virtually
every case, come from mutually incomprehensible cultural and linguistic
repertoires of meaning” (Craig and Gramling 2017), and there is always the risk
that transmission of information may be distorted by linguistic and cultural
barriers (Gyulai et al. 2013: 61).
Table 1. Phases of an asylum interview in Italy.
Before the
interview
● The interview starts with the interviewer and the interpreter picking up
the applicant from the waiting room, saying hello and inviting them to
the interview room.
● The interpreter is often asked to translate the ‘informativa’, a leaflet
explaining the asylum proceedings, how the commission is composed,
how a decision is taken, etc.
PHASE 1 ● Closed questions on Country of Origin (COI) Information, background,
family, studies, religion, occupation, etc.
PHASE 2A
● Open questions about the journey from the country of origin to the arrival
in Italy, with attention to places of transit if they are relevant.
●
Free narrative: Applicants speak at length, according to their abilities.
PHASE 2B
● Open questions on any fears applicants have about returning to their
home country and the risks that would take.
●
Free narrative continues (see above).
PHASE 3
● Probing, clarifying and reflective questions on the journey: probing
questions on specific facts for cross examination.
● The interviewer must explore selected topics from the free narrative in
order to fill memory gaps and clarify all inconsistencies.
PHASE 4
● Open questions aimed to introduce corrections, additions, etc.
● The main topics are Applicant’s stay in Italy, (mental) health state,
vulnerability if/when returning to their home country, etc.
After the
interview
● The oral account of events is remolded and preserved in the verbali (i.e.
interview transcripts), which are in turn the basis for the Italian
authorities’ decisions. Interpreters are called upon to sight translate
verbali
before those are signed by the primary parties
The presence of at least interviewer, applicant and interpreter in asylum hearings
implies co-constructive interactions (Wadensjö 1998; Pöchhacker and Kolb
2009; Jacobs and Maryns 2023) where every participant may play a (decisive)
role in terms of the report and final decision about the refugee status. Moreover,
as highlighted by Tužinská: “Although the statements in the report are products
of an interactive process, they are presented purely as products of one person,
namely the interviewee” (2019: 90). The fact that in Italy the report is an
evidentiary basis for the decision about the refugee status decision – which is
mainly based on interpreter’s renditions of the applicant’s talk – also places a lot
of responsibility on the interpreter.

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3. Interpreter-mediated RSD hearings
This section discusses some of the main issues concerning the complex profile
and role of asylum interpreters highlighted in literature.9 Research on asylum
interpreting (Pöllabauer 2023) has adopted a diversity of perspectives, from legal
to linguistic to socio-cultural and sociological, and drawn on methodological and
theoretical approaches from a number of disciplines, including linguistic
ethnography, interactional sociolinguistics, conversational analysis, and critical
discourse theory. This section outlines some strands of themes that emerge from
literature, bearing in mind that the borders between different categories may be
blurred and more than one theme may be mentioned by the same
scholars/authors/researchers.
3.1. Multiplicity of roles and mismatch between interpreter’s codes of
conduct and reality
Codes of ethics (besides norms passed down in teaching) are key in imparting
specific role expectations, also in public service interpreting (PSI). ‘Fidelity’,
which was for a long time a dominant virtue for translators, has been questioned
by both scholars and practitioners. Interpreters often feel they need to do more
than ‘just translate’, but aim to act more like helpers, or aids to achieve a deeper
understanding between their clients (see, among others, Barsky 1994; Blommaert
2010; Pöllabauer 2004; Maryns 2006; Tipton 2008). This may lead them to
altering the register of the language; simplifying the wording; reformulating
information to take cultural differences into account; and/or adding information
for the benefit of either party.
Over the past 30 years, a growing number of publications testifies to the
importance of interpreters’ roles and ethics in connection to language mediation
provided by (mostly untrained) bilinguals in asylum hearings (Kälin 1986;
Barsky 1993; 1994; Inghilleri 2005; Maryns 2006; Tipton and Furmanek 2016).
Wadensjö’s (1998) groundbreaking monograph describes interpreters as
language and communication experts who are active parties in triadic
encounters, coordinating talk to facilitate communication and understanding.
This view has since been recurrently confirmed in PSI research. Interpreters’
agency may include interpreters serving as helpers or advocates of the less
powerful party; as institutional allies (co-interviewers, co-interrogators, co-
therapists, even facilitators of abuse); as communication facilitators, who are
responsible for interactional management; and as agents of change, cultural
brokers, or intercultural agents, who contribute to the empowerment of the less
powerful party (see, for example, Hale 2008; Ozolins 2014).
9 For reasons of space the vast literature on interpreting for refugees during humanitarian crises,
in conflict zones or in settings other than RSD will not be reviewed here, although there are
common aspects and similarities with interpreting in RSD hearings.

