Entry

 

 

SPA Servicios públicos (traducción)

 

contents
Introduction | Relation with community interpreting and crisis translation | Community translation, and human and language rights | Communication and information accessibility | Professionalism and quality | Research potential

 

  Introduction - A definition

Community translation (public service translation) refers to the translation of texts of public interest (for example, information on social services, healthcare, police and judicial processes, elections, environment, municipal activities, local and national awareness campaigns) for citizens and residents who do not speak the language of public services. At the First International Conference on Community Translation, held at the University of Western Sydney (Australia) in 2014, the following definition was used:

Translation of different types of texts intended to facilitate communication between public services and people who do not have a good command of mainstream language(s). These texts may be produced by national or local authorities, non-governmental organisations, ethnic community organisations or leaders, neighbourhood associations, or any other social agent.

This type of translation is part of the communication strategy of national institutions, public administrations and civil society organizations – at least those that recognise the need or moral obligation to communicate their information to the members of society who speak other languages. If, for example, a national or local health authority launches a health awareness campaign, they will normally communicate the relevant information in the official language(s) ​​of the country, state or region. However, there will be a large number of people (especially foreigners and local language minorities) who speak and read other languages, but have not yet developed sufficient skills in the language of the administration, for whom community translation is essential to access that information.     

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Relation with community interpreting and crisis translation

Community translation is the sister of community interpreting (public service interpreting): the former is written; the latter is oral or signed. Both are communication or language services that facilitate communication between public administrations and civil society organizations on the one hand, and community members on the other.

Translated information published by the Australian Department of Health [Source]

The main difference is that community translation is proactive (it is prepared in advance, as part of a communication or awareness strategy), while community interpreting is reactive (it is offered as a response in situations where at least two people cannot communicate effectively). Both community translation and community interpreting can be provided in humanitarian crisis situations, which can create overlap and confusion with another concept, crisis translation, which refers to language mediation in emergency situations, such as armed conflicts, population displacement, natural disasters, and so on. O’Brien and Federici (2020: 131) explain that crisis translation encompasses “all modes, oral, written, signed, and multimodal that could be used for communication in preparation and response, as well as for recovery from a crisis.” As such, the written part of crisis translation can be subsumed under community translation, and the oral and signed part falls under community interpreting. Crisis translation, however, is very specific to emergency or crisis situations, where even international organizations such as the United Nations or the Red Cross can intervene, while community interpreting and translation cover communication in general, and are usually limited to mediation at a national or local level, between service providers and local users. 

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Community translation, and human and language rights

Community translation aims to serve and empower minority or linguistically disadvantaged social groups, in societies where language disadvantage is a common reflection of inequalities at other levels (Taibi 2011: 215; Taibi and Ozolins 2016; Lesch 2018). Therefore, community translation is closely linked to the concepts of democracy, citizenship, human rights and linguistic rights. In democratic countries, all people are expected to be equal in terms of individual, social and political rights. The concept of citizenship is based on a sense of belonging to a state or community that is normally linked to civil, social and political rights and obligations. At the civil level, the safety and autonomy of the community member is recognized and protected. At the social level, people’s basic and minimum needs are guaranteed for them to live a decent life, such as health and education (Olvera 2008: 39; Marshall and Bottomore 1992: 18). In the political sphere, citizens and community members can freely participate in electoral processes to elect their leaders. 

Local multilingual information Source

‘Citizenship’ is often defined with reference to the concept of ‘nation-state’, i.e. whether a person has the legal status of ‘citizen’ of a given nation-state.  Based on this legal status, an individual may be entitled to certain privileges. The sense in which the term is used with reference to communication rights is much broader, and refers to the condition of living in a community and sharing spaces, services, experiences and interests with the members of that community. Above all, in light of current globalizing trends, it is appropriate to understand citizenship in the sense of belonging to a community and civic coexistence in it, rather than as a legal tie with a nation-state (Olvera 2008: 38; my translation):

[g]lobalization questions this association between nation-state-citizenship-democracy, as States have lost sovereignty due to growing international economic interdependence, and there is mass movement of people from one country to another

