Conference Papers
Inaugural National Indigenous Interpreting Meeting: Getting the Conversation Started
Session L3.4. Getting the Conversation Started (cont.)
1. Inawantji Scales and Georgina Nou: Issues involved in delivering Interpreter training to remote indigenous communities in South Australia
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Since 2006, a team of TafeSA lecturers has been delivering interpreter training in the APY (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara) Lands, an area in North West South Australia.
Remoteness, participant commitments, cultural considerations, access to technology, preferred learning styles and economic factors all have an impact on the effectiveness of our program. In this session we will examine issues relevant to the delivery of interpreter training for participants in remote indigenous communities. We have made an effort to ensure that, as far as possible, this training is being informed by current research through conversations between older experienced interpreters and newer recruits. Our practice, which comprises a mix of face-to-face and online methodologies, includes synchronous online teaching sessions and the maintenance of a resource-rich Moodle webpage. Teaching strategies that we employ will be discussed and, as far as is practicable, also demonstrated. At the conclusion of our discussion we would like two questions to be considered: Can our approach have benefits for other interpreter-training programs where conventional face-to-face contact may not always be possible or optimal?; and Does our methodology adequately serve the need to train interpreters thoroughly, reasonably promptly, and cost-effectively?
Author bio: Georgina Nou has had strong connections with people in Central Australia since 1996 when she formed relationships with Warlpiri people in the Tanami region of the Northern Territory. Since then, she has worked as an adult educator with Aboriginal people from many language groups in Central Australia. Over the past five years Georgina Nou has been working in the APY Lands developing the Diploma of Interpreting for online delivery. At the same time she has been leading projects to embed e-learning across the APY Lands’ communities, and to involve Anangu in online delivery, assessment and learning design.
Author bio: Inawantji Scales is a young Pitjantjatjara woman who has chosen interpreting and intercultural communication as her vocation. Inawantji grew up in the very remote South Australian community of Pipalyatjara, and attended high school at Wiltja in Adelaide. She has completed the Certificate III course in Primary Health Care, the Diploma of Interpreting, and is currently completing the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. Since 2008, Inawantji has been teaching in TafeSA’s Diploma of Interpreting (Aboriginal Languages) program, and maintains her skills through her busy interpreting practice.
2. Steve Swartz: Say What?—Could the Government Please Speak English! Rescripting, Interpreting and Training Challenges at AIS
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Various government and non-government agencies rely on the Aboriginal Interpreting Service in the Northern Territory to interpret their messages into various Aboriginal languages. This is essential to ensure effective communication between these agencies and Aboriginal people, young and old. Considerable time, effort and expense is taken to ensure that those messages are interpreted in an accurate, clear and natural fashion and then recorded for transmission through various media, such as radio. However, the process involved in ensuring accuracy and naturalness is neither easy nor straightforward but is fraught with numerous pitfalls. It is often assumed that, given a message to interpret and record, an interpreter can and will easily and automatically make all of the semantic, grammatical and cultural adjustments required so that the listener receives and understands the intended message. This burden is placed on the interpreter, often a younger Aboriginal person charged with ensuring effective communication between the agency and older generations of Aboriginal people. However, the data suggests that even experienced interpreters stumble and struggle to produce clear, accurate and natural messages in Aboriginal languages, when presented with an unprocessed, raw English text to interpret. The first, and perhaps the most important, hurdle to be overcome is to unpack the meaning of the messages as they are encoded in the grammar of English. This is what rescripting, or front-translation, is. English grammar by itself, not to mention various semantic and cultural differences, is markedly different to the grammatical features shared across most Aboriginal languages. It is all too easy for interpreters to mimic English grammatical structures when they interpret. But such failure to move from meaning to meaning across languages results in interpreting that is inaccurate, unclear and unnatural. It is therefore incumbent for government agencies to speak their messages clearly as possible and for proper rescripting of those messages to be undertaken, so that Aboriginal people young and old can gain full benefit of the government initiatives.
Author bio: Steve Swartz and his family came to Australia from the United States to engage in translation work. They worked among the Warlpiri people of Central Australia for nearly 25 years, living at Lajamanu in the Northern Territory from 1978-1986 and then in Alice Springs from 1989 until the present day. The author supervised the translation of the Warlpiri Bible, published in 2001. Since then he has worked variously as an executive secretary and classroom tutor at Yirara College, a lecturer in basic English literacy and numeracy at both the Institute for Aboriginal Development and the Alice Springs Correctional Centre, then as a prison guard, and finally since mid-February 2011 as a Trainer at the Aboriginal Interpreter Service. He is not sure what he wants to be when he grows up! The author holds a BA degree in Philosophy (1973) from Huntington University, Indiana and an MA in Applied Linguistics from The William Carey International University, CA (1988). His thesis was entitled, “Constraints on Zero Anaphora and Word Order in Warlpiri Narrative Text.” He has published several other technical papers as well as a Warlpiri Dictionary (2009). The author has been happily married to his first and only wife for nearly 37 years. They have three children of their own and five grandchildren. They also have a Warlpiri foster son. In addition one dog, one cat and numerous fish rely on them for care and feeding. The author is a mad-keen internet chess player of painfully average ability. He has run one (and only one) marathon but, since a hip injury, restricts his exercise to bike riding, walking and swimming
3. Peter Mathie: How do we make sure that interpreters are going to be there when we need them?
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Service providers, policy makers, funders, interpreting services and community members have a shared interest in ensuring understanding is achieved in discourse between Aboriginal people and a wide range of others. Many of those who are required to fund services or ensure that they book services under various policies of government do not think that they are necessary. Good will might be a shared attribute but understanding is not. Understanding is the key ingredient of consultation, the underpinning of justice and the central pillar of good primary health care. For many in the Kimberley region of WA where the need, supply and demand for interpreters are far from matched understanding remains a vague policy promise. This presentation will follow the journey of the Kimberley Interpreting Service and its quest to secure sufficient funds to provide services that are urgently needed. The case will also be made for the need to procure ongoing funding arrangements to ensure that the emerging generation of young interpreters will have secure career paths. This will enable them to become the interpreters of the future and meet the demand for their services.
Author bio: Peter Mathie began working in the non-government community sector in 1981. Since that time he has held senior and front line positions in a range of service organisations and has contributed to government funding processes within ATSIC and the Department of Health and Ageing’s Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health. In 2008 Peter left the public service and committed himself to applying his experience as a contractor or consultant. Most of his work is now assisting community based services plan and attract sufficient funds to fuel adequate services for their clients. Peter has been working with the Kimberley Interpreting Service since December 2008, he has assisted in securing some Australian Government funding and is supporting the service through a significant period of change. Peter has a trade background, a Bachelor of Business (Accounting), a Graduate Certificate in Public Sector Management and has recently completed a Master of Business Administration at the Curtin Graduate School of Business in Perth.