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In this respect, Barsky’s study (1994) supports a pronouncedly activist role
of asylum interpreters that stretches beyond the role of cultural broker. To him
interpreters as ‘intercultural agents’ should empower applicants by intervening
on their behalf or even embellishing their claims. Interpreters themselves,
however, do not always seem to agree with such an activist role: survey results
(Fenton 2001) suggest that interpreters are sometimes hesitant to ‘violate’ the
principle of impartiality adopting an overly activist role, and fear both pressure
from asylum applicants and impact on their private lives.
Pöllabauer (2004) asserts that interpreters frequently take on interventionist
roles, acting as co-interrogators or taking the side of the caseworkers. The
primary explanation appears to be their sense of obligation to do so, despite their
efforts to keep a friendly relationship with the applicants. As a result, they take
on various, occasionally contradictory “habitus” (see Inghilleri 2003). Stated
differently, interpreters often take on multiple tasks; in addition to translating,
they may also offer guidance, try to act as cultural mediators, and/or represent
applicants.
In summary, interpreters’ roles can be traced on a continuum, from a more
distanced and non-activist role to a more activist and interventionist role. As
pointed out by Pöllabauer and Topolovec (2021: 215), even if prescriptive
demands on the role of interpreters as verbatim translators are still furthered by
authorities, research shows that the idea of a mechanistic ‘conduit role’, in which
interpreters are viewed as machines that passively convey information from one
language into another, cannot be upheld.
3.2. Controversies in asylum interpreting
Several studies have raised controversial issues about interpreting in asylum
proceedings. Kälin (1986: 231) mentions the interpreter among the “obstacles to
an undistorted interaction between asylum seeker and officer”. Barsky (1993;
1994) identifies some risk factors in multilingual asylum proceedings: the
credibility of asylum seekers’ testimony mainly depends on an interpreter; both
interpreters and asylum seekers are under heavy strain since any contradictions
during the hearing can become grounds for rejecting the application or doubting
the truthfulness of the applicant’s narrative.
Another crucial issue is trust: asylum seekers may think that interpreters will
side with the local authorities, collaborate with or give information to their
(persecuting) government, while caseworkers/officers may fear that they will
collude with the asylum seekers because they share the same national origin or
the experience of fleeing their own country (Kälin 1986; Barsky 1993).
Where role boundaries are unclear, interpreters may also acquire additional
power in an already imbalanced institutional interaction, thus jeopardising trust
and active participation by all the parties involved. Analysing asylum hearings
with children mediated by non-certified interpreters, Keselman et al. (2010)
found that the caseworker let the interpreters act as both gatekeeper and extra
interviewer.

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Faithfulness is another case in point. In asylum hearings where applicants
had to disclose sexual abuse, Baillot et al. (2012) found interpreters mitigating
expressions of sexual violence, using euphemisms or modifying them to
“transform them into the ‘right English’ to the benefit of listeners” (ibid.: 285).
On the other hand, Craig and Gramling (2017), who critically analysed
interpreter-mediated asylum hearings from a law perspective, argue in favour of
a ‘right to untranslatability’. Acknowledging that within the asylum adjudication
system certain concepts are ‘untranslatables’ would mean that officers would
need to make greater efforts to communicate with asylum applicants, instead of
just trusting their ability to communicate, and be aware that ‘distorsions’ may
come along with interpretation from a multilingual setting to the “monolingual
adjudicative process of asylum” (ibid.: 96).
Gill et al. (2016) surveyed 240 hearings in the UK asylum appeal system and
found, among other flaws in the interpreting practice, that in 6.7 per cent of
cases the interpreters offered their opinion to the judge concerning information
provided by the appellants and their credibility, which is considered a very
serious trespassing of role boundaries in basically any professional code of
conduct for interpreters.
From a socio-political and anthropological perspective, Gibb and Good
(2014) discuss expectations of literary or verbatim interpreting as requested by
OFPRA (Office français de protection des réfugiés et apatrides) in France, and by
UKBA (UK Border Agency), both dealing with RSD procedures. They also look at
how this can create a dilemma for interpreters who are asked to relay what
exactly was said by the applicant but feel reluctant to reproduce grammar
mistakes and a lower register than their own for fear of being judged bad
interpreters. Another dilemma in interpreting in this setting is how to manage
the educational gap between the judge/officer and the applicant, which makes
literal translation of some questions containing technical terminology
incomprehensible for an applicant and therefore needs adapting the language,
despite the request to interpret verbatim. Then there are cultural differences, for
instance in “dates in non-Western calendars, or kin terms when kinship is
structured very differently, that are inherently impossible to translate exactly or
verbatim” (ibid.: 395).
Another controversial practice that was investigated in RSD is written
reporting. Wadensjö et al. (2023) have highlighted that there are two language
conversions in asylum hearings: from the asylum seeker’s language to the
interviewer’s language and from oral to written language. This may result in
remarkable discrepancies between what was actually said by the applicant and
what is contained in the report. This process of inter- and intra-language
mediation is called transpretation by Harding and Ralarala (2017: 1159) since it
also entails a change of register, from spontaneous talk to bureaucratic/legal
jargon, which significantly changes the original narrative.
Compassion fatigue, also called vicarious trauma (see Figley 2002; Ledoux
2015), is frequent in individuals who experience emotional distress as a result of
coming in close contact with victims of trauma and also affects asylum
interpreters. Vicarious trauma has received attention in Translation and

