Q. And where was the money actually at (that) Q. (Well, where did the four hundred thousand [First parenthesis not heard on tape; second Q. Was any of the money in the family fund members who had come to (America)? [Indictment 18. I will begin my analysis of the grand jury testimony of Mr. Kamiyama with general comments. There are any number of mistranslations by the grand jury interpreter. Even if some of the mistranslations could be explained by the pressures of consecutive interpretation, the statements are nevertheless not an accurate rendition of what was said. categorized. 19. The types of errors the interpreter made may be References to the testimony are made to the charts attached hereto as Exhibit B, and described below in this declaration. Some references, marked "M.K.", are to the translations done by the court-appointed translator M. Kosaka which are Exhibit B to the Declaration of Anafu M. Kaiser in tnis matter. These 20. One type of error derives from the fact that the interpreter's speech contains expressions and constructions which are inappropriately casual for a legal proceeding. expressions and constructions give the impression of a relaxed, informal conversation rather than of a proceeding in which every word is to be examined for its significance. Some examples of inappropriate English usage are: a. Count 9: (M.K. p.3) use of "nitty-gritty." b. Count 12: (M.K. p. 29) lack of overt subject in English might have been." (R. Thrasher, "Shouldn't Ignore These Strings: A Study of Conversational Deletion" (University of Michigan Ph.D Dissertation, 1974.) 21. The grand jury interpreter's casual use of Japanese started with the administration of the oath to Mr. Kamiyama. The traditional legal oath ("Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?") has no very exact Japanese analogue. However the interpreter rendered it in very casual and tentative language, considering its importance and formality. A good translation of the words heard by Mr. Kamiyama in lieu of the oath would be "As for this case I think [indicated by the casual conversational marker desu ne] I would like to have you report the truth and only the truth." Some other examples of overly casual Japanese usage are (paras. 22-23): 22. Incomplete questions: (John Hinds, "Interrogatives in Japanese," in Interrogativity, eds. W. Chisholm and L. Milic (Dordreht: John Benjamin, 1982). Ellipsis in Japanese; J. Shibamoto, "Language Use and Linguistic Theory: Sex-Related Variation in Japanese Syntax" (University of California at Davis, Ph.D Dissertation, 1980) for statements which say this construction is a relaxed, conversational style.) 24. b. c. no family fund. Count 11: sono 40-mandoru, tsumitateru sunzen ni wa? Count 12 (M.K., p. 27): shi wa? The second type of error the interpreter made is that a of Japanese Language and Culture and their Implications for Language Teaching," in Japanese Linguistics and Language Teaching: Proceedings of the Second HATJ-UH Conference on Japanese Language and Linguistics, ed. John Hinds (University of Hawaii at Monoa, Honolulu Hawaii Association of Teachers of Japanese and Department of East Asian Language, 1977). Monane and Rogers additionally discuss two further parameters, the first being "existence focus," as in Japanese, as opposed to "possession focus, as in English. The third parameter is "indirect expression" versus "direct or specific expression." 12. In order to illustrate the distinction between situation focus and person focus, they ask us to reflect on what is done when one hears shouting. In English, the typical way of expressing this is to say "I just heard some shouting," in which the person-focus construction is required. That is, the subject "I" is required. In Japanese, on the other hand, the typical expression is sakebigoe ga shita yo, which may be translated as "The shouting occurred." Another example is what happens when one sees a mountain from the window of a train. Typically, English speakers say "I see a mountain," whereas in Japanese the expression is yama ga mieru, literally "the mountain can be seen." Their point is that English normally requires a person to be the subject of a sentence, whereas in Japanese, such requirements do not exist. It is enough simply to postulate the existence of a situation. 13. The second distinction they discuss is between existence focus in Japanese and possession focus in English. Their examples include the fact that in English we say "I have a fever." In Japanese, the corresponding expression is netsu ga aru, literally, "A fever exists." In English, we say "I have some money." In Japanese, the corresponding expression is okane ga aru, "Money exists." A final example: In English we say "He's got no education (possession focus), as opposed to Japanese, kyooyoo no nai hito da, "A person to whom education does not exist (existence focus). 14. Finally, they discuss indirect expression in Japanese and direct expression in English. In English, we say directly, "I think it is no good." In Japanese, the corresponding expression is yoku nai ja nai ka to omotte imasu, "I think perhaps it's not so bad." 15. The point behind all of these examples is that, added to the general problems of translation between any two languages, we have a specific problem with respect to Japanese. First there is the cultural desire reflected in the language to be vague and, second, there is the difficulty encoded in the language that requires one to focus on a situation rather than a person. together frequently lead to a lack of precision in the translation of one language to the other. This situation may be tolerated in casual conversation, but must be confronted and dealt with directly in a court of law where precision of statement is required. These 16. A careful examination of the testimony given by Mr. Kamiyama that was identified as false demonstrates enough ambiguity as a result of improper or misleading translation to raise a serious and substantial question about whether Mr. Kamiyama's answers were shown to be falsehoods. 17. In listening to the tapes of the grand jury testimony, I found many differences between what is reported to have been said and what was in fact said. Following are several quotations found in the indictment, which I have marked with corrections. Count 10 He never wrote anything other than his (own) Count 11 Q. And where did you get the money, that four Q. And where was the money actually at (that) Q. (Well, where did the four hundred thousand [First parenthesis not heard on tape; second Q. Was any of the money in the family fund members who had come to (America)? [Indictment 18. I will begin my analysis of the grand jury testimony of Mr. Kamiyama with general comments. There are any number of mistranslations by the grand jury interpreter. Even if some of the mistranslations could be explained by the pressures of consecutive interpretation, the statements are nevertheless not an accurate rendition of what was said. 19. The types of errors the interpreter made may be categorized. References to the testimony are made to the charts attached hereto as Exhibit B, and described below in this declaration. Some references, marked "M.K.", are to the translations done by the court-appointed translator M. Kosaka which are Exhibit B to the Declaration of Anafu M. Kaiser in this matter. These 20. One type of error derives from the fact that the interpreter's speech contains expressions and constructions which are inappropriately casual for a legal proceeding. expressions and constructions give the impression of a relaxed, informal conversation rather than of a proceeding in which every word is to be examined for its significance. Some examples of inappropriate English usage are: a. Count 9: (M.K. p.3) use of "nitty-gritty." |