Moving Languages English Application now live and available!

 

 

The Moving Languages English Application launch took place on Friday 8th June at the George Davies Lecture Theatre, Esmée Fairbairn building, Heriot-Watt University.

The Moving Languages application is the result of an EU-funded project led by Finnish organisation Learnmera Oy, with LINCS at Heriot-Watt as one of the partners. The app is designed to help new migrants learn the host language(s) and familiarise themselves with culture-specific vocabulary and concepts. A user-friendly, versatile and comprehensive app, it also aims to encourage people to learn other languages and promote understanding between cultures.

Our mission is to help combat linguistic and cultural isolation, which is proven to be one of the key barriers to the successful integration and inclusion of migrants. There are plenty of generic language-learning apps on the market that are not designed for the needs of refugees or newly-arrived migrants. While the Moving Languages app is not designed specifically for these groups, it also caters to them, with features such as:

  • Targeted support languages
  • Culture tab
  • Administration and Immigration tabs
  • Dialogues with Audio

This free application provides a gamified language- and culture-learning tool. It contains 4000+ illustrated vocabulary items for easy concept recognition, grammar exercises, flashcards, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, culture, administration, health and immigration tabs, dialogues with audio, audio spelling and comprehension tests and many other features. The app covers topics that are essential during the first steps of living in the host country.

Users can learn English, Spanish, Italian, German, Swedish, Finnish (main languages) from 20 support languages widely spoken by refugees/migrants in partner countries: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Estonian, French, Hungarian, Kurdish (Sorani), Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Somali, Tigrinya, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Urdu. They can also use the main languages as support languages if they wishes. This means that if you download the English app, you can learn English from 25 languages in total.

The UK project coordinator, Dr Katerina Strani, presented the background, the project outputs and the research that led to the development of the app, before hooking up her phone to the projector and presenting the app in real time.

 

Some feedback from participants in the launch event who tested the app:

“The App is easy to use, you learn a new language and culture in a funny way

Well done.

It’s very self- explanatory, especially the fact that you don’t have to press a continue button after a correct answer makes it very user-friendly.

Easy to use.

It’s very snappy, clear and easy/fluid to navigate.

I think that this application is easy to use and it’s a good way to learn the basic expressions of a foreign language.

Outstanding.

It looks great, well done!

Useful and Innovative: the culture part offers practical information that other language learning apps don’t offer (HS – related info, for example).

This is a very good app. It addresses key issues around language learning and the social inclusion of immigrants.”

You can download the app here:

iOS https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/moving-languages-uk/id1389806713?mt=8

Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ml.english

We would love your comments as we continue to update the app and fix bugs until the end of the project in November 2018. Please give us your feedback here:  https://goo.gl/forms/eJwXXtep1BTDz76B2

For more information, contact the UK coordinator, Dr Katerina Strani A.Strani@hw.ac.uk or the project coordinator Veronica Gelfgren Veronica@learnmera.com

Website: http://www.movinglanguages.eu/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/movinglanguages/

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8580234

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/movinglanguages/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MovLanguages

 

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission under Project No. 2016-1-FI01-KA204-022678

Moving Languages Project

Moving Languages_Logo_white backgr

A mobile phone is proven to be a crucial tool for newly arrived migrants’ and refugees’ wellbeing and integration into their host country.

Dr Katerina Strani from LINCS is leading the UK team of the Moving Languages project. Moving Languages is a 27-month Erasmus+ project (2016-1-FI01-KA204-022678) led by Learnmera Oy in Finland. It has six partners in Finland, Sweden, Spain, Austria, Italy and the UK. The aim of the project is to develop a language app for newly arrived migrants.

Migration in the EU has been rapidly growing in recent times, especially in light of the troubled political situation in Middle Eastern countries. For this reason, it is of great importance to provide tools to support the integration of migrants and refugees arriving in Europe.