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Interpreting literature only recently and has been linked to ethically stressful
situations and burnout. Määttä (2015) highlights that interpreters’ active
interventions – e.g., to correct an error in a transcript – may result in a conflict
between the requirements of professional ethics, general ethical responsibility
towards a fellow human being, and the interpreter’s own sense of
professionalism. Määttä concludes that “the consequences of the interpreter’s
decisions do not only affect the migrant but also the interpreter in the form of
increased ethical stress, general work stress, and potential vicarious trauma”
(ibid.: 32).
4. Interpreter-mediated asylum hearings in Italy
Studies on asylum interpreting in Italy are still very few, yet they show a picture
which is similar to that in other countries: distortions and other (ethically)
inappropriate behaviours are similarly documented. In particular, Italian asylum
interpreters are shown to play a significant role that oscillates between advocacy
and empowerment.
In the 1980s Italy underwent an epochal change: from a country originating
migration, it became a destination for migrants. At the time the country was not
ready to provide language services and guarantee language rights to all the
migrants who arrived, especially to those speaking languages of lesser diffusion.
Forty years down the line, asylum interpreting in Italy is still mainly performed
by cultural mediators who are poorly paid, have a low social status, and often
are not trained as interpreters (Rudvin and Pesare 2015; Veglio 2017). Among
the main reasons are a lack of willingness to pay for high quality language
services, a lack of interpreting training courses in the languages of migrants, both
in academic and non-academic settings, and the lack of an accreditation system.
Moreover, it is mainly the same linguists who work for the police or the national
healthcare service as cultural mediators and in asylum hearings as interpreters,
thus creating confusion between two professional profiles with different remits.
In her work about asylum hearings in Italy conducted with a combined
anthropologic, pragmatic and sociolinguistic approach, Sorgoni (2013)
highlights the influence of interpreters on RSD procedures and shows how some
(unqualified) interpreter’s initiatives may undermine the credibility of the
applicant’s information and narrative provided to the adjudicating authority.
4.1. Focus on recruitment
As stated in 4., Italian authorities still do not fully recognise the value of
language mediation/interpreting, which consequently is not adequately
remunerated (Casadei and Franceschetti 2009). There is still no national
legislation stating minimum requirements in terms of language knowledge and
skills for this professional profile and regional governments have so far set
definitions and standards which consequently vary from region to region (Filmer
2019). Therefore, often “the [interpreter’s] job is not performed by qualified

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individuals, both due to limited set of skills and to anachronistic hourly rates,
demeaning their profession” Veglio (2007: 24; authors’ translation).
At present language services for RSD hearings are assigned by public tenders
where price is the main criterion. This unfortunate mechanism does not reward
quality, but only the possibly lowest cost of a service required by law. CIES (the
cooperative which systematically wins these calls)10 pledges to check
interpreters’ qualifications and train them for RSD. Yet, two of the interpreters
working for them, who accepted to be interviewed in our study, told us that no
educational requirements had been asked and only one of them had received a
one-day training on RSD before starting to work in asylum hearings.
Mack (2005: 9-10) identified two types of asylum interpreters in the Italian
context: the vast majority are ad-hoc, (often untrained) ‘mediators’, who tend to
be refugees themselves and have a similar background to the applicants;11
otherwise, the Prefectures hire (often trained) interpreters, usually born in Italy,
who work only with most spoken languages and mainly have a host nation
background with no significant links to the applicants’ native countries.
4.2. Code of conduct and interpreting techniques
The cooperative providing interpreting services to the Prefecture where the data
of this study were collected has a code of conduct12 for interpreters which
requires the interpreter to translate “conveying the same original concepts and
messages, without additions or omissions, to the best of his or her professional
abilities, respecting all linguistic and cultural aspects” (CIES 2017: 1, authors’
translation). Alongside interactional skills and neutrality and impartiality, the
text also discusses accuracy, stating that the interpreter is required to “faithfully
translate the integrity of what the applicant says to the Commission officers, and
vice versa” (ibid.:2, authors’ translation). In the performance of his/her
professional duties, the interpreter is furthermore required to:
- Adapt the language and register of the translation to that of his/her
interlocutors.
- Speak clearly and comprehensibly.
- Prioritise meaning over style; avoid embellishing language, explaining or
expressing personal opinions.
- Directly report what is expressed in the source language, expressing
him/herself in the first person through direct speech.
- Do not omit any expression, even when it is considered superfluous or
offensive. (ibid.: 2-3, authors’ translation).
The cooperative organised a two-day seminar on interpreting and translation
within the premises of the Prefecture in question. Aside from papers on legal and
10 CIES: See https://www.cies.it/mediazione-interculturale/mediatori-interculturali-e-interpreti-
per-alcune-commissioni-territoriali/.
11 See Filmer and Federici (2018) for a focus on the professional definition of ‘intercultural
mediators’ in Italy and, more specifically, their role in Sicilian ports and reception centres.
12 In Italy, there is no national register for public service interpreters.

