Giving it away

by Jonathan Downie

Translators and interpreters know all about being passionate. Most of us arrived in this industry because we were passionate about helping people communicate. Many of us also carry a passion for the industry itself. We get into debates over conditions, working practices and clients. In two words: we care.

This “care” can and does translate into action. Translators and interpreters willingly donate their time, skills and money to helping charitable causes the world over. From refugees in the UK to Ebola patients in West Africa, there is hardly a crisis or cause that doesn’t need information to be passed from one language to another.

Until fairly recently, the idea that translators and interpreters can and should lend a hand went unchallenged an unqualified. As long as the goal was non-commercial and the cause seemed legitimate, there was little discussion as to where the work might end up. Pro bono translators and interpreters took it on trust that they were doing their bit.

All that has now changed. In discussions that have raged across blogs and forums, professionals have started asking big, hard and sometimes borderline aggressive questions about pro bono work. Clearing houses for such work, such as Translators Without Borders, now seem to be the subject of suspicion in some quarters. Increasingly, there is a desire to know who exactly benefits from the work, whether paying for the work might be a better option and to what extent local professionals might be losing out because of it.

These are good and useful questions. There are very good arguments for transparency and accountability that apply across all pro bono and charitable work. Yet, it is undeniable that, since we have the resources to ask such questions, our perspectives are skewed. I doubt very much whether a refugee cares too much about the remuneration of the interpreter who works with them. For them, a listening ear, a truthful representation of their views and a chance to understand and be understood trump any economic debates.

There is no doubt that we need to be transparent about how and when and why the efforts and resources of volunteers are used. In a current fundraiser I am involved with, which aims to raise money for anti-people trafficking charity the A21 Campaign by selling multilingual t-shirts, everything about the campaign from the people involved to the precise donation per t-shirt is online. The problem with this, of course, is that the more that is online, the more decisions are open to criticism.

A similar dynamic can be at work among new entrants to translation and interpreting who list all their volunteer work on their CV. While there are very good reasons for doing this, it is not unthinkable that certain clients may take exception to the precise causes chosen. Some electronics manufacturers might take a dim view of work for civil liberties or pro-privacy groups. Other potential clients might feel uneasy at evidence of campaigning for certain causes. While new translators and interpreters have always been advised to keep politics off their CVs, pro bono work can help it resurface.

Perhaps the solution is to be a bit more realistic. Pro bono work will always be important, both for those who donate their time and those whose lives are changed by it. The necessary transparency that goes with it, however, will always open up the opportunity for criticism. But then, as Andrew Morris points out, standing out and being different has always been a better business strategy than following the crowd and making no waves at all. Maybe the emphasis should be on the opportunities that pro bono work can bring and the lives it can change, over the people who might disagree with our decision to do it.

Interpreting Needs Troublemakers

Author: Jonathan Downie

I was in London on Saturday for a meeting and I got chatting to some fellow interpreters about the ways that research is challenging how we think about and practise interpreting. Here in LINCS, for example, Robyn Dean is arguing for us to fundamentally shift how we think about ethics, Penny Karanasiou is asking tough questions about the role(s) of interpreters in business negotiations and I am beginning to think that experienced clients might have more helpful views of our work than we do!

All this spells trouble. Doing research like this means threatening some of the most cherished ideas of our profession. Who doesn’t like to coddle the comforting thought that we know better than our clients about, well, everything? If you start talking too openly about problems with mainstream interpreting ethics, you remove one of the few firm foundations in our profession. And as for discussing whether interpreters can do more than “just interpret”, it’s probably safer to just leave that well alone!

But the thing is, all the good researchers I know are very bad are just leaving things alone. Safe is not a word we tend to like. In fact, I was accused of enjoying stirring things up on Saturday. Me? As if!

All joking aside, I do really think that challenging preconceived ideas is exactly what our profession needs. If we discover flaws in our practice or training or in the way we sell our work then of course, it must be confronted. This is where research is at its best. When researchers get their hands dirty and ask difficult questions, sparks begin to fly.