Language learning is one of the key priorities of successful integration. Mobile applications are an effective educational source that can be specifically designed for migrants and refugees, as a considerable percentage of them are digitally literate, own smartphones and are looking for new opportunities online in their host countries.

This project provides a gamified language-learning solution. It is available in English, Spanish, Italian, German, Swedish, Finnish and the three languages most widely spoken by refugees/migrants in the partner countries. The application will not only help them to learn the local language(s), but it will also introduce them to new cultural concepts in their host countries.

Designed to cater to different levels of linguistic competence, this application will also be useful for people who have already been living and working in their new home country for some time. The content of the mobile application covers topics that are essential during the first steps of living in the host country. It contains 2,000-2,500 illustrated vocabulary items for easy concept recognition. This free application will be available for download from all major app stores from June 2018.

The Moving Languages project started in September 2016 and it will finish in November 2018. For more information, please visit the project website http://movinglanguages.eu or contact Dr Katerina Strani.

The Translating the Deaf Self project: Wrapping up and what’s next?

By Jemina Napier, Alys Young, Rosemary Oram, Robert Skinner & Noel O’Connell

Click here to see a BSL version of the blog, presented by Rosemary Oram.

In two previous LifeinLINCS blog posts in March 2016 and August 2016, we have provided an overview of our Translating the Deaf Self project. The AHRC Translating Cultures research innovation grant for this project has meant that we have been able to carry out a scoping study of an area that has not yet been explored in the literature of Deaf Studies, Interpreting Studies, Applied Sign Linguistics or Applied Social Research. Our research focused on what it is like for Deaf sign language users to be known largely through translation and what the consequences might be for wellbeing.

Our research questions were as follows:

  1. How is translation constitutive of Deaf cultures in their formation, projection and transformation?
  2. What is the impact of consistently experiencing existence to others as a translated-self on personal identity, achievement and well-being?

After interviews with Deaf sign language users, sign language interpreters, hearing colleagues of Deaf people, and parents with deaf children, our findings reveal that

  1. The shared experience among Deaf sign language users of being known through translation could be considered as part of Deaf cultural identity but more research is needed to really understand this; and
  2. The experience of consistently experiencing existence to others as a translated-self has an impact on personal identity, achievement and well-being for Deaf sign language users. That impact is not always positive but it is recognized by Deaf people some of whom make deliberate adjustments in everyday life to combat negative effects and maximize the positive. Interpreters too are professionally conscious of their role in the ‘translated Deaf self’ and the dilemmas it brings up in terms of representation to others.
  3. From hearing people’s point of view in workplace relationships with Deaf colleagues, representation and identity are obscured often by a fascination with the interpreter. Even when hearing colleagues attempt to ‘get past’ the interpreter and seek out what they perceive as the ‘real’ Deaf person they can miss the important point that the Deaf person and their language are not inseparable.  There is no hidden self ‘despite’ an interpreter.

As this project was a new exploration of this concept, it is clear that more research is needed on this topic.

Disseminating the findings

We are in the process of writing up our findings, and will submit them for publications.

So far we have also given several conference presentations as follows:

  • Oram, R., Napier, J., Young, A., & Skinner, R., (2016). Critical links between Deaf culture, well being and interpreting: Translating the Deaf Self. Poster presented to the Critical Link 8: Interpreting in the Community Conference, Edinburgh, 29 June – 1 July 2016.
  • Napier, J., Oram, R., Skinner, R., & Young, A. (2016). Translating the Deaf Self: Deaf culture in practice and being ‘known’ through interpreting. Association of Sign Language Interpreters UK Conference, Newcastle, 1-2 October 2016.
  • Napier, J., Oram, R., Young, A., Skinner, & O’Connell, N. (2016). Translating the Deaf Self: An example of innovation in university-community research engagement. Bridging the Gap conference, Brighton, 12th November 2016.