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ethical aspects of the profession, there were lectures on intercultural and
interpersonal communication as well as interpreting techniques focusing on
consecutive interpreting with note-taking and sight translation.
The above-mentioned Code (ibid.: 3, authors’ translation) only states that
if [the interpreter] takes notes in order to avoid forgetting elements,
immediately after their use in interpretation-translation, s/he shall destroy
them or, if requested, hand them over to the officer (These notes are covered
by secrecy).
The interpreters we observed during the hearings, however, did not use any note-
taking techniques, nor did they take any notes of, for instance, names of persons
and places, and figures or dates.
5. Real-life dataset and methodological issues
Given that asylum hearings are a sensitive setting, there are still many issues in
gaining full access to data about RSD proceedings, as highlighted by many
scholars (see Maryns and Jacobs 2021: 147; Nikolaidou et al. 2019, Sorgoni 2013
and 2019). Our study is based on a combination of participant observation, semi-
structured interviews to some of the participants and documentation pertaining
to training organised for interpreters and officers, the calendar of hearings we
were allowed to observe including the language of the applicant, and two written
reports. Data was collected at a Prefecture in central Italy, between January and
July 2023. Before starting our project, we had two meetings with the Vice-prefect
to explain our research aims. Unfortunately, we could not get access to video
recordings of asylum hearings, provided for by Legislative Decree no. 142 /2015,
for lack of technical equipment at the time of our data collection, nor were we
authorised to tape-record the hearings. On legal grounds it also proved
impossible to have a copy of the report of the interviews, as only asylum seekers
are entitled to receive a copy. Thanks to an association of lawyers who defend
appeals against refugee status rejections, we received two reports out of nine
hearings. We made up for these serious limitations in data collection taking field
notes and live transcriptions and feel that this can constitute a valuable source
of information given the currently insurmountable lack of recordings available
for research in this context. Therefore, our dataset is unique in two main respects:
it provides real-life material from a rarely explored setting and combines as many
available sources of information as possible (also see Dahlvik 2018 for a similar
approach).
Table 2. List of hearings.
Interview
Applicant
(A)
A’s
gender
A’s
spoken
languages
Total
duration
Researcher
(R)
Interpreter
(I)
Officer
(O)

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0
A0
F
Nigerian
Standard
English
(NSE),
Nigerian
Pidgin
The
researcher
was asked
to leave
after 10
minutes so
as to make
the
applicant
feel more
at ease.
R1: Female
I0:
Female
O0: Male
1
A1
M
Nigerian
Standard
English
(NSE),
Nigerian
Pidgin
2h
interview
(Int) + 20'
sight
interpretin
g (SI)
R2: Male
I1: Female
O1: Male
2
A2
M
NSE,
Nigerian
Pidgin
40' Int +
40' SI
R1
I2: Male
O2: Male
3
A3
M
NSE,
Nigerian
Pidgin
1H 27' Int
+ 25' SI
+ 5'
follow-up
Qs
R1
I3: Female
O3: Male
4
A4
F
EDO, NSE,
Nigerian
Pidgin
1 h 13' Int
+ 16' SI
+ 41'
follow-up
Qs
R1
I4:
Female
O3
5
A5
F
NSE,
Nigerian
Pidgin
1 h 50 ' Int
(no SI)
R2
I4
O4: Male
6
A6
F
NSE,
Nigerian
Pidgin
2 h Int +
30 ' SI
R2
I4
O4
7
A7
M
NSE,
Nigerian
Pidgin
47 ' Int +
13' SI
R2
I5:
Female
O4
8
A8
M
Igbo, NSE,
Nigerian
Pidgin
1h 15' Int
+ 22' SI
R1
I5
O3
To collect data for this study an authorisation from the National Asylum
Commission in Rome was sought by the Prefecture and granted. A framework
agreement was signed by the project leader (UNINT) and the Prefecture,
containing the approval of the research work and all the conditions concerning
personal data protection and the consent by all participants who were informed
that the researchers were there only to study interpreter-mediated
communication and that they would leave before the hearing started if they did
not want them to observe the interaction, or at any time during the hearing