Take Robyn’s work in interpreter training. Rather than just sit back and criticise, she actively trains interpreters to apply the case conferencing techniques used by doctors. I know of many other researchers who do groundbreaking research and then take the brave step of presenting it to professionals so they can apply it.

If interpreting is to thrive in today’s high-tech, always-on world, we need to be able to adjust. This doesn’t just mean adopting some new technology or learning to be fashionable. It means asking the though questions about what we need to change in our practice to meet our clients’ real needs and growing expectations.

Is it scary? Yes! Is it necessary? You bet. But that’s why I do research: to do work that can benefit the wider world. Maybe it’s time we all did the same.

Vow of Silence: One week later

(After a week of self-imposed silence, acknowledging the British Deaf Association’s Sign Language week, Professor Graham Turner reflects on a week in a signing world.)

I don’t remember ever being described as ‘Christ-like’ before.

There was a considered and thoughtful explanation. But the starting-point for the person’s comment was a reference to the ‘sacrifice’ that I was making by choosing not to speak for a week.

Which, of course – if you think about it for just a moment – leads inevitably to reflecting on what British Sign Language users experience every day in their encounters with the hearing world. It’s obvious that if I’m ‘making a sacrifice’ by not using speech, it’s considered desirable to speak.

What happens if you don’t?

Well, here’s what happened to me. It’s a kind of insight into what Deaf people routinely face.

People immediately started treating me as if I were invisible. Their logic was, if he can’t speak, then he can’t hear, so he’s irrelevant. Implication? Ouch.

I couldn’t do the everyday things hearing people do just to show that they’re friendly and human. Getting off the bus, I couldn’t thank the driver. When a delivery arrived, I couldn’t pass the time of day with the courier. These things don’t seem to change the world – but they do. There is such a thing as a society. It’s built on these little moments.

At work, too, it’s amazing how much of the important stuff happens in the corridors and the staff kitchen. That quiet word in the Head of Department’s ear. That useful nudge about a forthcoming conference. The deadline for a research funding opportunity.

I published research referring to this very topic over a decade ago.  It was still salutary to get a direct sense of its impact.

I had to rely on colleagues’ good-will to interpret for me once or twice. They knew the score and didn’t mind. But supposing this happened every week? What would that do for our relationship – if I were making frequent withdrawals from their bank of generosity? How quickly would they start seeing me as needy and irritating?

Even with little snippets of interpreting, it helped to take a moment to brief the interpreter-colleague on what I was trying to convey. Over the course of a week, those ‘moments’ added up. If I’d had hour-long lectures to deliver, that preparation time would have increased hugely. Where would I have found the time for this, whilst keeping all the other plates spinning?

In meetings, I tried writing notes for others to read out on my behalf. With my comments in front of them, and me listening, even people I knew still sometimes revised my words. With the best will in the world, my input was being distorted.

Sometimes, I couldn’t get my comments in before the meeting agenda had moved on. So I had a choice. Swallow my contribution and look like the guy who has nothing useful to offer? Or annoy everyone by bringing them back to an issue they’d finished with just to hear what I had to say?

My Deaf colleagues are able to pay for interpreters when required (with funding from the Access to Work scheme). It has transformed the workplace for many BSL users. Hearing signers can’t opt into the scheme. I’d love to maintain my ‘vow of silence’ indefinitely. Without the resource to be interpreted when necessary, it just wouldn’t be possible.

But for Deaf people, this funding – always tightly rationed – is being reduced and new demands imposed by the Department for Work & Pensions. The repercussions are catastrophic. An Early Day Motion has been created seeking a re-think.

Especially after this week, I’d urge anyone to write to their MP and ask for their signature on the Motion. It matters.

I was also reminded that the current qualification system for BSL (levels 1-6) doesn’t push signing skills to the very highest levels of fluency! Knives and forks were definitely not invented by signers. But Deaf people become adept at maintaining signed conversation despite such obstacles. That’s level 7 signing.