 

And will be giving another one in 2017:

Napier, J., Young, A., Oram, R., & Skinner, R. (2017). Translating the Deaf Self: The lived experience of being ‘known’ through interpreting. Symposium on Sign Language Interpreting & Translation Research, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC, March 2017.

 In collaboration with two Deaf-led production companies, AC2.Com and Mutt & Jeff Pictures, we produced three short films in BSL to encapsulate some of the key themes that had come up in our data. The films are not an attempt to summarise the findings, but to highlight some key issues that our participants discussed, which we can use to generate more conversations about the concept of the ‘Translated Deaf Self’.

We have not yet made the videos public via social media as we are concerned about how people might respond and the potential impact on wellbeing if any content of the videos triggers emotive responses and we cannot be present to talk through those responses. Instead, we have decided to only show the videos when a member of the research team is present to explain the background, contextualise the study and the videos, and is available to talk through responses. But each film has been submitted to the Deaf Fest 2017 Film Festival in the UK, so we hope that they will be shown there.

In September 2016 we hosted an event in collaboration with Action Deafness and the Derby Deaf Club, where we had approximately 75 participants who travelled from all over the country to learn about what we had found in the study, and to participate in a preview of the films. As part of the event, we also had follow up discussion in BSL about how the participants responded to the films and whether they identified with the themes in each film. Showing the films generated a lot of interesting discussion, and has confirmed for us the importance of taking the films around the country to show the British Deaf community.

What’s next?

We plan to apply for further AHRC funding to explore the notion of the Translated Deaf Self in more depth, and hope to continue the partnership with all the people and organisations who were involved in this scoping study. We also plan to apply for AHRC Follow-on Funding for Impact and Engagement in 2017 in order to disseminate the findings and show the videos via a ‘roadshow’.

Acknowledgements

In wrapping up this project, we would like to acknowledge the contributions of many people and organisations, without whom this project would not have been possible:

  • Professor Charles Forsdick, Theme Leader, AHRC Translating Cultures Theme
  • Stakeholder Advisory Group members: Avril Hepner (British Deaf Association Scotland); Carly Brownlie (Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters); Jane Worrall (Deaf Connections, Glasgow); Teri Devine (Action on Hearing Loss Scotland); Frankie McLean/ Shaurna Dickson (Deaf Action, Edinburgh);
  • Joel Kelhofer and Ella Leith at AC2.Com/SignLive, and Louis Neethling and Alison Lynch at Mutt & Jeff Pictures for the production of the short films
  • Zoë McWhinney, Research intern at Heriot-Watt University
  • Craig Crowley, CEO; Jaz Mann, Alison Blount at Action Deafness for support with organising Community Participatory Group in Leicester and with film launch event in Derby, and Action Deafness for providing interpreters for the film launch event at no cost to the project.
  • Members of the Derby Deaf Club for helping to organise the catering for the film launch event and for making their premises available for the event
  • Jane Worrall, former CEO of Deaf Connections for assistance with CPG in Glasgow
  • Mark Napier, Managing Director at the Centre for Public Innovation for providing the venue for the focus group in London with interpreters
  • ASLI UK for distributing call for interpreter participants to its members
  • Emmy Kauling for help compiling the final research report.

 

RADAR Workshop: From Hate Speech to Hate Communication

“From hate speech to hate communication:
How racism is produced and reflected through communicative practices”
Free training workshop
16th and 17th June 2016
George Davies Lecture Theatre, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

 

RADAR – Regulating AntiDiscrimination and AntiRacism (Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Programme JUST/2013/FRAC/AG/6271) is an EU-funded programme that brings together nine partners from six countries. The project’s aim is to raise awareness and develop the necessary tools to identify and tackle hate-motivated and hate-producing communication, which have a racialised dimension. This will be achieved through training activities and events. The project will also provide a handbook as well as comparative studies and analyses. For more information on the project’s objectives, deliverables and individual work packages, please visit the project website and register on our platform.