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should they not want them to be present. We were allowed to listen to the sight
translation of the report from Italian into the applicant’s language and were
given a copy to read at the end of the hearing. All the examples and excerpts in
this paper, which were transcribed as the hearings unfolded, were checked
against the officer’s report in Italian for content purposes.
A synopsis of the nine asylum hearings observed is given in Table 2. They
involved nine different Nigerian nationals and were conducted by four different
officers with the help of five interpreters using the Italian-Nigerian Standard
English (NSE) or Nigerian Pidgin English combination.
5.1. Setting and participants
The room layout for all hearings was as follows: the official and the asylum
applicant were seated on opposite sides of a rectangular table, the interpreter sat
between them, on the short side. The researcher was placed behind the asylum
seeker. The officer sat in front of a computer monitor and typed the report as the
hearing proceeded.
The four interpreters who were involved in the hearings worked (none for
more than 5 years) for the cooperative who had won the tender for interpreting
service provision at the Prefecture. We know from our interviews that two of
them, both Italian-Nigerian English bilinguals, never received any training in
interpreting. We have no information about the other three. The four officers
involved in the hearings are full-time civil servants of the Prefecture, all selected
by competitive examination. They are all (Law or Political Science) graduates
and received an initial specialised training in international protection lasting
between two and five weeks. They all receive continuing professional
development training courses of one or two days on a regular basis on specific
topics (for instance conducting a hearing with particularly vulnerable and/or
LGBT+ applicants).
As mentioned in 5, the Prefecture gave us a calendar of hearings containing the
languages applicants chose to use, namely Nigerian Standard English (NSE) and
Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE).13 Asylum seekers, however, had different degrees
of competence in NSE, and our data analysis seems to suggest that at times
interpreter and applicant spoke different varieties of NSE/NPE.
The structure of the hearings we observed is the same as the one presented
in Table 1 (see 2.1.1). In the pre-interview, the researcher in the room introduced
her/himself and the asylum seeker was asked to give or deny his/her consent to
the researcher’s observation of the hearing. It was clearly specified that the focus
of the observation was only interpreter-mediated communication in the
interaction. After each hearing we asked all the parties involved if they would
agree to be interviewed. Four officers, two interpreters and two applicants
accepted. A semi-structured interview script was prepared, based on our
observation of the interpreter-mediated interactions. All the officers’ interviews
took place in one afternoon at the Prefecture and were audio-recorded; the
13 An example of NPE is the use of deh or dey for the verb ‘to be’. The word originates from the
similarly pronounced Igbo word di having the same meaning.

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interviews with the two interpreters were conducted on the phone and recorded
on another day; so far, only one applicant has been interviewed over the phone.
For reasons of space, interviews will not be discussed in detail here, but only in
passing.
5.2. Analytical approaches
The approach adopted in this investigation is qualitative, although a general
indication of the frequency of certain features is provided. In examining how the
hearings are co-constructed in sequences of talk and how the roles of interpreters
emerge, we adopted an interaction- and discourse-centred approach. From a
sociological perspective, we adopt Goffman’s (1981) concepts of participatory
framework, footing and face. Keselman et al.’s (2008) categories are used to
analyse questions (invitations, directives, option-posing, suggestions), and
Wadensjö’s (1998) categories of interpreter renditions are applied to the micro-
level. In particular, non-renditions (interpreter-initiated turns which do not
reproduce any ‘original’ turn) will be highlighted, to show some of the processes
involved in the interpretation of the hearings.
6. Data analysis
The combination of observation and note-taking is a complex process, thus only
fragments of talk have been annotated in their entirety and will be used in our
analysis.
6.1. “I want to know what she does…”: Some reflections about the use of
pronouns
The Code of conduct that interpreters who work for CIES (see 4.2) should abide
by recommends using the first-person singular pronoun and direct speech.
Supposedly, there are reasons behind this recommendation, although a
prescriptive approach is generally not a good solution to complex problems. The
main rationale in favour of the use of first-person pronouns is to put the
interlocutors in direct contact, preventing them from addressing the interpreter
when they want to talk to the other party or parties. Another reason is that using
indirect speech and the third-person pronoun changes the footing (Goffman
1981): the interpreter is no longer speaking for that person but about that person
(see also Diriker 2004). Using the third person in indirect speech may also
generate confusion in translation when the applicant talks about another person,
for example “He says that he (meaning another person) did…”.