Driving a car means that both your hands AND your eyes are otherwise occupied. So Deaf cars lack chat? Not a bit of it. Level 8.

So I’ve made it to Friday. What have I learned? Mostly, what a lot I still have to learn.

I’m profoundly hearing, and I always will be. I can’t inhabit a Deaf person’s life, no matter what. But this week has made me reflect, and see some of these things from a different angle.

How about you?

I’m confident any hearing person would learn from the experience. Don’t do it for my sake. Do it for the person who wrote to me midweek: “I am the mother of three kids, two hearing and one Deaf. Thank you. Your vow of silence means a lot to me.”

And please tell others about it. Tell us by replying to this blog. And watch this space for our plans to make further progress on the issues.

Thanks for listening.

Author: Graham Turner

 

Vow of Silence: Day 4

Having committed to a week of silence to demonstrate solidarity with the UK’s Deaf sign language users, Professor Graham Turner has made it to Thursday without a squeak. Will everyone else’s luck run out before the weekend?

Imagine you’re completely blind. Can you do that? It’s not too difficult: you start by closing your eyes…

Now imagine you’re stone deaf. Not just a wee bit fuzzy round the edges, like your granddad or when you come out of a loud gig. Deaf as a post.

You can’t, can you? We don’t have ear-lids. You can’t switch your hearing off, no matter how hard you try.

This is at the root of the hearing world’s inability to comprehend what Deaf people are on about. Three key things follow from being Deaf.

One, everything the hearing world takes for granted about receive incoming information from the world through hearing, doesn’t apply. I’m on a train. The tannoy says the café closes in five minutes. If I’m Deaf, it could be a long, stomach-rumbling journey to Edinburgh.

Two, fortunately, the eye is a fantastic device. Persuasive evidence shows that Deaf people’s eyes are sharper and wired more responsively to their brains than hearing people’s. The way Deaf people do ‘being alive’ is re-jigged from top to bottom to exploit their different biological make-up.

Notice: not ‘deficient’ – just DIFFERENT.

Three, the kind of language that perfectly suits the bodies of Deaf people is signed language. British Sign Language has evolved naturally over centuries to match Deaf capabilities. Just as spoken languages work for the hearing, signing is perfectly designed to exploit the visual nature of Deaf people.

My ‘vow of silence’ hasn’t turned me into a Deaf person. If I had a heart attack right now, I can confidently predict that I wouldn’t wait for an interpreter to show up before communicating with the paramedics. I’d speak. (And I can’t NOT know that the café has now closed. Fear not: I brought my own biscuits.)

But as I can sign, and I’ve taken the time to learn from Deaf people what their experiences are like, I can get that much closer than most to seeing the world from a Deaf perspective. Our languages powerfully influence the way we think. Language both shapes and reflects our identities. I’m not Deaf, but – bearing in mind that it’s taken me over 25 years to develop my understanding – I do begin to ‘get’ what it means to be Deaf.

What about that heart attack scenario I just envisaged, though? The hearing world has often treated Deaf people as being in need of medical treatment. The urge to ‘fix’ those different ears runs deep… Deaf people say – SHOUT – “Leave us alone! We’re perfectly OK! We don’t need to be cured!”

But when a Deaf person suffers a heart attack, the real nightmares begin. The British Deaf Association’s discussion paper, launched yesterday, reports again  on the life-threatening barriers BSL users face when they actually do need healthcare.

However, it being the 21st century, new ways are being found to bridge this communication gap with Deaf people. In Scotland, NHS24 has piloted the use of video technology to bring ‘remote interpreters’ into the frame. It can work, but of course it depends upon a supply of competent interpreters.

They’ve thought of that, too.

In a UK ‘first’, NHS24 is seconding a group of its staff to Heriot-Watt University’s BSL interpreting degree. That’s a commendable commitment on the part of the service. Investing in four years’ full-time training per student underscores a really serious response to the problem.

