Teaching Interpreters About Self-Care

Personal factors as well as the nature of certain assignments may negatively impact interpreters and cause stress. The authors sought to examine the various stressors that affect interpreters. They argue that if interpreters are able to identify a potential stressor early on, they may be able to address it through self-care. In the worst-case scenario, ongoing and unaddressed negative impact may result in burnout, at which stage professional assistance will be required and there may be long-term consequences. The authors propose an approach aimed at helping interpreters recognize signs of being negatively impacted, as well as teaching them self-care techniques, so as to reduce the deleterious effects of the stressors they face

The Benefits of Reflective Blogs in Language-Neutral Translator Education

Abstract: This paper is based on anonymised information taken from online blogs created by students in a translation course taught at Auckland University of Technology (AUT University) as part of their assessment. Auckland is the main destination for entry for both new migrants and refugees and is therefore the dominant region for ethnic diversity. At present, the three main interpreting and translation services in the Auckland area cater to the communicative needs of migrants and refugees representing up to 200 different languages. Students taking this course reflect to some degree the range of ethnic and linguistic communities in the greater Auckland area. Over the past years, translation and interpreting classrooms at AUT have included speakers of Chinese languages, as well as Korean, Japanese, Arabic, Farsi and Vietnamese. This type of multilingual and multicultural classroom has required the development of special language-neutral pedagogies. The current paper describes the use of reflective blogs: students were asked to translate a range of texts involving a variety of culture-specific items (Aixelá, 1996; Davies, 2003) and to use the blogs to reflect on issues identified, resources used and reviewer feedback. The material chosen for translation included a range of texts commonly encountered in public service translation settings; the blog method employed may prove to be beneficial to (student) translators working in public service settings.Resumen: Este artículo está basado en información anonimizada extraída de blogs creados por estudiantes en una asignatura de traducción en la universidad Auckland University of Technology (AUT) como parte de su evaluación. Auckland es el centro con más ingreso de emigrantes y refugiados y de esta manera es la región líder en diversidad étnica. Actualmente, los tres servicios principales de traducción e interpretación en Auckland atienden las dificultades comunicativas de emigrantes y refugiados, representando hasta 200 distintos idiomas. Los estudiantes de esta materia reflejan en cierta medida la diversidad de comunidades étnicas y lingüísticas en la región de Auckland. Durante años, por las clases de traducción e interpretación en AUT han pasado estudiantes de habla coreana, japonesa, árabe, persa, vietnamita como también de dialectos chinos. Este tipo de clase multicultural y multilingüe ha requerido el desarrollo de pedagogías especiales en idioma neutro. Este artículo describe el uso de blogs reflexivos: se le pidió a los estudiantes traducir una variedad de textos que incluían distintos elementos específico-culturales (Aixéla 1996; Davies, 2003) y utilizar sus blogs para reflexionar sobre la identificación de problemas, recursos utilizados y comentarios de crítica de revisión. El material elegido incluyó una variedad de textos que pueden ser encontrados comúnmente en contextos de servicio de traducción publica y el método de blog empleado puede ayudar a (estudiantes) traductores que desempeñan su labor en contextos de servicios públicos.

I understand it well, but I cannot say it proper back: language use among older Dutch migrants in New Zealand

The purposes of this study were (a) to examine two groups of healthy older Dutch English bilingual migrants in a New Zealand setting to investigate whether they were showing signs of L2 attrition with accompanying L1 reversion post-retirement, and (b) to identify possible factors which might play a role in the incidence of any L2 attrition and concomitant L1 reversion. Previous research has focused on similar groups of migrants in the Australian context, while New Zealand based research has focused on language shift and maintenance amongst three generations of migrants. The research design involved an analysis of sociolinguistic life, using questionnaires. These included self-assessments of L1 and L2 proficiency at three key times: on arrival in New Zealand, at time of ultimate attainment and post-retirement. Further, an analysis of assessments of respondents’ L1 and L2 proficiency pre-and post-retirement completed by interviewees’ adult children moderated respondents’ self-reports. The findings revealed a considerable overlap between participants’ self-reports and assessments by their adult children. The study also revealed a relationship between participants’ level of prior education and their ultimate attainment in the L2, with those who had come to New Zealand having learned English at Secondary School English very likely to have achieved a “good” or “very good” level of L2 proficiency. Conversely, those who had not learned the L2 at secondary school prior to arriving in New Zealand, were less likely to have achieved a “very good” level of ultimate attainment as evident both from self-reports and assessments by adult children. The design also included a linguistic analysis of elicited free speech. Data focused on key indicators of age, gender, social class, prior education, occupation and predominant linguistic environment pre- and post-retirement. Free speech was examined for code-switching, response latency and L1 structure in respondents’ spoken L2. Results indicated that a majority of respondents showed minimal if any signs of L2 attrition with concomitant L1 reversion, both as evidenced by their spoken L2 and as indicated by self-reports and assessments by adult children. Any signs of L2 attrition which were found appeared linked to respondents’ level of prior education and L2 proficiency on arrival in New Zealand. Being exposed to a predominantly L1 social environment post-retirement also appeared to result in a lifting of the threshold for L2 lexical items, resulting in a slightly increased response latency in the spoken L2. Three participants said they experienced some problems expressing their healthcare needs to medical professionals, to the extent that they were searching for words. All stated they “got there in the end” but needed more time to paraphrase their health needs. Two subjects avoided the use of the L2 during the interview, even when prompted in English. Three respondents engaged in significant codeswitching from L2 to L1 and vice versa, with two engaging in what Muysken (2000) terms “congruent lexicalisation”. Adult childrens’ reports indicated that the respondents in question had always spoken in this manner, but to a greater extent now, post-retirement. Overall, a number of the healthy older subjects interviewed for the study were showing some signs of increased response latency and lexical retrieval problems when expressing themselves in the L2, but none to the degree that they were no longer able to communicate in that language