The Linguist

Conversations around the potential impact of AI increasingly come up in our daily lives. When I spoke to Holly- Anne Whyte for this issue (p.13), she told me: "My fear is that some clients will be swept up in the hype and some skilled colleagues won't be able to weather the storm until these clients realise their mistake. That's why we all need to advocate for the value of skilled work in our profession." In our focus on artificial interpreting, Jonathan Downie outlines how we might go about doing that, depending on the type of client we are dealing with (p.8); while Holly Silvestri discusses efforts to identify and mitigate the serious ethical issues automation brings (p.10). Holly-Anne also speaks about her work with human rights and sustainable development, and how translation and interpreting are key. A fascinating, far-reaching Australian project to study and map Indigenous languages considered the ethical concerns around such research from the get-go. The researchers ensured the speaker communities were at the core of their work, and that their findings were accessible to them. They outline some of the groundbreaking findings, along with their practical applications, on page 26. Ruqaya Al-Taie, who was on our Editorial Board until recently, writes about the challenges of translating religious text from Arabic (p.28). The work of the board is vital to producing a high-quality publication and at our February meeting we welcomed three new members: Paige Baillie, Lachhemi Rana and Binhua Wang. I look forward to working with them over the coming years. Miranda Moore 4 The Linguist Vol/63 No/1 thelinguist.uberflip.com NEWS & EDITORIAL CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S NOTES Last year was a busy one for CIOL, with some important progress for languages and linguists. In January, we launched the CIOL Voices blog series showcasing members' thoughts on languages and their work. In March, The Linguist moved to a new quarterly format with free online access, and we held our first CIOL conference season. Our conference season ticket covered two in-person days and an online event – a formula we are repeating this year. March also saw our CIOL Awards celebrating outstanding achievements in languages, presented by our patron Prince Michael of Kent. We welcomed Susie Dent as a new CIOL Vice-President in May – she is a linguist and renowned word expert known for her work in 'Dictionary Corner' on the TV show Countdown. She has over one million followers who enjoy her 'words of the day' on Twitter/X. Also in May, we introduced CIOL Language Level Assessments for adults to prove their spoken skills in French, German, Italian, Spanish and more, having launched Certified English for spoken English earlier in the year. In June, we worked with the ITI (Institute of Translation and Interpreting) and ATC (Association of Translation Companies) to advocate for harmonised best practices for certified translations in the UK. We helped promote the MoJ (Ministry of Justice) survey of language professionals in July and worked to gain greater government recognition for linguists through the new Regulated Professions Register of Chartered Linguists. Updates to our website in August made our 'Find a Translator/Interpreter/ Teacher' services much more visible. October saw us support the new Languages Gateway portal, and in November we featured and commissioned CIOL Voices blogs on AI and translation. We began revamping the CIOL mentoring platform and partnered with Indeed.com on their content on careers in languages. Promotion of Affiliate Linguist continued, opening up our community to wider participation. In December, CIOL and key stakeholders produced a 'Working Together' white paper on improving the context for public service interpreting. We held our first online CIOL Roundtable event with over 600 sign-ups, discussing certified translations. Finally, we published our first white paper on AI's impact on languages and linguists (see pages 7-11 for a mini focus on the subject). We have lots planned for 2024, and The Linguist remains at the heart of what CIOL does. Miranda, as editor, does a wonderful job, and the Editorial Board give us their time, energy and ideas. I hope you agree this is another great issue. John Worne EDITOR'S LETTER Share your views: linguist.editor@ciol.org.uk Conference season covered two in-person days and an online event – a formula we are repeating

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