And it shows that they know it’s THEIR responsibility to make healthcare properly accessible to BSL users.

That perfectly illustrates what we need to see across the board. Public services – health, education, social services, the legal system – facing their lawful obligation to ENSURE their own accessibility.

Not just by hoping for the best, but by nurturing skilled professional interpreters. And, when it makes sense to use limited resources in this way, to provide frontline practitioners who can sign, fluently and directly, with Deaf citizens.

It’s not a pipedream. It’s a perfectly achievable goal, as other countries have already shown. It just means paying attention to informed advice, especially from the BDA, which represents BSL users nationwide. And then, when you say you will treat Deaf people fairly, it means putting your money where your mouth is.

Now that’s what I call using your imagination.

Author: Graham Turner

Vow of Silence: Day 3

In solidarity with British Sign Language users in the UK, Professor Graham Turner is subject to a self-imposed vow of silence. Can he remain speechless and last for an entire week in BSL? What will he learn from the experience?

Living in Edinburgh, I can barely step out of my front door before someone’s playing the bagpipes at me.

As a matter of fact, I love it. What other country is associated with such a distinctive, pervasive symbol of identity? Ever been to Edinburgh’s Military Tattoo? Once in your life, you should. I may not be a Scot, but up on the battlements, silhouetted against the stars, the piper sends those skirling notes up to the heavens…

Not much use if you’re Deaf, of course.

So is a cultural heritage something you only get if you’re hearing, then?

Do me a favour. Not a bit of it.

The pipes may be great – but YOU HAVEN’T LIVED until you’ve experienced signed art. Had your heart squeezed by signed stories. Washed your eyeballs in tears of laughter at signed comedy. Seen the past re-kindled and the future set ablaze in signed drama.

Oh sorry, I keep forgetting. You ignored sign language until just lately because you thought it wasn’t really as good as speech, didn’t you? Trust me – and I say this as one who’s forgotten more than he cares to remember of the French, Greek, Latin and Swedish he studied in days of yore – you have been mightily misled.

British Sign Language was named – in Edinburgh: where else? – back in the mid-70s by the late, great and much-missed sign linguist, Dr Mary Brennan. The British Deaf Association backed the BSL Training Agency a decade later as it encouraged Deaf people to become professional BSL teachers and pass on their expert knowledge to others – and thousand upon thousand hearing people have opened their minds to BSL since. And it was the BDA again that published its doorstoppingly substantial and globally groundbreaking bilingual BSL-English dictionary in 1992.

So there’s no doubt whatsoever of the linguistic status of BSL. Not only is it a language: it’s a language that can blow your mind.

Unlike users of any spoken language ever discovered, signers can produce more than one word at a time – what did you think you had two hands for? And BSL isn’t just about what the hands do. It’s a full-body experience. Facial expression and bodily action are also exploited as integral features of the grammar. Signed languages are spectacularly creative, constantly playing with words and drenching every expression in a cascade of meaning and nuance.

The signed universe is an astonishing, achingly poetic place to live.

As it happens, Edinburgh is one of the most happening places in the BSL firmament right now. Part of that energy is coming from Heriot-Watt University, where a dozen sign language specialists, from as far afield as the USA and China, passionate and fizzing with ideas, are assembling research evidence  and educating the next generation of UK and global interpreters.

But Edinburgh is also a place to enjoy the cultural depth of the Deaf community, and to experience the rich heritage embodied in BSL. Just last weekend, you could have been at the Storytelling Centre on the Royal Mile at the latest Visual Virus show. Three Deaf exponents of the most vivid BSL, and not a sound to be heard all evening except for the cultural heartbeat of the Deaf nation – and that noise people make when they laugh their socks off.

In fact, Scotland stands on the verge of transforming the BSL landscape. With all-party support, Mark Griffin MSP  intends to put a BSL bill before the Scottish Parliament later this year. It will focus minds and energies on securing the future of this language community, and on safeguarding its linguistic human rights.

