The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
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Vol/53 No/3 2014 JUNE/JULY The Linguist 25 FEATURES which focus on the skills necessary to research, analyse and translate (or adapt) text types commonly used in local community contexts. Given the traditional focus on community language services in Australian interpreting and translation programmes, other courses also include content relevant to PST. The programme at Alcala University includes translation classes that focus on materials frequently used by local Spanish public services, such as consent forms, healthcare guides and migrant services guides. The Mary Ward Centre course aims to equip students with knowledge about UK public services and common terminology, as well as the skills needed to produce translations, keeping in mind the intended local readership and the cultural backgrounds of their communities. Challenges facing PST training include the fact that the community context is much more multilingual than the traditional translation market in many countries, and that not all language groups have developed the same level of literacy. Translation programmes around the world have tended to focus on a few, generally European, languages. Programmes often cater for English, French, Spanish and German, and a local language such as Arabic, Mandarin or Portuguese. Such limited language streams cannot satisfy the needs of multilingual societies where tens or hundreds of languages are spoken. The language diversity of communities may even prevent institutions from offering PST courses. Training institutions need to make sure there is sufficient demand for a programme in a given language combination to make sure it is viable, and this is often not the case for community languages. It is not always possible to find qualified trainers working in minority community languages. This makes both translation service provision and quality assurance a big challenge for countries that support language services for all components of society. But where there's a will, there's a way. It is possible to find innovative and practical solutions to overcome language-specific or local constraints when policies are in place that support community languages; training institutions are committed to social inclusion and equity; and there is a research community interested in investigating issues specific to PST. One such solution is designing PST courses for mixed language groups. Another is cooperation between qualified trainers without language-specific expertise and translation practitioners or community members who have that expertise. Making headway The research community has a lot to contribute on different fronts to promote quality PST training and services. Issues are never acknowledged until someone talks about them, and solutions cannot be found until someone asks for them or starts working on them. We are already seeing research projects specifically focusing on PST; conferences and other events intended to raise the profile and awareness of PST; and innovative training initiatives that offer practical and effective training in a cost-effective way. The First International Conference on Community Translation, at the University of Western Sydney, aims to 'enhance the visibility of this subfield of study in current scholarly debate as well as among policymakers in areas related to language services, multiculturalism and human (communicative) rights'. The new International Community Translation Research Group is committed to leading and conducting quality research into PST, facilitating the cross-fertilisation of ideas and international research partnerships, raising awareness of PST needs in different countries, and promoting professionalised PST services. Encouraged by the significant progress that has been achieved in PSI in a few countries, I am sure that we can now make headway. Dr Mustapha Taibi is one of the organisers of the International Conference on Community Translation 2014. For details, see www.uws.edu.au/communitytranslation. HEALTH ISSUES In multicultural areas, hospital leaflets and information materials may need to be translated Knowledge of public service institutions and practices are rarely taught as part of a translation programme IMAGES: © ISTOCKPHOTO It is not always possible to find qualified trainers working in minority community languages