TO A MULTILINGUAL VOCABULARY ON JUDGMENTS RENDERED IN CASES OF INTERNATIONAL DRUG TRAFFICKING

Abstract

The right to speak one's own language, regardless of its foreign or national status, and the right to understand and to be understood (which involves respecting an individual's language preference) are part of the linguistic rights, inseparable from the right to translation. Each and every person must be guaranteed the right to know the contents of their judicial proceeding; such right will be exercised either if they understand the language or if they are assisted by a forensic interpreter. Regarding linguistic rights, forensic translation is, sometimes, the only way to protect a foreign defendant in Brazil against prosecution without due process of law. By developing a Multilingual Vocabulary on Judgments Rendered in Cases of International Drug Trafficking (VMSTID in Brazilian Portuguese), this study aims to offer interpreters professional support and to contribute to their job-related training. Therefore, this article examines the first results of this theoretical study, and its methodology, to develop a VMSTID and to identify the features of our corpus (judgments rendered in cases of International Drug Trafficking), as well as to carry out a discourse analysis of written trials.