As yesterday’s BDA BSL Symposium in London clearly showed, the rest of the UK is paying close attention to progress at Holyrood. Deaf people, just like others, are entitled to enjoy our uniquely visual cultural heritage. Our children – including those born to hearing parents – are entitled to share that extraordinary linguistic inheritance.

And, if you only have eyes to see, you’re more than welcome to come in. Just enter through the doorway marked ‘BSL’ and find out for yourself. The future signs.

Author: Graham Turner

Vow of Silence: Day 2

Surgery performed on Deaf people without their consent. Signers unemployed or under-employed, their talents wasted. Shockingly frequent mental health problems as Deaf people struggle to live within a hostile social system. Deaf children in classrooms where they can’t understand the language of instruction. Police, prisons, banks, Inland Revenue – an endless list of institutions not bothering to make sure they are communicating effectively with British Sign Language users.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

In a publication some years ago (alluding to a comparison with the struggle for racial equality), I described this picture as ‘institutional audism’. These things don’t happen because individual non-signing hearing people want Deaf people to suffer. They happen because the social world we inhabit is designed to suit hearing people.

So how could things be changed? Today, the British Deaf Association launches a report www.bda.org.uk pressing to enhance the legal status of BSL (and, because it’s used in parts of the UK, Irish Sign Language). Drawing on extensive research, and sources including the range of international Deaf and hearing students on Heriot-Watt University’s programmes (eg www.eumasli.eu),  I’ve been a member of the task group assembling this discussion document over several months. What alternatives does it offer?

  • Portugal, Uganda and Venezuela have recognised their signed languages within their constitutions.
  • Pro-sign acts of parliament have been passed in Brazil, Poland and Slovakia.
  • Robust official recognition has reached Estonia, Iceland, Latvia and New Zealand.
  • Austria, Finland and Hungary exemplify best practice by meeting the requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

And Westminster’s response? ‘We already have adequate legislation’.

Oh really? If you’ve got it covered, how come people wait for days in hospital before anyone thinks to book an interpreter? How come child after child is struggling to follow their lessons because no decent support staff can be found?

And how come no-one who knows the first thing about the linguistic richness and complexity of BSL gets to talk to parents before they’re expected to offer up their children – when they’re just a few months old – for expensive, invasive cochlear implant surgery (initiating years of speech training and neglect of their prime time to learn to sign)?

Why aren’t you ensuring that those children get to know Deaf adults who will inspire them with the confidence that a Deaf life is a good life?

It’s not as if BSL users have failed to tell you what you’re missing. We want the right to live secure, culturally Deaf lives, and to pass on this heritage to deaf children – even those born into hearing families. We want ‘equal access’ to mean what it says: nothing more, nothing less. And we want you to take seriously your obligations to us as citizens, always.

The National Union of the Deaf told you in the 1970s that your approach amounted to linguistic genocide. The BDA issued a manifesto in the 1980s, articulating the case for BSL as Britain’s fourth indigenous language. The Federation of Deaf People marched in protest through the UK’s major cities at the turn of the millennium. Here we come again. We’re not going quietly.

Why so frightened to learn from those who obviously understand best what it means to be Deaf?

Author: Graham Turner

Prof’s Vow of Silence

It’s going to be a quiet week in my office. This week is the British Deaf Association’s ‘Sign Language Week’ (http://www.bda.org.uk/). My contribution? I’m going to shut up.

So if, when you see me this week, you cheerily wish me good morning and hear not a sound in reply, it’s not (just) because I’m a Grumpy Old Man. It’s because I’ve taken a Vow of Silence for the week. What’s the point?

The point is to express solidarity with the Deaf British Sign Language community across the UK. The point is to say we have had it up to HERE with your disrespect for our language, your neglect of our children’s rights, and your unwillingness to listen when we tell you your policies are not working.