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On the other hand, also primary participants do change personal pronouns
when they speak and do address the interpreter at times because they want to
mark a distance from or do not want to align with the other party. In that case,
reproducing the speaker’s intention could be an appropriate choice for the
interpreter. But what drew our attention to the use of pronouns is the fact that,
in the very first hearing, the researcher introduced herself to the applicant and
explained why she would be present during the interview and the interpreter’s
rendition in the first person caused some confusion.14 In Example 1, R1 is the
researcher, I0 is the interpreter and A0 is the applicant.
This was a clear sign that either the interpreter had not explained how she would
be using the first-person pronoun, or the applicant had not understood her
explanation. The interpreter did not provide any clarification after the
applicant’s request, she simply repeated what she had said switching to the third
person (“She is here to…”). Then she resumed using the first-person pronoun.
With appropriate training, interpreters know how to introduce themselves and
how to explain the ‘rules of the interpreting game’ to make their work more
transparent to the parties involved in the interaction.
In many other cases, though, the interpreters we observed used third-person
pronouns and reported speech, especially when interpreting the officer’s turns.
In Example 2 (hearing 5, phase 1), the officer is enquiring about the family of
the applicant. The interpreter reports what the officer says with indirect speech
and third-person pronouns, while she uses the first-person pronoun to translate
the applicant’s talk. It is impossible to know the (conscious or unconscious)
reason behind this choice. One explanation could be not wanting to identify with
the adjudicating officer, either as a form of respect towards the authority, or to
mark the distance between the interpreter’s self and the officer and closeness
with the applicant, for whom she switches to the first-person pronoun.
Pöllabauer (2004: 163) observed a change in pronouns by interpreters when they
want to mark the authorship of a question or statement in asylum proceedings
in Austria.
14 In all examples: (.) = unmeasured pauses; - = truncated word; /= truncated utterance; [ =
overlapping talk; ? = rising intonation.

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6.2. “Can you understand me?” Use of vehicular language
One of the characteristics of vehicular languages is that they are conventionally
associated with specific geographical areas (countries or regions). The
assumption is that all the people coming from the area associated with a
vehicular language speak that language, though this is not always the case.
Another relevant issue is the level of education: not all asylum seekers who use
a vehicular language are able to deal with complex legal discourse, for instance.
Also, not everybody has the same level of language proficiency, and thus
applicants who declare to speak a vehicular language may not be able to provide
an accurate and detailed account of their personal history in that language
(Relinque and Martín-Ruel 2022: 207).
In the same hearing discussed in Example 1, the interpreter had to repeat
three times the question addressed to the applicant: “Can you understand me
when I speak?”, before the applicant actually understood the question and
answered positively. A case of difficulty in comprehension can also be seen in
Example 3, which shows the sequence following the one in Example 2 (hearing
5, phase 1).
Besides the same pattern of pronoun use already discussed in 6.1, there is an
instance of comprehension difficulty between the interpreter and the applicant.
In this case it takes four turns with interpreter’s non-renditions before the
applicant’s answer to the question on the whereabouts of her daughter is
translated to the officer. The reversed order of the two units in the translation of
the applicant’s turn – first the given (mother), second the new (daughter) –
makes the answer appear much less focused than it really was.

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The same happens in Example 4 (hearing 2, phase 1), where the interpreter
(mis)uses the word ‘sibling’ for ‘famiglia/sorella/figlio’. The applicant does not
understand, the interpreter offers a linguistic explanation, but the answer she
obtains is missing a crucial element, which was not translated: the whereabouts
of the applicant’s son.
6.3. Co-construction of meaning
Example 5 (interview 6, phase 2b) involves an asylum seeker who during her
stay in Italy had met a Nigerian man called Mark, got pregnant and made a bold
move to flee from prostitution up North with the father of her child. The word

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“papa” in the applicant’s turn is translated with “padre” (father), which is
polysemic both in Italian and in English, designating both a male parent and
priest. The applicant, who understands some Italian, picked up on this ambiguity
and started a ‘private’ conversation with the interpreter which was only partially
relayed (in a bilingual turn) to the officer who picked up on the ambiguity as
well. The interpreter’s final disambiguation (“il padre di mio figlio”) – ratified
by the officer who repeated exactly the same wording – came only after a last
try of the applicant to make herself understood on her own in Italian (“il padre
(.) il papa”).
This sequence is a perfect example of interactional space of multilingualism
(Blommaert et al. 2005), in which an ‘ideology of linguistic inclusion’ (Reynolds
2020: 6) applies. Participants are open to communicative flexibility: all kinds of
communicative resources are welcomed to promote successful communication.
The combination of unresolved misunderstandings due to multilingual
challenges and the confusion sparked by role ambiguity highlights how the
negotiation of understanding takes place at various levels of meaning, as well as
showing the need for meta-communication (in the form of verbalising the
purpose of the interaction) in these linguistically complex communicative events.
Had the initial ambiguity been detected and resolved by the interpreter, this
would have avoided the cascading effects of communication breakdown,
impacting the interviewing technique.