RADAR workshops are being organised in the six partner countries (Italy, Finland, The Netherlands, Poland, Greece and the UK) from April to June 2016 to test the training material developed as well as the training approach. An international workshop will then be held in September in Perugia, Italy, drawing on the knowledge and expertise gained from the local pilot events.

Who is this workshop for?

  • professionals and trainees in the legal sector, the police, social workers, charity workers, people working in local and national authorities, policy makers, volunteers interested in ethnic equality and diversity
  • trainers interested in participating in the trial / pilot implementation of the proposed training approach and have open access and reusability of the available material.
  • people who have experienced racism or xenophobia and are interested in sharing their experiences and leading discussions.

What are the workshop aims?

  • Understand hate-motivated and hate-producing communication practices. Such an understanding can be empowering for (potential) targets of discrimination or hate communication. It can also help professionals to make better judgments, react effectively to racist and xenophobic behaviours and attitudes and ultimately help to prevent racism, xenophobia, discrimination and exclusion.
  • Recognise explicit as well as implicit forms of prejudice, racism and xenophobia, as well as the situations from which they might arise.
  • Develop skills to produce non-biased and inclusive communication.
  • Develop competence in communicating with people with culturally (and socially) different habits and behaviour models.
  • Distinguish between verbal, paraverbal, nonverbal and visual messages, how they are combined and embodied in communicative practices.
  • Become familiar with communicative techniques, strategies and procedures that apply to different situations and contexts.

In this way, participants may acquire useful tools for identifying and preventing hate-producing and hate-motivated communication practices and, ultimately, hate crimes. Participants should also be able to transfer the approach, either by putting it into practice in other contexts or, in the case of trainers, by training others.

What is the workshop content?

Two main themes are covered in the workshop:
(1)      language use in legal texts (laws and judgments) and its social implications
(2) communication practices reflecting and (re)producing racism, xenophobia, discrimination, exclusion.

We consider the following communicative practices among others: advertisement pictures, promotional and other videos, talkshows, written texts, in particular newspaper articles, and social media posts.

There will be discussion groups, round tables and activities to reflect on these communication practices, share experiences and recommendations. The full workshop programme will be provided following registration.

How to register

The 2-day workshop is free and includes lunch, coffee breaks, a drinks reception and a certificate of attendance. Registration is required. Places are limited so please register here http://goo.gl/forms/YEyCLvePki  by 10th June

Heriot-Watt is located on the outskirts of Edinburgh city centre and is easily accessible by bus and train.  Further travel information as well as the full workshop programme will be provided following registration.

Contact

Dr Katerina Strani, Assistant Professor, Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies, Heriot-Watt University: A.Strani@hw.ac.uk

Social Media

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Project-Radar-Just2013fracag6271-370112223154383/?ref=hl

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RadarProject         @RADARproject    #RADARproject

radar_small_logo

 

Justisigns Translation workshop

 By Jemina Napier

       hwnewlogo         justisigns        Police ScotlandEU Lifelong Learning

 

Click here to see a version of this blogpost in BSL.

 

As part of the Justisigns project, which is funded through the European Commission Lifelong Learning Programme, a masterclass was run in November 2015 jointly between the Heriot-Watt University BSL/Justisigns team and Police Scotland and included CID/police interview advisors, Deaf community representatives and BSL/English interpreters. The workshop involved joint and group sessions on the potential barriers for deaf people in accessing police interviews, the challenges for interpreters to accurately convey the goals of police interviewers, and deaf/sign language awareness raising for police interviewers, as well as interactive simulation role plays of BSL interpreted police interviews.

One of the issues raised during the discussions was the lack of standardization in a translation of the Scottish police caution, so interpreters may produce different versions of the caution in BSL. As the police caution is legally binding, the words are used specifically and are read out verbatim by police interviewers and sometimes followed up by an explanation if the person being questioned does not understand the formal caution.

