Current dilemmas in court interpreting: improving quality and access through smarter testing and administration protocols

Court interpreting certifying bodies face a plethora of challenges in their quest to identify competent judicial interpreters so that speakers of all languages might be assured of due process under the law and equal access to justice. For the entities which develop and administer the oral certification exams which act as gateways to the profession of court interpreting, two such dilemmas are of particular interest: the first is high rates of exam failure, with a frustrating number of candidates not meeting minimum levels of qualification to practice in court. The second is an increasing need for qualified interpreters of languages of lesser diffusion. In the face of ubiquitous budget constraints, this article explores an abbreviated testing model as a mitigator of extreme exam failure at the same time as it reveals the results of a recent pilot project which focused on centralizing interpreting services protocols while prioritizing interpreter quality.Los organismos oficiales que certifican a los intérpretes jurídicos se enfrentan a un gran número de desafíos a la hora de identificar a intérpretes competentes. Para las entidades que desarrollan y administran los exámenes orales de certificación, dos de estos dilemas son de especial interés. Uno de esos dilemas es el alto número de fracasos en los exámenes, ya que muchos de los candidatos no cumplen los requisitos mínimos en los exámenes de certificación. El segundo es una necesidad creciente de identificar a intérpretes cualificados en lenguas de menor difusión. A la vista de las limitaciones presupuestarias actuales, el presente artículo explora un modelo abreviado de examen que pudiera ayudar a disminuir el número de postulantes que suspenden los exámenes de certificación. Al mismo tiempo se revelan los resultados de un estudio piloto enfocado en la centralización de servicios de interpretación cuya prioridad fue seleccionar intérpretes cualificados

Resisting Market Disorder and Ensuring Public Trust : Reimagining National Registers for Legal Interpreters in the United States and the European Union

This article aims to describe the current state of affairs as regards national registers of legal interpreters and translators (LITs) in the United States and the European Union. After a brief overview of what translation and interpreting studies researchers and EU work group participants recommend about their construction and utilization, a case will be made for the use of national registers as essential tools in two important struggles: professionalizing legal translation and interpreting and building public trust. Based on current models and recommendations by researchers, a proposal will be put forth for minimum characteristics of a national register of LITs. Rather than an afterthought, the interpreter register merits scrutiny and careful elaboration precisely because of an ever more ubiquitous need for states and countries to implement measures which are fair, transparent, cost-effective, which guarantee due process, and which provide users with ways to make an objective value judgment regarding the competence of the interpreters they commission

Preliminary use of oxygen stable isotopes and the 1983 El Niño to assess the accuracy of aging black rockfish (Sebastes melanops)

Black rockfish (Sebastes melanops) range from California to Alaska and are found in both nearshore and shallow continental shelf waters (Love et al., 2002). Juveniles and subadults inhabit shallow water, moving deeper as they grow. Generally, adults are found at depths shallower than 55 meters and reportedly live up to 50 years. The species is currently managed by using information from an age-structured stock assessment model (Ralston and Dick, 2003)

Study abroad as a tool for internationalization and linguistic justice: A case study on Latine medical humanities and healthcare interpreting students

Study abroad as a tool for internationalization and linguistic justice: A case study on Latine medical humanities and healthcare interpreting students Mobility programs are an essential vehicle for fomenting global competencies and for internationalizing the curricula of students preparing to serve patients as clinicians or as healthcare interpreters (Wu et al. 2020). This presentation examines a study abroad program designed for Spanish-speaking students of medical humanities and healthcare interpreting at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), a public Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) where 59 percent of students identify as Latine (UTSA 2022b) and 45 percent are first-generation college students (UTSA 2022a). At UTSA, less than ½ of 1 percent of undergraduates participate in study abroad programs (Nolan-Ferrell, Catherine, personal communication, July 2, 2023); however, all participants in the study abroad experience examined here (n=11) identify as Latine. Because study abroad for minoritized students is often seen as frivolous or irrelevant, or as the purview of white students (Kentengian and Peace 2019: 87), the positionality of our students was an essential consideration throughout the design and execution of the experience. In the present case study, personal and social dimensions of instruction, in line with Martínez-Gómez 2020, were leveraged to foment dialog about identity, race, discrimination, health equity, and language access. Furthermore, Latine students’ bilingualism in Spanish and English was leveraged, with the primary objective of facilitating unique access to transnational systems. Internationalization of the curriculum was implemented via a comparative approach to (a) public health and preventive medicine, (b) hospital administration, (c) dietary diversity and health, (d) medicine and the arts, and (e) healthcare interpreting and language access. Encouraging Latine students to more effectively position themselves in communities of (medical) practice as Spanish speakers contributed directly to facilitating dialog about language access as an issue of social justice. With these objectives in mind, students were required to do extensive guided journaling and craft ontological narratives via written reflections and oral presentations. Through exposure to facilities, resources, and expertise at a multi-campus Spanish university, students acquired substantive knowledge in the five aforementioned domains while engaging in conversations around health inequities, access to care, discrimination (personal, cultural, systemic), and location of the self as Spanish speakers. Their reflections on these elements were examined through thematic coding, revealing high levels of self-awareness and self-assurance in the face of discrimination, confidence in their Spanish, and revelations about language access as an issue of social justice. The first iteration of this study abroad experience for Spanish-speaking Latine students promises to shed light on as-yet uninterrogated dimensions of global medical education for primarily heritage speakers of Spanish in Spain. References Kentengian, I. M. and Peace, M. M. (2019). Mi Idioma’: Heritage speakers’ language varieties and identity positioning during study abroad. Contact, community, and connections: Current approaches to Spanish in multilingual populations: 83-108. Martínez-Gómez, A. (2020). Language brokering experience among interpreting students: pedagogical implications for the development of interpreting competence. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 14(3), 303–321. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399X.2020.1736436 University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) (2022a). First-generation & transfer student programs. https://www.utsa.edu/firstgen/ University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) (2022b). Institutional research and analysis: Student demographics. https://www.utsa.edu/ir/content/dashboards/student-demographics.html Wu, A., Leask, B., Choi, E., Unangst, L., & de Wit, H. (2020). Internationalization of medical education—a scoping review of the current status in the United States. Medical Science Educator, 30(4), 1693–1705. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-020-01034-

