Conference Papers
Inaugural National Indigenous Interpreting Meeting: Getting the Conversation Started
Session L4.1. Getting the Conversation Started (cont.)
1. Barry McDonald and Malcolm Heffernan: How Far Can We Go?: Ethics and the Role of the Language Interpreter in Aboriginal Australia
Full paper | Audio | Video | Slideshow
The language interpreter as described in the industry’s national code of ethics and practice represents an operative maintaining not only a high level of impartiality, but also possessing significant bicultural competence. While desirable, these qualities are ideals, discussed in the code in a largely theoretical way, devoid of social, cultural and political context. To test this model, the authors interviewed ten, senior Central Australian Aboriginal interpreters, asking them to describe their work role, and to comment on any difficulties they encountered in upholding the ethical principles of accuracy and impartiality in their work. Two systemic barriers to equal and accurate intercultural communication were discussed with them; barriers that have been theorised as the Difference Model (Walsh), and as the Dominance Model (Eades). Our interviewees were then asked whether a). they thought interpreters might handle these barriers by way of what we described as a discourse management approach, and b) how a younger generation of interpreters might be taught about intercultural communication dynamics and discourse management. This paper will describe our research, canvass the varied responses to our interview questions, and will draw conclusions about how mainstream Australia might best support interpreters in education and practice while at the same time upholding the principles of the interpreter’s code of ethics. References: Eades, Diana 2004, Beyond difference and domination?: Intercultural communication in legal contexts, in Paulston, Christina and Scott Kiesling (eds.), Intercultural Discourse and Communication: The Essential Readings. Oxford: Blackwell. Walsh, Michael 1997, Cross Cultural Communication Problems in Aboriginal Australia, Darwin: North Australia Research Unit. Discussion Paper No.7/1997.
Author bio: For many years Barry McDonald and has been involved in the education and training of Aboriginal interpreters in the Northern Territory, South Australia, and Western Australia. He has served on national steering committees convened to reformulate interpreting qualification frameworks, and currently works as a teacher employed by TafeSA.
Author bio: Malcolm Heffernan is a senior Anmatyerre/Arrernte man who works as a language interpreter and Aboriginal liaison officer with both the the Alice Springs Hospital and Territory Health Services. Malcolm qualified and worked as an Aboriginal Health Worker in Central Australia before retraining to become an interpreter.
2. Rob Chapman and Alice Mitchell: Team interpreting: a partnership to interpret meaning
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While much attention in Australian-language interpreting practice is given to both the mechanics of ‘word-level’ interpreting as well as the ethics and professionalism required of interpreters, less attention is given to the difficulties of translating meaning where there is a lack of shared subject-area and cultural understandings. One possible approach to this challenge, while retaining the essential characteristics of the interpreter’s role, is team interpreting. Team interpreting pairs the interpreter with a communication partner who accompanies the interpreter on assignments. While this model incorporates many aspects of mentoring, if differs in explicitly addressing cross-cultural knowledge and communication barriers. Generally the partner will be from the other culture to the interpreter; ideally the partner has both subject-area and language proficiency in both language groups (i.e. the Indigenous and non-Indigenous). For instance, Alice Mitchell, an experienced Registered Nurse and Yolŋu Matha speaker partnered with Yolŋu Matha interpreters in Darwin hospital, using her medical and institutional knowledge and language skills to assist the interpreter to provide a quality service. This model has been practised to a limited extent in both the health and legal systems in the Northern Territory in the past decade with positive results, but more investigation is needed to determine if the model is one which successfully addresses some of the challenges facing the sector.
Auhtor bio: Alice Mitchell has worked as a Community Health Educator and Patient Educator for one indigenous group in the NT over the past ten years. She has mentored indigenous language interpreters working in Royal Darwin Hospital and is a co-author of a dictionary of anatomy, English to Yolngu Matha, which is a resource for interpreters. Alice advocates for ensuring that language and world view are taken account of in health encounters. At present she is completing a Masters in Applied Linguistics as well as working as a midwife.
Author bio: Robert Chapman has lived in Katherine, in the top end of the Northern Territory, for the past seven years. He first worked at the Katherine Language Centre, where his roles included co-ordinating the interpreting service, co-ordinating Kriol language and culture awareness courses and language revitalisation work. Since leaving the language centre, he has worked in a variety of roles, including as a trainee Community Educator with ARDS in Lajamanu, a Roving Tutor in the Katherine region with BIITE, working with COGSO on a governance project in communities east of Katherine and digitising and archiving the Barunga collection as a consultant to NT DET. He is currently employed by the CLC as co-ordinator of a governance project in Lajamanu and other Remote Service Delivery sites in the CLC area.
3. Heather Glass: Issues in indigenous interpreting – not different, but equal
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In 2008 Barry McDonald and I journeyed together through central and northern Australia, visiting the same places, meeting the same people, but in the way of these things, at times perceiving what we saw and heard in different ways. Those closely involved in indigenous affairs tend to see politics. What I found were colleagues grappling with the same challenges confronting interpreters everywhere. Problems of equivalence, cultural differences, literacy, power imbalance, the anachronism that is the AUSIT Code of Ethics, the linguistic focus of NAATI test standards, language loss among younger generations, discourse management, and shared responsibility for quality control are themes common to interpreting in any language: migrant, commercial, Indigenous and Deaf. In discussing our work, my indigenous colleagues pointed me to the key to new national qualifications for interpreters in all languages. The singular difference between traditional definitions of interpreter competence and the ‘new’ occupational approach is discourse management, in itself a linguistic, not a political concept. McDonald and Heffernan have arrived at the logical extension: shared responsibility for effective communication.I will use national and international examples to show how wrong things can go when quality processes and standards are developed in ignorance of interpreting and its universality, and how right they go when it is understood that different languages do not mean different interpreting rules.This paper will put the position that the way forward for indigenous interpreting is not a different path, but a path of collaboration and synergy in the context of our common profession.
Author bio: Heather Glass is one of Australia’s better Japanese speakers. She has interpreted for Prime Ministers, for Supreme courts - all around the Asia-Pacific – and in most fields of business, community and government endeavour. Heather also manages competent interpreting teams and production of high quality bilingual material. Heather has developed and delivered training in hospitality, tourism and cross-cultural communication, delivered training in translating, interpreting and working with interpreters, co-developed training in bilingual work, and designed and run national consultations and workshops. She is a sessional lecturer at Central Institute of Technology and served two three-year terms as a NAATI examiner. Recently Heather completed a 12-month contract to facilitate industry consultations for the development of competency-based qualifications for translating and interpreting, endorsed nationally in July 2010, was a key member of the project teams developing trainer and learner resources for a new State-accredited qualification - Certificate IV in Bilingual Work - and has inaugurated a national network of trainers and educators of translators and interpreters (TITEN). Heather has managed projects promoting WA and the Territory, and the filming of documentaries across Australia. Her passion is learning and communication and her interests are food, friends and travel, in no particular order, but preferably taken together.