Freedom of expression is a human right. Respect for this right varies from one country to another, but the general consensus is that all human beings have the right to express themselves and to communicate with others. In 1948, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulated that:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

The part of the article most related to community translation refers to disseminating and receiving information and opinions ­– that is, to having a channel to produce and receive communications. The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO, 2001) clearly expresses the interconnection between human rights, linguistic rights and cultural diversity. The Declaration emphasizes the importance of accepting and promoting linguistic and cultural diversity to achieve a harmonious coexistence between individuals and groups and a cohesive, dynamic and pluralistic society. Resolution 61/266, approved by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007 (United Nations 2007: 1), also confirms that

[...] genuine multilingualism promotes unity in diversity and international understanding, and recognizing the importance of the capacity to communicate to the peoples of the world in their own languages, including in formats accessible to persons with disabilities.

Linguistic diversity is a global phenomenon, both at national and local levels. As Simons, Eberhard & Fennig (2020) indicate on the Ethnologue website, there are more than 7,000 languages ​​in the world, and some countries – such as Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria, India and the United States – have more than 300 languages ​​each. Likewise, the authors note that the languages ​​of indigenous groups represent more than 2/3 of world languages, and that the number of languages spoken in Papua New Guinea, a relatively small country, is more than twice that of all Europe.

Governments play a decisive role in promoting language and communication rights (McLeod 2018: 9), as well as other human rights. Governments can promote or inhibit citizen participation by speakers of other languages ​​through their language policy, whether tacit or official. This includes decisions that affect the use of languages ​​in public administrations, education, the media, public spaces, and so on. The case of Spain before and after the 1978 Constitution is a good example: pre-1978, monolingualism was the country’s official policy, and was intended to support the unity of the Spanish State – not only politically and militarily, but also linguistically and culturally. Subsequently, the right to linguistic and cultural diversity was recognized, and Catalan, Basque and Galician began to be protected and promoted, including in the educational system, the media and public administrations. Although the change in language policy has not been so profound as to grant official or co-official status to Spain’s regional languages ​​​in every respective territory and in all state institutions (Pons 2013), it substantially acknowledges the diversity of languages ​​in which citizens and residents can communicate and access information. This in turn signifies an important advance in the explicit recognition of linguistic rights as human rights.

The Spanish case is also a good example because, after decades of Spanish emigration to countries such as France, Germany, the United States and Argentina, the country began to receive hundreds of thousands of Latin American, African and Asian immigrants, especially since the 1990s. The policies of the central government and regional authorities determine whether and to what extent the languages ​​of these migrants are used, with consequent influence on the number of translations from and into those languages, as well as the recognition and remuneration of the work of community translators. 

Spanish announcement of community meetings in Houston. Source

Rillof & Buysse (2015: 190) point out that democratic governments contribute to ensuring fundamental human rights by organizing and funding public services, including translation (and interpreting) services. They also believe that “[g]enuine democracies are continuously undergoing processes of democratization” and that, as a result of this process, more and more members of society can access the rights and services guaranteed by democracy, including those relating to education, health, social protection and other areas. There is no doubt that, for people who do not speak the official language(s), community translation is an important factor in facilitating that access.

In relation to communication with migrants, the situation in Spain and in the rest of the world can be described as “institutional monolingualism combined with occasional and temporary translation into the minorities’ and migrants’ languages” (Meylaerts 2010: 229). In fact, even for citizens of the European Union who travel to or reside in another EU country, translation services are inadequate and are not always offered by qualified professionals, as the Study on Public Service Translation in Cross-border Healthcare (ECDGT and Angelelli, 2015) has shown.

Linguistic rights are both individual and collective (Hamel, 1995: 16; Unamuno, 2020: 107). Article 5 of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO, 2001) recognises an individual’s right to express themselves and disseminate information in the language of their choice, especially their mother tongue. In this sense, linguistic rights are equal to other human rights (expression, religion, freedom, security, etc.) because “these are considered natural attributes of every individual” (Hamel, 1995: 14; my translation). When the concept of linguistic right is used in its communicative sense, that is, in the sense of using language to communicate with others, it acquires a collective character because the possibility of using a language is based on the continuity of a community that speaks it (Hamel, 1995: 16).