Although a BSL translation of the English police caution is available, the wording of the caution is different from the Scottish caution, and therefore the BSL translation is also different from what is needed in Scotland.

At the masterclass workshop it was identified that having a BSL translation of the Scottish Common Law Caution available on video as a reference point for police, interpreters and the Deaf community would be a useful development. The ideal would be for a BSL translation to be accessible online for police to access on a mobile device (for example if detaining someone before an interpreter arrives) or for interpreters or deaf people to access at the point of a police interview (e.g. through an iPad or computer). At no point would the availability of the BSL translation circumvent the need for a BSL/English interpreter, as it is a legal requirement for interpreters to be present for any interaction between a police officer and a person who uses a different language.

So as a follow-up to the masterclass, we organized a translation workshop and invited key stakeholder representatives to be involved in discussing, developing and finalizing a standard BSL translation of the Scottish police caution. In addition to the Heriot-Watt University BSL/Justisigns team participants included representatives from Police Scotland, the British Deaf Association (Scotland), experienced legal BSL/English interpreters and a deaf interpreter.

The participants engaged in a ‘forward and backward’ translation process (Tate, Collins & Tymms, 2003), reviewing drafts of BSL translations, discussing lexical and legal conceptual challenges and creating new BSL versions of the caution.

At the end of the workshop a final version was agreed upon and filmed. This BSL translation of the Scottish Law Caution is now available to be referenced by BSL/English interpreters and interpreting students, police officers and Deaf community members in Scotland. 

Clare Canton

(Scottish Law Caution BSL translation translated by deaf interpreter, Clare Canton)

As part of the discussions it was also agreed to film an explanation of the Scottish Law Caution in BSL, to reflect what typically happens in a police interview where a police offer would read the caution verbatim, and then provide an explanation. The explanation that we agreed upon is as follows:

This Scottish police Caution means: You have the right to be silent. You don’t have to answer any questions, and you don’t have to tell me anything about what’s happened. But if do you have any explanation or comment to give at any point in this process, this is your opportunity to do that and we will record it (written, audio, video). And the recording may be used for further investigation in this case and in court proceedings.

This BSL translation of the explanation is also now available to be referenced by BSL/English interpreters and interpreting students, police officers and Deaf community members in Scotland.

Brenda Mackay

(Scottish Law Caution BSL explanation produced by legal interpreter, Brenda Mackay)

 

We would like to thank all the workshop participants for their contribution to creating this resource for interpreters, police and deaf BSL users in Scotland, and encourage as many people as possible to access this resource.

 

Translating Cultures Peru / Traduciendo Culturas Perù

by Raquel De Pedro Ricoy

“Unequal exchanges: The role of Peruvian indigenous translators and interpreters in resource-exploitation consultation processes”

Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. 14:15-17:15, 12 April 2016

The Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies in Scotland (CTISS) at Heriot- Watt University will host a symposium on the role of Peruvian indigenous translators and interpreters in consultations regarding the exploitation of natural resources. The symposium is open to the public. Registration is free, but places are limited. Please book yours  here.

Programme:

o Welcome

o Prof Rosemary Thorp (Peru Support Group): “Mining and the threat to indigenous communities”

o Mr  Agustín  Panizo  (Head  of  the  Indigenous  Languages  Division, Ministry of Culture, Perú): “Prior Consultation as a space for redefining communication  between the State and the indigenous peoples of Peru”

o Presentation by Dr Jan Cambridge (Chartered Institute of Linguists): “A code of conduct is the scaffold supporting ethical safe outcomes”

o Prof  Rosaleen  Howard  (Newcastle  University),  Dr  Luis  Andrade (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) and Dr Raquel de Pedro

(Heriot-Watt University): Findings of the project “Translating Cultures: The legislated mediation of Indigenous Rights in Peru”

o Q&A session

The event will be followed by a drinks reception.

We look forward to seeing you there!