Métodos de investigación en la traducción y la interpretación en los servicios públicos: epistemologías del conocimiento y la ignorancia

How disciplines approach their objects of inquiry is a result of their epistemological traditions, which include decisions about what they choose to examine and what they decide to ignore. As an interdiscipline, Interpreting and Translation Studies (ITS) was born to overcome the limits of discipline-specificapproaches to translation and interpreting, andwhen observingcomplex real-life phenomena,examining issuesthrough an interdisciplinarylenscan revealthings thatapproaches from single disciplines on their own would miss. This feature article reviewshow ITS hasshapedPublic Service Interpreting and Translation (PSIT),focusing specifically on the advantagesand vulnerabilities that its interdisciplinary nature yields as regards research methods.Three distinctive featuresand their impact on research methods are examined: (1) the complexity of the object ofinquiry, (2) the novelty of the disciplinary field that aims to scrutinize and to explain PSIT, and (3) the changes that the social sciences in general have undergone and are currently undergoing, openingupnew opportunities for research practices and methodological reflections. Contemplations ofthese features revealissues identified and the efforts undertaken to tackle them in relation tothe internal and external validity of research studies as well asunexplored strengths and roadblocks in the path towards achieving a critical mass of studies that can adequately represent the relevance of PSIT in contemporary societies.La forma en que las disciplinas abordan sus objetos de investigación es el resultado de sus tradiciones epistemológicas, que incluyen elecciones sobre lo que se estudia y lo que se ignora. Como interdisciplina, los Estudios de Traducción e Interpretación (ETI) nacieron para superar los límites de los enfoques disciplinarios que se aproximaron a la traducción y a la interpretación. Al examinar fenómenos complejos de la vida real, las miradas interdisciplinarias pueden observar lo que las disciplinas por sí mismas pasarían por alto. Este artículo revisa la forma en que los ETI han moldeadola Traducción y la Interpretación en los Servicios Públicos (TISP) centrándose específicamente en las ventajas y vulnerabilidades que su naturaleza interdisciplinaria produce en lo que respecta a los métodos de investigación. Se examinan tres características distintivas y su impacto en los métodos de investigación: 1) la complejidad del objeto de estudio, 2) la novedad del campo disciplinario que pretende estudiar y explicar la TISP, y 3) los cambios que las ciencias sociales en general han experimentado y están experimentando actualmente, y que abren nuevas oportunidades paralas prácticas investigadoras y las reflexiones metodológicas. Reflexionar sobre esas características revela algunos problemas en relación con la validez interna y externa de las investigaciones y los esfuerzos realizados para abordarlos, así como los puntos fuertes y los obstáculos inexplorados en el camino hacia una masa crítica de estudios que puedan representar adecuadamente la pertinencia de la TISP en las sociedades contemporáneas

Research Methods in Public Service Interpreting and Translation Studies: Epistemologies of Knowledge and Ignorance

