Abstract
This paper is an interim report of the research project to analyze the gaps between the original Japanese speeches in criminal trials and their English translations and try to find the way to narrow such discrepancies. The main focus is on nuances of typically Japanese expressions often used in trials.
For the above purpose, we used the promotion video “Hyogi (jurors deliberation)” created by the Supreme Court of Japan to select Japanese expressions which seemed to be difficult to translate into English. In mock trials we conducted, such expressions were interpreted into English by Japanese professional interpreters and their translation products were compared with the expressions that native speakers of English used in the same situations.
This paper focuses on imitative expressions, expressions of emotion and verbs with a special meaning and briefly describes tendencies of and differences between the English expressions by the above two groups.
