Multimodal and Interactional Aspects of Sight Translation – A Critical Review

Abstract: Sight translation is a method used by interpreters to translate written documents such as verdicts, medical records, and agreements, which often involve civil rights and duties, into speech.Research on sight translation generally adopts a strong monologist focus, overlooking its interactional aspects, and the dominant linguistic understanding of sight translation disguises the effects of the modal shift from writing to speech on communication. Multimodal theory considers the choice of mode to be important for meaning-making; one might choose writing for the sake of precision or speech for its interactional potential. The communicative implications of modal shifts in community interpreting settings have not been sufficiently explored. This article presents a critical review of extant research on sight translation and a discussion of the findings based on multimodal theory. Its aim is to refine the understanding of sight translation and, thereby, raise awareness of potential obstacles in communicative practices which in turn may have consequences for civil rights and participating in today’s multilingual Europe.Resumen: Los intérpretes utilizan la traducción a la vista para transformar en discurso oral documentos escritos como veredictos, historias médicas y contratos, que suelen implicar derechos y deberes civiles. En general, la investigación sobre traducción a la vista adopta un marcado enfoque monológico, y deja de lado el aspecto de la interacción. Asimismo, la perspectiva lingüística dominante oculta los efectos que entraña el cambio de modalidad comunicativa, escrita a oral, sobre la comunicación. Según la teoría multimodal, la modalidad influye en la creación de significado: la comunicación escrita favorece la precisión, mientras que la oral fomenta la interacción. Las consecuencias de los cambios de modalidad sobre la comunicación en la interpretación en contextos públicos no han recibido suficiente atención investigadora. En este artículo se presenta una revisión crítica de la literatura sobre la traducción a la vista y sus conclusiones desde la perspectiva de la teoría multimodal, con el objetivo de contribuir a su comprensión y concienciar sobre posibles obstáculos en la comunicación, que, a su vez, pueden derivar en consecuencias para los derechos civiles y la participación ciudadana en la Europa multilingüe de la actualidad

Natural and Unnatural Disasters: Responding with Respect for Indigenous Rights and Knowledges

A key challenge for contemporary democratic societies is how to respond to disasters in ways that foster just and sustainable outcomes that build resilience, respect human rights, and foster economic, social, and cultural well-being in reasonable timeframes and at reasonable costs. In many places experiencing rapid environmental change, indigenous people continue to exercise some level of self-governance and autonomy, but they also face the burden of rapid social change and hostile or ambiguous policy settings. Drawing largely on experience in northern Australia, this paper argues that state policies can compound and contribute to vulnerability of indigenous groups to both natural and policy-driven disasters in many places. State-sponsored programmes that fail to respect indig- enous rights and fail to acknowledge the relevance of indigenous knowledge to both social and environmental recovery entrench patterns of racialised disadvan- tage and marginalisation and set in train future vulnerabilities and disasters. The paper advocates an approach to risk assessment, preparation, and recovery that prioritises partnerships based on recognition, respect, and explicit commitment to justice. The alternatives are to continue prioritising short-term expediencies and opportunistic pursuit of integration, or subverting indigenous rights and the knowledge systems that underpin them. This paper argues such alternatives are not only unethical, but also ineffective

Indigenous internationalism today

Many people say that Australia and Canada have little to teach other. Surely January temperatures of Minus 40 and Plus 40 in Central and Northern Australia and Western and Northern Canada are more similar than dissimilar. That is, both extremes confronted European settlers who came from more temperate lands and who found buffalo or bilby, kangaroo or caribou, strange and exotic creatures which should be replaced by herds of European cattle. I hope I can show that the two countries, and others, have much to share. Also, I will use the Australia-Canada experience to illustrate wider points about indigenous internationalism

Cardiorespiratory fitness and incident use of anxiolytics and antidepressants in adults. A linkage study between HUNT and the Norwegian Prescription Database

publishedVersio

How does the Kvello assessment framework attend to important dimensions of the children’s needs and welfare? A comparison with the BBIC and the ICS frameworks for child welfare investigations