 

Translating the Deaf Self: An update

 

By Jemina Napier

 

Click here to see a BSL version of the blog

 

Members of Centre for Translation & Interpreting Studies Scotland (Jemina Napier and Robert Skinner) are working in collaboration with researchers from the Social Research with Deaf People (SORD) group at the University of Manchester (Alys Young and Rosemary Oram) on an 18-month interdisciplinary project funded through the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Translating Cultures Research Innovation Grant. Dr Noel O’Connell was originally a member of the research team, but returned to Ireland at the end of 2015, so Robert joined the team.

 

The project team members are interested in exploring real-life experiences of Deaf BSL users who use sign language interpreters and for whom this may be an everyday experience. Although there has been substantive previous research about sign language interpreting there has been little about the perspectives of Deaf people themselves and none that has really asked what the impact might be on a Deaf person of ‘being translated’, or only known through translation.

 

For example, we consider the following questions:

 

  • When Deaf people interact with hearing people through interpreters do they think that the hearing person can really see them for who they are?

 

  • Does the Deaf person feel they get the attention they deserve or are people just fascinated by the interpreter?

 

  • Does the use of interpreters in everyday life impact on a Deaf person’s positive mental well being?

 

  • What is it like to be a Deaf professional and use interpreters? Are they regarded for their skills and treated equally?

 

These are the kinds of issues we mean by ‘impact’.

 

In collaboration with Action Deafness (Leicester) and Deaf Connections (Glasgow), to date we have interviewed 28 people and collected over 15 hours of data through telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews and focus groups and a community participatory group with Deaf community members, Deaf professionals, sign language interpreters, parents with deaf children, and hearing people that work with Deaf colleagues.

 

Our preliminary analysis is revealing some interesting findings and confirming that the process of being perceived only through interpreters is an issue that all stakeholders have something to say about!

 

We have also been working with a Stakeholder Advisory Group, and have held two meetings in Scotland with representatives from the British Deaf Association (Scotland), the Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters, National Deaf Children Society (Scotland), Action on Hearing Loss (Scotland), Deaf Action (Edinburgh) and Deaf Connections (Glasgow). The Advisory Group has given the research team guidance on the research method, data collection, recruitment of participants and also about potential implications of the research.

 

At the moment we are in the final stages of data collection, where we are filming deaf people in real situations with interpreters and then conducting a ‘think aloud protocol’ (TAP) with the deaf people afterwards, where they watch the video and comment on any issues they see in relation to the experience of interacting with people through an interpreter.

 

The use of TAPs is a new methodology that we are testing out in this project, as it has been used before in translation and interpreting studies (see for example Russell & Winston, 2014), but we are trialling the feasibility of TAPs with visual languages.

 

Once all the data is collected and analysed we will be working with the Deaf-led production company AC2.Com Productions to produce a 3-minute video drama in BSL to represent the issues that are identified in the data. This video will be made widely available through our website and entered into Deaf Film Festivals.

 

As the AHRC is keen to support the development of academic skills in young researchers through capacity building (see for example their case study of capacity building in heritage studies), we are pleased to be welcoming young deaf BSL user, Zoe McWhinney, to the team in June for a 2-week internship placement. Zoe is currently doing her undergraduate degree at the University of Birmingham and is an active member of the European Deaf Students Union. Zoe will be involved in supporting the next Stakeholder Advisory Group meeting, developing the script for the video drama and liaising with AC2.Com, and other project tasks.

 

On completion of the project, once all the data analysis is complete we will provide another update, so watch this space!

 

 

 

Looking for participants for anti-racism and anti-discrimination research project

A few months ago we posted some information on a new research project in LINCS on how racist hate crimes are communicatively constructed. The project is called RADAR  Regulating AntiDiscrimination and AntiRacism – JUST/2013/FRAC/AG/6271. It brings together 9 partners from 6 countries and it is funded by the European Commission Directorate General for Justice.

