Language researchers have demonstrated, during the past twenty years, how asylum procedures crucially rely on language phenomenon in the credibility assessment that is at the core of the decision-making process. Asylum seekers' narratives circulate within the institution by means of entextualization and recontextualization processes (Jacquemet, 2009) and, in most cases, translation.
As numerous works within Interpreting studies have shown, interpreters have a crucial interactional role of dialogic coordination (Wadensjö, 1998). Interpreting in asylum settings has even progressively become a sub-field of interpreting studies (Pöllabauer, 2015).
Still, in France, the role of interpreters during institutional encounters at the OFPRA (Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides) and the CNDA (Cour Nationale du Droit d'Asile) has been barely analyzed. If language interpreting issues have been tackled in various settings involving exiles and asylum seekers, like healthcare (Ticca & Traverso, 2015) or informal camps (Galitzine-Loumpet & Saglio-Yatzimirsky, 2019), they are still neglected as far as institutional are concerned, with only recent and rare exceptions (Gibb, 2019; Pian, 2020).
This is why, considering that "it is our responsibility as language researchers to make the effort to critically analyze and improve the linguistic conditions for refugee status determination" (Maryns & Jacobs, 2021), I will present insights of my doctoral research, which combines ethnographic and sociohistorical approaches. Based on the exploration of the administrative archives, the latter shows the emergence of interpreting activity in the wake of the "neoliberal turn" of the administration of asylum in France (Akoka, 2020). The ethnography of institutional encounters and of the activities of a major interpreting services provider (an association which co-funds my doctoral research) will be presented.
I will thus try to show how, despite methodological obstacles due to the great confidentiality of such a power-saturated environment as the asylum institutions, interpreters have a real agency through language and how, therefore, they have a complex yet central role in the adjudication of asylum.
References
Akoka, K. (2020). L'asile et l'exil : Une histoire de la distinction réfugiés/migrants. La Découverte.
Galitzine-Loumpet, A., & Saglio-Yatzimirsky, M.-C. (2019). Enjeux de langues et conjonctures en situation migratoire. In Traduction et migration : Enjeux éthiques et techniques. Presses de l'Inalco.
Gibb, R. (2019). Communicative Practices and Contexts of Interaction in the Refugee Status Determination Process in France. In N. Gill & A. Good (Éds.), Asylum Determination in Europe : Ethnographic Perspectives (p. 155‑174). Springer International Publishing.
Jacquemet, M. (2009). Transcribing refugees : The entextualization of asylum seekers' hearings in a transidiomatic environment. Text and Talk, 29(5), 525‑546.
Maryns, K., & Jacobs, M. (2021). Data constitution and engagement with the field of asylum and migration. Journal of Pragmatics, 178, 146‑158.
Pian, A. (2020). L'interprétariat à la Cour nationale du droit d'asile. Terrains & travaux, 36/37(1), 137‑158.
Pöllabauer, S. (2015). Interpreting in asylum proceedings. In The Routledge handbook of interpreting (p. 202‑217).
Ticca, A. C., & Traverso, V. (2015). Interprétation, traduction orale et formes de médiation dans les situations sociales Introduction. Langage et societe, N° 153(3), 7‑30.
Wadensjö, C. (1998). Interpreting as interaction. Routledge.