Linguistic rights are not limited to individual expression (one’s own use of the mother tongue), but also imply that, at a collective level, language planning measures are taken and resources are made available to provide translation and interpreting services where and when needed. This is applicable, to varying degrees, both to migrant communities (for example, North Africans in Europe, Spaniards in Germany, Italians, Greeks and the Chinese in Australia, and Spanish speakers in the United States) and to aboriginal communities (for example, in Australia, South America or South Africa). In the latter case, these are historical and sociolinguistic situations where the speakers of certain languages ​​have been marginalized politically, economically, socially, educationally and – it goes without saying— culturally and linguistically. Advocating and ensuring social justice for indigenous peoples and upholding their individual and collective human rights not only requires legal frameworks, but educational and social policies and financial resources as well. Nonetheless, a legal framework is a significant first step in this regard. The General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico published in 2003, for example, establishes the following in relation to Mexican citizens who speak languages ​​other than Spanish (Parliament of Mexico, 2018; my translation): 

ARTÍCULO 7. (…) La Federación y las entidades federativas tendrán disponibles y difundirán a través de textos, medios audiovisuales e informáticos: leyes, reglamentos, así como los contenidos de los programas, obras, servicios dirigidos a las comunidades indígenas, en la lengua de sus correspondientes beneficiarios. [ARTICLE 7. (…) The Federation and the Federative Entities shall have the following available and shall disseminate them in print, audiovisual format and multimedia: laws, regulations, as well as the contents of programs, works and services aimed at indigenous communities, in the language of their corresponding beneficiaries.]

ARTÍCULO 9. Es derecho de todo mexicano comunicarse en la lengua de la que sea hablante, sin restricciones en el ámbito público o privado, en forma oral o escrita, en todas sus actividades sociales, económicas, políticas, culturales, religiosas y cualesquiera otras. [ARTICLE 9. Every Mexican citizen has the right to communicate in their own language, without any restrictions, in the public or private spheres, orally or in writing, in all their social, economic, political, cultural, religious and any other activities.]

ARTÍCULO 11. Las autoridades educativas federales y de las entidades federativas garantizarán que la población indígena tenga acceso a la educación obligatoria, bilingüe e intercultural, y adoptarán las medidas necesarias para que en el sistema educativo se asegure el respeto a la dignidad e identidad de las personas, así como a la práctica y uso de su lengua indígena. Asimismo, en los niveles medio y superior, se fomentará la interculturalidad, el multilingüismo y el respeto a la diversidad y los derechos lingüísticos. [ARTICLE 11. Federal education authorities as well as those of the Federative Entities shall ensure that the indigenous population has access to compulsory, bilingual and intercultural education, and will have in place the necessary measures for the educational system to ensure respect for the dignity and identity of the people, as well as the use of their indigenous language. In addition, at middle and higher levels, interculturality, multilingualism and respect for diversity and linguistic rights shall be promoted.]

(Parliament of Mexico, 2018)

However, as is the case in other areas and other legislations, the effect and scope of the principles and aspirations of legal and institutional texts are limited for several reasons, including the dominant institutional and social ideologies, and budgetary restrictions. 

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Communication and information accessibility

A central theme in community translation is access to information or, rather, access to communication and, therefore, the accessibility of texts in terms of language, textual organization, format and presentation. The priority of translators in this field is to cater for the socio-educational and linguistic contexts and needs of the target users. They therefore need to adopt functional translation strategies. Effective communication requires accessible language and, where necessary and appropriate, translator intervention in the form of simplifications, clarifications and explanations (Lesch 2018: 90-91). Effective communication in plain language is not relevant to community translation only; rather, it has also been a central issue in the debates on the relationship between public services and institutional and professional jargons, on the one hand, and democracy and citizen rights on the other. 