Abstract: How disciplines approach their objects of inquiry is a result of their epistemological traditions, which include decisions about what they choose to examine and what they decide to ignore. As an interdiscipline, Interpreting and Translation Studies (ITS) was born to overcome the limits of discipline-specific approaches to translation and interpreting, and when observing complex real-life phenomena, examining issues through an interdisciplinary lens can reveal things that approaches from single disciplines on their own would miss. This feature article reviews how ITS has shaped Public Service Interpreting and Translation (PSIT), focusing specifically on the advantages and vulnerabilities that its interdisciplinary nature yields as regards research methods. Three distinctive features and their impact on research methods are examined: (1) the complexity of the object of inquiry, (2) the novelty of the disciplinary field that aims to scrutinize and to explain PSIT, and (3) the changes that the social sciences in general have undergone and are currently undergoing, opening up new opportunities for research practices and methodological reflections. Contemplations of these features reveal issues identified and the efforts undertaken to tackle them in relation to the internal and external validity of research studies as well as unexplored strengths and roadblocks in the path towards achieving a critical mass of studies that can adequately represent the relevance of PSIT in contemporary societies.Resumen: La forma en que las disciplinas abordan sus objetos de investigación es el resultado de sus tradiciones epistemológicas, que incluyen elecciones sobre lo que se estudia y lo que se ignora. Como interdisciplina, los Estudios de Traducción e Interpretación (ETI) nacieron para superar los límites de los enfoques disciplinarios que se aproximaron a la traducción y a la interpretación. Al examinar fenómenos complejos de la vida real, las miradas interdisciplinarias pueden observar lo que las disciplinas por sí mismas pasarían por alto. Este artículo revisa la forma en que los ETI han moldeado la Traducción y la Interpretación en los Servicios Públicos (TISP) centrándose específicamente en las ventajas y vulnerabilidades que su naturaleza interdisciplinaria produce en lo que respecta a los métodos de investigación. Se examinan tres características distintivas y su impacto en los métodos de investigación: 1) la complejidad del objeto de estudio, 2) la novedad del campo disciplinario que pretende estudiar y explicar la TISP, y 3) los cambios que las ciencias sociales en general han experimentado y están experimentando actualmente, y que abren nuevas oportunidades para las prácticas investigadoras y las reflexiones metodológicas. Reflexionar sobre esas características revela algunos problemas en relación con la validez interna y externa de las investigaciones y los esfuerzos realizados para abordarlos, así como los puntos fuertes y los obstáculos inexplorados en el camino hacia una masa crítica de estudios que puedan representar adecuadamente la pertinencia de la TISP en las sociedades contemporáneas

Legal translation and interpreting in public services: defining key issues, re-examining policies, and locating the public in public service interpreting and translation

Aquesta secció monogràfica de la Revista de Llengua i Dret, Journal of Language and Law presenta els resultats de sis perspectives crítiques sobre els reptes que plantegen per a les institucions públiques les polítiques i les pràctiques de traducció i interpretació en les societats modernes. Amb una mirada crítica i empírica, els articles que s’hi recullen ofereixen dades i reflexions sobre la importància de la disponibilitat lingüística en el gaudi de drets fonamentals i en possibilitar que les institucions executin el seus mandats amb eficiència. L’article introductori revisa la funció dels serveis públics en les actuals societats multilingües, i també de la traducció i la interpretació en el marc de les polítiques que regeixen la disponibilitat lingüística. Tot seguit, examina teories més o menys implícites, sovint contradictòries, de la traducció i la interpretació amb un breu debat sobre les funcions que s’atribueixen, de forma prescriptiva o descriptiva, a traductores i intèrprets. Finalment, es presenten els articles de la secció monogràfica, que s’estructuren al voltant de dos eixos: a) una revisió de pràctiques que forneix dades per a la definició i la reforma de les polítiques públiques, i b) una revisió fonamental de la funció mateixa de la traducció i la interpretació en els serveis públics (TISP) a través d’estudis que ofereixen comparatives de les necessitats i de les percepcions de la TISP en àmbits diversos, com també dels reptes que ha d’afrontar la formació davant les realitats emergents.This monographic section of the Revista de Llengua i Dret, Journal of Language and Law presents the findings of six critical perspectives on translation and interpreting policies and practices in modern societies that pose challenges for public institutions. Taking a critical and empirical stance, the papers provide data and reflections on how language access is critical to fulfilling fundamental rights and ensuring the ability of institutions to implement their mandates effectively. The introductory article reviews the role of public services in present-day multilingual societies and of translation and interpreting in relation to the policies governing language access. It goes on to review conflicting implicit theories of translation and interpreting by providing a brief discussion of the roles prescribed and described for translators and interpreters. Finally, it proceeds to present the papers, which are constructed around two axes: (a) an examination of practices capable of providing evidence for policy redesign and reform; and (b) a fundamental review of the role of public service interpreting and translation (PSIT) itself, conducted by means of comparative studies which examine the needs and perceptions of PSIT in various domains, and the challenges of training in the face of emerging realities

Undoing the Dyad: Re-examining Mentorship with a Feminist Lens

Academic libraries consistently use mentoring programs to integrate new employees by sharing organizational knowledge and providing support to advance in their careers. Traditional models of mentorship are tools that help support existing power structures and keep in power those benefiting from the associated privilege. One way to interrogate traditional mentorship models and their inherent inequities is to apply a feminist lens in examining the expectations and actions of mentors and mentees. This chapter discusses how the traditional dyad mentoring model does not support everyone equally and explores alternative, inclusive models of mentorship, such as group mentoring and peer mentoring. We will connect historical context and theoretical models of mentorship with our own experiences through a feminist lens. Our goal is to highlight models that acknowledge the psychosocial aspect of mentorship, celebrate diverse identities and experiences, and seek to balance power structures

The Health Status and Unique Health Challenges of Rural Older Adults in California

Examines the demographics, health, and levels of physical activity and food insecurity of rural seniors compared with those of urban and suburban seniors. Outlines environmental and social risk factors that require context-specific policies and programs