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6.4. Acting as co-officer
At times the interpreters we observed acted as co-officers, apparently trying to
support the adjudicating officer’s agenda (as reported by Dahlvik 2018 and
Pöllabauer 2004). In at least three instances the interpreter corrects the
applicant, which is not a positive move in terms of the applicant’s credibility, a
decisive principle in RSD (see 2.1.).15
In Example 6 (hearing 1, phase 1) the officer is asking questions to confirm
the age of the applicant’s children. The applicant, mother of three children aged
six years, two years, and 6 months, answers the question giving the age of her
youngest daughter; the interpreter explicitly corrects her answer (“she is older”)
and then tells the age of the eldest. The applicant, who understands some Italian,
at this point specifies the age of all three daughters, and the officer signals
understanding (“OK”) without waiting for the translation. The interpreter (again
in a bilingual turn) apologises both with the applicant and the officer,
mentioning the use of masks as a justification.
In Example 7 (hearing 1, phase 2b) the applicant is asked about his job in Nigeria
and answers that he used to “bunker”16 – a concept the interpreter appears not
to be familiar with. One day there was a fire and two people died, so the police
were after him and he went into hiding. Before translating what the applicant
says, the interpreter keeps probing about the events, producing three non-
renditions in a row. This shows that cultural references, a subject which cannot
be dealt with for reasons of space, play a crucial role in this kind of hearings.
Both the applicant and the interpreter use the present tense instead of the past
tense when reporting past events, a feature we observed in all interviews.
15 For a discussion of the interpretation of the principle of credibility in asylum appeals in Italy
see Sorgoni 2019.
16 The theft of crude oil and its illegal transformation in petrol sold to refineries, known as ‘oil
bunkering’, accounts for around 10 percent of Nigeria’s daily production and is a highly
organized operation.
See Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_theft_in_Nigeria and
https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/nigeria1103/5.htm#:~:text=Yet%20theft%20of%20crude
%20oil,is%20a%20highly%20organized%20operation.&text=Governor%20Ibori%20has%20st
ated%20that,lost%20because%20of%20bunkering%20activities (both visited 28/10/2023).

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With her three self-initiated questions, the interpreter temporarily replaces the
officer in the enquiry on what happened, acting as principal (Goffman 1981:
144). Once again, we do not know the reasons for this behaviour: the interpreter
might be attempting to better understand what happened to provide a consistent
or more complete translation, and this way protect both her face as a competent
interpreter and the applicant’s face by providing a coherent story (both types of
face-saving moves are also reported in Pöllabauer 2007). In any case, she does
not let the officer ask for more details, and never informs him about the content
of the exchange, nor does she translate it back to him.
Other self-initiated moves by the interpreter can be found in this and other
hearings, aimed at clarifying a concept, obtaining more information before
translating what the applicant has said (for example, about the languages spoken
or dates). A similar behaviour by interpreters was observed in asylum hearings
in Austria when interpreters “… take the lead and elicit information they regard
as necessary for the outcome of the hearings…” (Pöllabauer 2004: 154). In our
dataset, in no instance do the officials step in to enquire what was said during
the untranslated exchanges between interpreter and applicant.
Example 8 is drawn from the same conversation as Example 6 (hearing 1,
phase 1). Here the officer asks the applicant if he knows where his mother lives.
The applicant does not answer, so the interpreter prompts him by repeating the
question:
In our data, this is not the only case where interpreters seem reluctant to accept
silence as an answer, and often do not wait for the officer to repeat or rephrase
the question. During our interviews with officers, they repeated several times
that they would prefer the interpreter not to ask questions to applicants on their
own initiative or prompt an answer by repeating or rephrasing a question if the
applicant remains silent. In general, it would be advisable to accept moments of
silence during an RSD hearing, as this might help to retrieve memories and
sometimes may be necessary to handle emotions. However, officers told us that
they rarely have a briefing with the interpreter to explain how they are going to

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conduct the interview, and/or to agree about how to deal with silence or
reluctance to answer by the applicant. Our own observation confirms that at
times interpreter and officer did not seem to share ‘common rules’ about how
interpreter-mediated communication works or should work.
6.5. From kind invitation to request
In the RSD hearings we observed, officers generally showed respect towards the
applicants by various means, a feature which was not always observed in
interpreters. The two following excerpts illustrate how kind invitations
(Keselman et al. 2008) to say or do something are turned into blunt requests by
the interpreter.
In Example 9 (hearing 8, phase 1), the officer is politely enquiring if the
applicant has some papers with him, using the hedge “by any chance” and
suggesting some countries where he could have acquired them. The interpreter
translates the first question without a hedge and replaces the prompt with an
abrupt request to show the papers to the officer.
In Example 10 (interview 6, phase 2a) the officer – as always before starting any
phase of the hearing – thanks the applicant for the information provided and
kindly asks to provide the reasons for leaving Nigeria, telling the applicant to
proceed slowly so that the free recall phase, which is expected to follow, can be
translated sentence by sentence, for the sake of completeness. As we can see, this
concern for accuracy is transferred by the interpreter to the applicant. By
mentioning three times the officer as principal (Goffman 1981: 144) – “he said”–
the interpreter turns a kind invitation to produce a narrative into a rather blunt
directive question using a ‘Wh-’ form, which implicitly conveys a request to
refocus on something already mentioned (Keselman et al. 2008: 106). The
introductory expression of thanks is not rendered at all. After an interlocutory
acknowledgement by the applicant, who does not take the turn (“mh mh”), the
interpreter produces a request to “explain everything with detail”, which was
not expressed by the officer in these terms. The applicant still does not resolve
to speak (“is it me you waiting for?”). The translation of this turn prompts the
officer to produce another polite acknowledgement (“yes please”); and a
diversion to give the applicant some relief (“would you like me to close the