The overall aim of the project is to  provide law enforcement officials and legal professionals with the necessary tools to facilitate the identification of ‘racial’ hate- motivated and hate-producing communication. This will be achieved through training activities and events, but the project will also provide a handbook, comparative studies and analyses. For more information on the project’s objectives, deliverables and individual work packages, please visit the project website.

The project is still in its initial stages; it started in November 2014 and will end in October 2016.

We are currently looking for victims of racial harassment or racist abuse for the purpose of conducting interviews on their experience(s). If you have been the victim of racist abuse in the UK and you would like to be interviewed for the purposes of this project (your personal details will not be disclosed), please contact Dr. Katerina Strani at  A.Strani@hw.ac.uk

When ‘racially’-motivated hate crimes are not recognised as such, this leads to a violation of fundamental human rights.

New project: RADAR – Regulating Anti-discrimination and Anti-Racism

Final Logo Radar

The RADAR project has officially started!

Funded by the European Commission Directorate General for Justice, RADAR (RADAR – Regulating AntiDiscrimination and AntiRacism – JUST/2013/FRAC/AG/6271) involves 9 partners including Heriot-Watt and it will be conducted over 24 months (November 2014 – October 2016). The  aim is to provide law enforcement officials and legal professionals with the necessary tools to facilitate the identification of “racially motivated” hate communication.

In European societies, increasingly reshaped by migration, the fight against racism and xenophobia is a key challenge for democracy and civil life. Despite anti-discrimination legislation that is in force in EU Member States, there is still a fundamental problem in identifying the different forms of racism and xenophobia. These may consist of physical attacks against people or of hate speech – ‘racial’ and xenophobic discourses “which spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including: intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility against minorities, migrants and people of immigrant origin” (Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers” Recommendation 97(20)).

However, it is not always easy to distinguish between, non-‘racial’ and ‘racial’ violence. Even though it is easier to prosecute cases of physical offences against people, it is more difficult – for judges, politicians and the public – to identify when there is xenophobia behind a physical offence, because it has to be interpreted within the context in which it has taken place. This interpretative work allows us to define such actions in terms of hate crime offences. Often ‘racial’ hate crimes are not recognised as such, and this leads to an underestimation of the phenomenon. Treating crimes that are motivated by ‘racial’ hatred as non-‘racial’ crimes leads to the violation of fundamental human rights. It is therefore essential that law enforcing and legal authorities, along with journalists and politicians, have tools for correctly identifying the motivation that underlies such a criminal act.

A hate crime is never an isolated act; it is usually triggered and fostered by hate speech, consisting of discourses that express disdain, hatred, prejudice, etc. Such discourses are performed not only in direct face-to-face communication through public and private conversations, but they also take place online, in political discourses, as well as in other institutional contexts. It has to be stressed that not only hate speech in the sense of verbal messages leads to hate crimes, but this is inspired also by other hate-oriented communication practices based on other communication levels, such as voice (paraverbal message), body-language (non-verbal message), images (visual message). Finally, the racist discourse often does not simply assume the forms of explicit hatred, prejudice and disdain, but it takes the form of an apparently benevolent recognition of the differences that, however, presupposes a stereotypisation of an individual’s cultural and social identity. It seems like a respectful recognition of differences, but it turns into stereotypes and prejudices that become labels and stigmas for the individuals.

Therefore, the overall aim of this project is to provide law enforcement officials and legal professionals with the necessary tools, mainly through open training activities, aimed at facilitating the identification of ‘racial’ motivated hate communication. For this purpose, a communication-based training concept is worked out, on the one side, for professionals and actual or potential hate-crime victims (national level) and, on the other side, for trainers (international level). Further learning resources and facilities are provided to offer online learning events. Finally the project aims at producing a publication with concrete tools, recommendations and best practice examples to facilitate anti-discrimination and anti-racist actions and regulations.

Watch this space for the project website and further details. For more information, contact Katerina Strani in LINCS.