So I’m going to sign this week. And, yes, for the first time ever, despite being a hearing person, I’m going to use the words ‘WE’ and ‘OUR’. Not because I’ve vowed to spend one week signing. Because I’ve spent over 25 years working with BSL users, and I have learned to feel utterly ashamed of the never-ending ignorance and arrogance of the hearing majority.

Generation after generation of Deaf people have asked for change. Generation after generation of hearing people in authority – in government, in education, in the health system – have claimed to know better than Deaf people do what is good for them.

They don’t.

And it’s time they showed some humility and LISTENED UP.

Today, hundreds of Deaf people will be attending a mass lobby (http://www.bda.org.uk/Events/125) of MPs in Westminster. They will highlight three things: 1) the right for interpreters in healthcare settings; 2) the failure of government programmes to improve Deaf people’s access to work; 3) the need for language and communication support in everyday life as guaranteed by the Equality Act 2010.

So I’m counting myself as a member of the BSL community because, over a quarter-century, I’ve begun to see stuff from the community’s perspective.

I’ve learned about what it means to deaf children to be denied access to the only language that has evolved over centuries to suit a visual person’s outlook.

I’ve learned about the frustrations of the hearing parents who dearly wish to communicate with their deaf children, but are misguidedly advised that this would be harmful.

I’ve learned about how it feels to be stuck in an A&E ward, a school classroom, a police station, a job interview – without an interpreter who can enable you to understand me.

I can’t tell you how my blood boils to think about all of these outrages.

But I’ll sign it to you. Are you listening?

Author: Graham Turner

Bouncing Ball Research

Is research more like a vase or a bouncing ball?

Vases are pretty. They are wonderfully ornamental and can even inspire poetry. What they do not do, however, is leave a mark. They look good and are to be admired but that’s it.

Vase-style research is similar. It is admirable, excellent and might even inspire some other work. But, outside of the world of academia, vase-style research will leave no trace. Vase-style research represents all those papers that never make it out of the library and into the commercial, industrial or political world.

There is nothing inherently wrong with research like that. There are many good reasons why we need to papers that no one outside of a particular field of study will read. Sometimes research that behaves a lot like an ornamental vase can be the starting point for research that changes policy or impacts communities.

Still, vase-style research represents a way of seeing the research process. Vase-style research can grow out of a desire for researchers to retain absolute control over what happens to their work. In this view, we choose the research topic, we choose the method and we choose the journal. No one else, except for funders and journal editors, has any say over that process. It’s our research and we will decide what happens.

There is, of course, another kind of research. Bouncing ball research can happen when research suddenly seems to take on a life of its own and has effects far beyond what the researchers could have imagined. It’s the kind of work that involves communities from the beginning or looks to inform policy. It’s the kind of work that aims, from the very beginning, to make a measurable, obvious impact in society.

Yet, here is the problem. Work that does all these things often does so in ways that the original researchers could not have imagined. Take the old debate about whether interpreters should interpret out of their native languages. It’s an old favourite of Interpreting Studies debates that has now been picked up and debated on an interpreting blog. The control of the debate has now passed out of the hands of researchers and into the hands of the profession. And this is a good thing!

It is scientifically impossible to bounce a ball you are still holding. If you want a ball to make an impact, you have to let it leave your hand. Perhaps the same is true in research. Perhaps research can make its greatest impact when results and discussion are available for discussion in public arenas. Perhaps research has the greatest chance of making an impact when someone else, someone outside of academia sees it and decides to talk about it.

Again, bouncing ball research is not necessarily “better” or “more important” than vase-like research; it just behaves differently. One sits and expects readers to find it; the other actively goes in search of readers. One focusses on what other academics will think; the other gives weight to the views of people outside of academia too.

So what kind of research do you want to see?

Author: Jonathan Downie

How Open is Research?