Multilingual information of public interest. Source

The Plain Language movement, which advocates people’s right to access information easily, and in an accessible language, to be able to act upon it (Adler 2012; see also Cornelius 2010; Plain Language Association International (PLAIN); Clarity; or Center for Plain Language) is a good example of this ongoing debate. In legal texts, for example, Sullivan (2001: 97) establishes a direct relationship between accessible language and democracy: “The purpose of drafting legislative texts in plain language is to enhance democracy and the rule of law by making legislation accessible to the people whose lives it affects”.

Taibi & Ozolins (2016: 64-71) believe that the accessibility of language and texts is very relevant in any community translation, but there are cases in which administrations and organizations expect translations that reflect exact terminology and register, and reproduce institutional messages with their embedded level of ambiguity, i.e., without simplification or clarification. For this reason, Taibi and Ozolins argue that a functional approach is the most appropriate for community translation: 1) it elevates translators to the role of active social agents, who can inform public services, negotiate the parameters of the translation with them, and, where necessary, intervene beyond the traditional understanding of translation to ensure target readership comprehension; 2) takes the function and setting of the translation as the most important criterion; and 3) distinguishes between types of texts and, therefore, between the appropriate strategies for each type and case. For example, translating a legislative text as such requires a different strategy than that which would be used if the same text were to be translated as an informative summary. Taibi and Ozolins add that, in line with the functional approach, translators must have a sociological understanding of community translation, especially its ultimate goal, which is to serve and empower the target groups or communities.

Taibi & Ozolins (2016: 49) take the accessibility of community translation beyond plain language (e.g., less complex lexical choices, shorter and less complex structures) and propose that accessibility can also be achieved using the appropriate dissemination media for each situation and target group. In other words, the translation is still written, but the medium of dissemination can be audiovisual, for example, and not always in the traditional format of leaflets and guides.   

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Professionalism and quality

Many confuse community translation with translation by bilingual volunteers, especially as the term ‘Community Translation’ has been used in two different senses in the literature: (1) professional translation for public services and (2) collective or individual translation by amateur translators who are members of a virtual community (e.g. software and game localising communities), or by activists not necessarily specialized or trained in translation but committed to social, political or ecological causes. 

Requirements for quality community translations

What also contributes to this perception is that, in most countries, when community translation is offered at all, it is often provided by bilingual staff or volunteers, not professional translators (Valero, 2009; Taibi, 2011; ECDGT and Angelelli, 2015). As Valero (2009: 62) affirms, “institutions do not usually have appropriate arrangements in place and do not concern themselves with translation quality. Remuneration is usually inconsistent, as it depends on the budget available for a particular assignment, and institutions often use bilingual staff rather than professional translators” (My translation).

The work of non-professional translators can be valuable in emergency situations or when there is no other option, but community translation in the sense of public service translation is understood as a professional linguistic service, carried out by personnel with adequate training in translation, who have undergone a rigorous certification/selection process and are aware of the social mission of community translation. García (2018) believes that amateurs who operate in virtual networks can complement community translation professionals by taking on urgent and low-risk translations. However, relevant authorities need to recognise and demonstrate commitment to the human and communication rights of all members of society by allocating sufficient resources to ensure quality translation-mediated public messaging. Taibi (2018) proposes a quality framework for community translation which takes into consideration the complexity of the professionalization of this field and the diversity of social actors.

 

Obligations of the state, regional authorities or society in general

As indicated above, governments play an important role in the recognition and implementation of human, civil, linguistic and communication rights. In this framework, the authorities have an institutional and moral duty to adopt policies that promote professional translation and interpretation services. This includes the constitutional and legal frameworks that recognize linguistic and communication rights, planning related to language services and community translation in particular, the measures and resources necessary for adequate training programs, and so on. Recognizing linguistic diversity in abstract terms and even a favourable language policy are not sufficient if they are not implemented in the form of concrete planning together with measures and adequate resources to promote this diversity and ensure access to translation (Córdoba 2016).