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window?”), but again the officer’s acknowledgement is not translated, and the
direct question becomes and indirect one.
As Aronson Fontes (2009: 141) highlights, an applicant in public service settings
is disempowered as s/he depends on the interviewer’s judgement to obtain the
best possible outcome from the interview. When an interpreter is involved, the
interviewee is even more disempowered, since interpreters in their renditions
make choices about editing, embellishing, emphasizing, downplaying statements
or even leave parts out (ibid.: 141) In our case the interpreter selects what to
leave out, changes the tone of what is said and even redirects to the applicant a
request addressed to her by the officer. Although politeness may be different in
different cultures, such changes can heavily impact the atmosphere and possibly
the outcome of a hearing.
6.6. Mediating cultures
In our dataset interpreters also acted as language mediators and this way
facilitated communication between officer and applicant. An instance of this
practice is shown in Example 11 below.
The example shows how the interpreter helped the applicant understand a
question about belonging to an ethnic group. The concept of ethnic group is
understood differently in Nigerian popular culture and refers to opposing
factions in a conflict, as the interpreter explained to the researcher after the
interview. The applicant therefore was not sure about how to answer, and the
interpreter intervened giving examples of what the officer meant by ethnic

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groups. After the interpreter’s examples, the applicant provided the answer.
Although the interpreter took the initiative without letting the officer explain
what he wanted to know, her initiative is justified by the need to convey not
only words but meanings and to clarify possible cultural differences when
interpreting.
7. Conclusions
From the analysis of our data some recurrent issues emerge. Interpreters’ roles
range from language and cultural mediator to co-officer. Whereas the first role,
if correctly enacted, helps communication and rapport building, the latter further
disempowers the applicant and projects the interpreter as a collaborator of the
authorities. In their language mediator role, the interpreters we observed often
used the third-person pronoun and indirect or reported speech. The latter were
mainly used to convey the officer’s turns, suggesting distancing and/or respect
for the authority, while at the same time also trying to maintain rapport with the
applicants – a conflicting attitude vs the co-officer role. Such conflicting verbal
behaviours are a source of role dissonance, and they also make it more difficult
for the other participants to place trust in the interpreter (Pöllabauer 2004).
Furthermore, it is the effect of interpreting upon the officer’s aims and strategies
that is most clearly demonstrated.
The officers who conducted the hearings and whom we interviewed are all
specially trained in RSD procedures, while the interpreters are not. They are
bilinguals who learned interpreting by doing but were not made aware of
communication mechanisms and the effects their verbal production may have on
the interaction – an aspect which is particularly important in asylum hearings.
On the other hand, one of the interpreters we interviewed complained about the
lack of teamwork with officers and her feeling of isolation.
Public calls for interpreting provision in asylum settings in Italy should place
more emphasis on training and qualification of interpreters. Interpreting in
asylum settings is a field of its own: it cannot simply be considered as PSI with
no distinction from a medical consultation or a meeting with a social worker.
Although it may be less distressing than working in the very middle of a
humanitarian emergency or close to/within a conflict area, it still involves a
heavy emotional burden and requires great sensitivity, not because of external
or other environmental factors but because of the status and life experiences of
the parties. On the one side, applicants only too often have a background of

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abuse, violence, or deprivation; on the other side, institutional representatives
have a totally different background, language and culture and are tasked to
decide about the fate of the former. For this simple reason, among others,
interpreting should be performed by qualified interpreters who have received
specialised training not only in terms of language, legal knowledge and
terminology, intercultural and communication skills, but also in terms of
interactional and discursive mechanisms and awareness of their possible roles
and respective boundaries. Following a code of conduct would also be beneficial
because “[w]ithin refugee contexts the consequences of unethical interpreting
can be extremely harmful for individuals who already have survived situations
of betrayal and disloyalty” (Crezee et al. 2011: 257). A joint inter-professional
training could certainly be beneficial to the fairness of RSD procedures in Italy.
Interpreters and officers could gain a better understanding of each other’s needs
and role boundaries and teamwork could be promoted. It may also be that, in
consultation with interpreters, an interviewing format could be devised which
takes into account the common effects of interpreting on interviewing techniques
and rapport building.
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