TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 6

Part Managerial_Reports

Subsection 5

The value of interpreting at the hearings

22. The Commission’s hearings yielded an extensive word harvest, probably even more extensive than that of the Nuremberg trials. If it is taken into consideration that a simultaneous interpreter produces on average between 14 000 and 20 000 words a day in a meeting lasting six to seven hours, and that this production can be converted into fifty-six to ninety typed pages, the Commission’s hearings have resulted in extensive word production. Since the commencement of the hearings of the Commission in April 1996, altogether 57 008 hours of hearings have been interpreted. Converted into days, this already amounts to approximately 7126 hearing interpreting days, which have yielded an interpreting volume of nearly a billion words, which can, in turn, be converted to in the region of 11 million or more typed pages!

23. The duration of interpreted procedures is normally multiplied between two to three times per interpreted language if one is using the current judicial consecutive interpreting system. It has been estimated that, had the Commission opted for consecutive interpretation, the hearings would have continued into the year 2020. Thus what may seem to some as an apparently ‘unnecessary’ extravagance of spending financial resources on language (interpreting) reduced the total operating time of the Commission by more than five times. The contribution of the Commission to the interpreting industry in South Africa should not be underestimated. The extensiveness and continuous interpreting service required by the Commission, especially to previously disadvantaged communities, meant that interpreters had to be trained and employed simultaneously. The fact that different African languages were used so consistently and on such a scale, and that people were given the opportunity to tell their stories in their own language at such a highly regarded forum, was indeed an empowering experience.

24. While the vocabulary at HRV hearings was of a more general nature, amnesty hearings took place within a rather strict legal context. Here the interpreter had to have a firm grasp of legal jargon. Lacking the appropriate terminology, interpreters of African languages found the amnesty hearings and the section 29 hearings m o re difficult.

25. Among the variables involved at hearings of the Commission were the differences in narrative technique from victim to victim, language differences (metaphorically and idiomatically), and tempo and volume of speech.

26. Interpreting at the Commission was no easy task. Many of the freelance interpreters have commented that interpreting as such is not difficult. What made it difficult was the emotional component.

27. The ULFE’s team of interpreters covered practically all possible language combinations of the eleven official languages. The statistics on the language combinations for the hearings yielded some interesting facts. (See Table 3 below.)

28. An Afrikaans service was provided at 70 per cent of the hearings. Of the African language services, the Xhosa, Zulu and Sotho services were used the most (respectively 31%, 35% and 46%).