Lucy Liu

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Associate Professor Supervisor of Master's Candidates

Academic Titles:Convenor of MTI Program

Other Post:Deputy Director of the Graduate Teaching/Research Department

Gender:Female

Alma Mater:UNSW Sydney

Personal Profile

I hold a PhD in Humanities and Languages from UNSW Sydney, with a research focus at the intersection of legal interpreting and pragmatics. My work investigates how meaning is negotiated in interpreter‑mediated courtroom interaction, examining the accuracy of court interpreting and the effectiveness of specialised legal interpreter training. Drawing on recorded and transcribed courtroom proceedings, I analyse how interpreters manage pragmatic phenomena—such as (im)politeness and facework—in Chinese–English settings, and explore how paralinguistic features, particularly intonation and prosody, shape speaker meaning. More broadly, my research demonstrates how language use in context affects the delivery of justice, with implications for due process and equitable access for linguistically diverse participants. In addition to legal contexts, I also examine other forms of interpreter‑mediated communication, including healthcare interpreting, with a particular interest in the interface between interpreting and pragmatics.

Monograph：

Liu, X. (2018). Talking like a Lawyer: Interpreting Cross-examination Questions into Chinese (律师问话口译研究). Changchun: Jilin University Press.

Coursebook：

Zhang, J.W., Chen, H.J., Liu, X., Qiu, J., Cao, J.X., Sun, C.Z.(2024). A Practical Coursebook for Interpreters and Translators of Foreign Affairs (外事翻译实务). Dalian: Dalian University of Technology Press.

Cao S., Liu, W. Y., Qiu, J., Ma, L., Liu, X., et al. (2026) Comprehensive Academic English for Postgraduate Studies (研究生学术英语综合教程). The Commercial Press.

Journal articles and book chapters：

Liu, X., & Wang, C. (2023). How Does Interpreter’s Intonation Affect the Pragmatics of Courtroom Questions? A Case Study of Chinese-English Court Interpreting. In J. Zhao, D. Li, & V. L. C. Lei (Eds.), New Advances in Legal Translation and Interpreting (pp. 137-162). Singapore: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-981-19-9422-7_8

Liu, X. (2020). Pragmalinguistic challenges for trainee interpreters in achieving accuracy: An analysis of questions and their translation in five cross-examinations. Interpreting, 22(1), 87-116.

Stern, L., & Liu, X. (2020). Interpreting Studies. In S. Laviosa & M. González Davies (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Education (pp. 226-244). Oxfordshire: Routledge.

Stern, L., & Liu, X. (2019). Ensuring interpreting quality in legal and courtroom settings: Australian Language Service Providers' perspectives on their role. The Journal of Specialised Translation(32), 90-120.

Stern, L., & Liu, X. (2019). See you in court: How do Australian institutions train legal interpreters? The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 13(4), 361-389. doi:10.1080/1750399X.2019.1611012

Liu, X., & Hale, S. (2018). Achieving accuracy in a bilingual courtroom: The effectiveness of specialised legal interpreter training. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 12(3), 299-321. doi:/10.1080/1750399X.2018.1501649

Liu, X., & Hale, S. (2017). Facework strategies in interpreter-mediated cross-examinations: A corpus-assisted approach. The Interpreters' Newsletter: On Corpus-based Dialogue Interpreting Studies(22), 57-77. doi:10.13137/2421-714X/20738

Selected conference presentations：

Liu, X. (2019). How does interpreter's intonation affect courtroom pragmatics? A case study of Chinese-English court interpreting. Paper presented at the Critical Link International Tokyo.

Liu, X. (2019). 语调理论视域下的庭审疑问句翻译——基于涉外庭审的案例研究. Paper presented at the 第十六届全国语用学研讨会暨第十届中国逻辑学会语用学专业委员会年会, 南昌.

Liu, X. (2017). What makes it challenging to interpret cross-examination questions? A pragmalinguistic perspective. Paper presented at the 13th Biennial Conference on Forensic Linguistics, Porto.

Liu, X. (2017). How does specialised legal interpreter training affect interpreting accuracy? A quasi-experimental approach. Paper presented at the First International Conference on Legal and Healthcare Interpreting, Hong Kong.
Liu, X. (2017). Interpreting cross-examination questions in an adversarial courtroom: A pragmalinguistic perspective. Paper presented at the 第十五届全国语用学研讨会暨第九届中国逻辑学会语用学专业委员会年会, 北京.

Liu, X. (2015). Face threatening acts in an interpreter-mediated courtroom. Paper presented at the 12th Biennial Conference on Forensic Linguistics, Guangzhou.

Award：

DUT Excellent Teaching Award, Dalian University of Technology, 2023.

First Prize, Liaoning Translators Association Annual Conference Outstanding Academic Achievement Award, 2020, 2023.

First prize, Liaoning Provincial Final of the 10th National Foreign Language Teaching Contest, 2019.