 

Interprofessional collaboration 

This level refers to measures to ensure quality in community translation that depend not only on translators, but also on other professionals (for example, public servants, managers of translation agencies or services, NGO managers and employees, etc.). Translation quality begins with a rigorous selection of community translators, both for permanent positions and for specific assignments. Drafters and editors of source texts can also make a contribution if they prepare their texts in a way that demonstrates awareness of readership diversity and the cultural differences between social and ethnic groups. Likewise, it is important that other professionals collaborate with translators, briefing them on the purpose of the translation and providing them with the necessary information (about the purpose of the source texts, the expectations of the institution, reader profiles, etc.) to assist them in their decision making in relation to translation strategies, language and presentation.

 

Translator role

the translator is the central agent in this entire process and therefore has the greatest responsibility in quality assurance. Several conditions are subsumed under this level, including the ethical duty not to accept assignments for which one is not qualified, to commit to a rigorous process of analysis, comprehension, research, translation and revision, as well as to adopt a functional approach within the general framework of community translation, which is the commitment to enabling linguistically disadvantaged communities to access information. Within the same framework, translators are expected to use the most appropriate register, language variant (where applicable), style, and format for the type of text and audience (sociolinguistic profile, average socio-educational level, etc.).

 

Subsequent quality control

This refers to quality assurance by the relevant agencies and public services. As part of its communication strategy, a ministry, administration or public service is expected to have a quality and efficiency protocol, both for the strategy itself in general and for the translations produced as part of it. Especially for services that commission or produce translations frequently and in large quantities, a common quality assurance measure is to conduct regular assessment of a corpus of translations published in different languages. Another measure is to establish communication channels with the community translation users in order to find out where the communication and translation strategy is adequate and effective and where there is room for improvements. In the case of translation agencies, as part of quality assurance, there must be an external review phase, conducted by agents other than the translator (e.g., by a language combination coordinator, quality manager, or anyone with relevant expertise). 

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  Research potential 

Community translation as defined and discussed here is a professional activity and a social action that still needs further research to shed light on its different dimensions. As prominent examples, the following areas of interest can be listed:

1. Situation of community translation in different countries (services available, languages ​​included and excluded, organizations in charge, levels of professionalization, working conditions and remuneration, etc.)
2. Language and translation policies and their impact on community translation
3. Translation reception and the perspectives and preferences of target communities
4. Role of community translators (as perceived by the translators themselves, users and other stakeholders)
5. Quality standards and quality assessment
6. Social and educational impact of community translation (for example, on citizen participation of language minorities, or on health and environmental awareness)
7. Pedagogical aspects of community translation; its presence in curricula
8. Dissemination media of community translations; link between community translation and technological and media resources; link between dissemination and impact
9. Relationship between community translation and other fields of research and professional activities (e.g., presence and role of community translation in communication strategies of health services, or relation between community translation and community interpreting and cultural mediation)
10. Professional practices in community translation and textual, stylistic and discursive tendencies (e.g., study and comparison of a corpus of public service texts and their translations into one or more languages, with special attention to the dominant trends in terms of alterations and stylistic and discursive adaptations).

Naturally, some of these research topics are interrelated. Broadly speaking, the language groups and (socio)politically identified translation needs of a given locale form part of what we might term its community translation milieu, which in turn is (substantially) a reflection of the corresponding policies shaped to address it. Likewise, the reception of community translations is related to the dissemination media employed. These last areas (translation reception, dissemination media) are probably the most important for several reasons: (1) Investigating the reception of community translations can cover several interconnected aspects, such as community needs and preferences; the effectiveness and impact of each dissemination medium in each target community; and links between translation quality, design of communication strategy and the users’ socio-cultural and socio-educational context; (2) Foregrounding of reception/transmission places language communities at both the practical and theoretical centres of community translation activity and the communication strategy of public institutions. Thus, users are empowered not only by the service per se, but also by the research activities focusing on it; (3) Assessing translation quality within a pragmatic framework of reception, usability and impact can afford insights outside the limits of typical linguistic, semantic or stylistic frameworks of assessment; (4) Evaluating the impact of community translations and the different forms of dissemination together can provide valuable empirical data for public, semi-public and even private organizations to guide their future communication strategies and budgetary decisions.

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