Back in May last year, I wrote the following words in a column in the ITI Bulletin, “Researchers could discover a way to double efficiency, win new clients and increase translators’ status but, unless those at the sharp end of the profession take an interest, none of this would ever filter down to practice.” Since then, I have had the privilege of taking part in print, online and face-to-face discussions over that very point but the facts have not changed much at all.

As Mike Gulliver points out, the problem goes far deeper than telling people what is out there. Academic publishing, imbalances in power, and even promotion requirements all tip the balance away from people outside of academia being able to have meaningful access to research.

The problem goes much deeper than even that. One of the things that has surprised me the most when writing for language professionals about research is how much work it takes to rewrite, rethink and even resell existing research to make it “accessible”. Taking the abstract of a paper and throwing it onto a professional forum just isn’t enough. In fact, it might even be counter-productive.

If researchers are really committed to opening up research to wider communities, we need to spend a lot of time examining how those communities speak, what values their members hold and what the key debates are. This taps into the fascinating discussion that took place on LifeinLINCS on Deaf-Hearing involvement in research. One of the main points to come out of that was that, for as long as the system is implicitly biased away from Deaf involvement, the onus is on the Hearing academics to open the doors.

Doubtless, much the same argument could be made for translation and interpreting. True, the number of professional translators and interpreters involved in research is far, far higher than the number of Deaf people. Still, it would be naïve to think that, since language professionals can read the language a piece of reading is written in, they can automatically engage with it.

Quite simply, they can’t! For a typical professional to get access to research on, say, ethics, they would most likely have to learn the academic terminology (for things they do every day!), figure out how to get meaningful results from google scholar, subscribe to a journal, hunt down authors, decode mountains of academese and then understand how methods and results affect each other. It’s little wonder that results take so long to filter down, if they do at all!

Academia isn’t exactly outsider-friendly. Of course, co-operative projects like this one, this one and this one will certainly help. When academics and professionals work together, there is added impetus for outcomes to be accessible and open to engagement.

In these days of impact statements and (horror!) required public engagement, co-operation is a good start but more profound shifts might be necessary. Might it be possible, in the near future, for journal articles to be written in language that is academically rigourous and yet still accessible to the wider public? Might there be a case for articles in professional journals, public fora, and even good blogs to count as research publications? Could academics in Translation Studies be brave enough to use the work of language professionals as the starting point of their research?

The issues around research engagement will not go away and resolving them will involve much more than just writing the odd article or doing a workshop. In fact, it seems that research in Translation and Interpreting might need to undergo a massive shift if long-term engagement is to be accomplished.  So where do we go from here?

Research and Professional Translators and Interpreters: An odd couple?

If research is so great ... why doesn't everyone know about it?That is a question I asked at the recent BAAL conference. Without fail, all the researchers here in LINCS, from the newest PhD student to the most experienced professor feel that research is not only interesting but useful too. We have seen projects on lifting standards in police interpreting, improving public service interpreting training, ethics and user expectations. These projects have all aimed not just to look at what is going on in “real-world” translation or interpreting but to point the way towards change.

Yet the sad fact is that, even if researchers were to discover a way to revolutionise the industry overnight and triple the pay of translators and interpreters, their work is likely to fall on deaf ears. With a few exceptions, few translation and interpreting professionals will wake up with a great urge to read research journals or comb over a book of conference abstracts. Like it or not, most research is carried out by researchers, read by researchers and applied by researchers.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Many of the projects going on in LINCS today and even some that are now completed have taken place in partnership with non-academics. These might be police officers, interpreting users or even interpreters themselves. From the outset then, these projects have involved professionals in work that interests them, includes them and hopefully can have a positive effect on them.

But much more needs to be done. Only a few weeks ago, this blog hosted a lively discussion on why deaf people often don’t get involved with research on deafness or sign language. Now it is time to throw the net out in another direction. If you are a professional translator or interpreter, what are the major barriers that put you off getting involved in research or even reading it? What topics do you wish research covered? What would be the best way for researchers to appeal to you?

Over to you.