This study aimed to compare the content of the Norwegian Kvello AF for child welfare investigations with similar frameworks from Sweden (BBIC) and Denmark (ICS). The comparison was based on detailed descriptions of each framework, retrieved from authorized websites, textbooks, manuals, course material, and, for the Kvello AF, also personal communication with the author. An ecological triangle model similar to the British AF was chosen as a guideline for the comparison, as all three frameworks referred to bio-ecological developmental theory. The content of the frameworks was thus compared along dimensions and categories related to 1) the child’s needs and development, 2) the parents’ capacity, and 3) environmental factors. The main finding was that the Kvello AF included many of the same elements for gathering information as the other frameworks, but there were some important differences. The Kvello AF seemed to have a narrower perspective on the children’s needs and welfare than the other frameworks, implying a stronger focus on the child–parent interaction and a less focus on environmental factors and the child’s functioning outside the family

The burden of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy: severe impacts on quality of life, daily life functioning and willingness to become pregnant again – results from a cross-sectional study

Background: Though nausea and vomiting is very common during pregnancy, no studies have investigated the impact of this condition on the women’s daily lives in a Scandinavian population. The aim of this study was to describe the burden of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy (NVP) on global quality of life, daily life functioning and willingness to become pregnant again according to the severity of NVP symptoms. Methods: This study is a cross-sectional population-based study conducted in Norway. Pregnant women and mothers with children <1 year of age with current or prior NVP were eligible to participate. Data were collected through an anonymous on-line questionnaire accessible from November 10th, 2014 to January 31st, 2015. Severity of NVP was measured using the 24-h Pregnancy Unique Quantification of Emesis Scale (PUQE). Associations between severity of NVP, daily life functioning and willingness to become pregnant again were tested using chisquare tests. Associations with global quality of life measured in terms of the Quality of Life Scale (QOLS) were estimated using generalized linear models and reported as unstandardized regression coefficients (β) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: 712 women with NVP were included in the study. NVP was significantly associated with several characteristics, including daily life functioning, quality of life and willingness to become pregnant again. The negative impact was greater the more severe the symptoms were, although considerable adverse effects were also seen among women with mild and moderate NVP symptoms. Over one fourth of the women with severe NVP considered terminating the pregnancy due to NVP, and three in four considered not to get pregnant again. Severity of NVP remained significantly associated with reduced global quality of life when adjusting for maternal characteristics and illnesses with β (95% CI) = −10.9 (−16.9, −4.9) for severe versus mild NVP. Conclusions: NVP as measured by PUQE had a major impact on various aspects of the women’s lives, including global quality of life and willingness to become pregnant again.publishedVersio

Decision making in child protection emergency cases in Norway

Background Research on decision-making factors in child protection emergency cases is scarce, and even less is known about factors that can avert emergency placement. Objective This study aims to explore factors that distinguish emergency cases that conclude in emergency placement (EP) from emergency cases that conclude in averted emergency placement (AEP). Participants and setting The study is based on data from an electronic survey on child protection emergency work, completed by a national sample of child protection leaders (N = 154). Method The survey included questions on external and organisational conditions of the Child Protection Service (CPS), as well as descriptions, activities and assessments related to selected emergency cases. Sixty-three of the selected cases were concluded with EP and ninety-one cases were concluded with AEP. Group differences between EP and AEP cases were analysed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression analyses. Results The findings indicate that the case factor “violence at home/child abuse” and the CPS’s activity of “considering out-of-home measures” at initial assessment phase were significantly associated with EP. Activities like “home visits” and “contact with the network” were significantly associated with AEP. Crucial factors for decision-making according to the leaders were “parents’ opinion” and “resources in the network”, which were both significantly associated with AEP. Conclusions The study has identified several potential important factors for averting emergency placements. Building averting capability in CPS is important to avoid the huge relational and social costs of errors relating to EP decisions.publishedVersio