Thirty Years of Nordic Interpretation

Interpretation between the Nordic languages is a matter of course today within Nordic co-operation. However, it is no more than thirty years since, after much deliberation, the Nordic Council’s annual sessions began using simultaneous interpreters. Marjatta Liljeström, Head of the Nordic Interpretation and Translation unit, drew attention to this point at a conference in London at the end of last week.

It was during the anniversary Session in Helsinki in 1977, as much as 25 years after the Nordic Council was founded, that the Finnish speaking members were given the opportunity to follow the debate in their mother tongue. The Finnish Delegation had initiated the process a couple of years earlier. Amongst those who had signed the initiative back then was MP Erkki Tuomioja, this year’s President of the Nordic Council.

“It was several years before further progress was made. At the beginning interpretation only took place during the Nordic Council’s annual Sessions and the language combination was limited to Finnish-Scandinavian-Finnish,” said Liljeström at the conference. Simultaneous interpretation has, however, slowly become a natural and integrated part of Nordic co-operation – today there is interpretation at a great number of meetings and between many languages. In addition to the Nordic Council Sessions other joint meetings such as committee meetings and party group meetings have interpretation as required. Interpretation is used to a great extent also at the Nordic Council of Ministers ministerial meetings, meetings of senior officials, conferences and other events.

Interpretation is done chiefly within the Nordic languages, i.e. Finnish, Icelandic and the Scandinavian languages. However, interpretation to Russian and not least English has, over time, become more usual as a result of closer co-operation with the Baltic States, Russia and the EU. The theme for the conference in London, organized from 6 – 8 March, was interpretation and translation of Nordic languages. The conference was partly financed by the Nordic Cultural Fund and the Nordic foreign ministries.

The Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers have had a joint interpretation and translation unit in Copenhagen since 1999. The unit employs four full-time members of staff and a large number of interpreters and translators on freelance basis.

Source: http://inorden.org

Youth Council To Speak English

On the grounds that it considers inclusion more important than language, the Nordic Youth Council has decided that it will work in English whenever necessary, a move that runs counter to official Nordic language policy, which specifies Norwegian, Swedish and Danish as the working languages.

“Nordic co-operation has to be open to all, not just an exclusive club for Scandinavian speakers,” the Nordic Youth Council (UNR) said in a statement on 14 April.

“If language leads to exclusion, then it’s time to change the language,” according to the Youth Council. The UNR Presidium has accepted the consequences and decided to use English in its work whenever necessary. The UNR is gathered in Stavanger in conjunction with the Nordic Council’s April meetings.

“We need to understand each other,” says the UNR President, Lisbeth Sejer Gøtzsche. “Some people don’t understand what is being said at the meetings. No matter where people come from, they have trouble understanding the Scandinavian languages,” she added.

As President, she believes that language lies at the very core of the Council’s work. “I’ve come to the realisation that it won’t make me any less Danish or Nordic if we use English at UNR meetings,” she says. She adds that it would be easier to work in the Scandinavian languages if the UNR was to receive greater financial support for interpreters.

“We must accept the fact that knowledge of Scandinavian languages continues to diminish among the younger generations, and that globalisation has made the Nordic countries more diverse. As a result, we shouldn’t take it for granted that everybody in the Region understands and communicates in Scandinavian,” the UNR statement says. The UNR also wishes to draw attention to the need for better coverage of Nordic history and society in the education system.

Source: http://inorden.org

Industry Leaders Convene at Second Annual National Medical Interpreter Certification Forum

The second annual meeting of the National Medical Interpreter Certification Forum took place on May 1, in Portland, Oregon, and was attended by a broad range of industry stakeholders, including representatives of various state and national interpreter associations, interpreters and providers of interpreter services, government officials, educators, trainers, and hospitals and health care organizations. Together they advanced the forum’s goal to improve and support standardization of the quality of language services in the nation’s health care institutions in order to eliminate linguistic and cultural barriers to quality care for patients with limited English proficiency (LEP).

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has long prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin and more recent efforts have been made to clarify and strengthen the language access implications of Title VI. However, the lack of standards and guidelines in providing language access remains a significant health concern for LEP patients, resulting in unnecessary pain, suffering and expense. “We know patients served by a certified medical interpreter and not just someone who speaks their language ultimately will have better health outcomes; it’s that simple,” says forum moderator Linda Joyce, a language access consultant and the former Director of Language Interpretive Services at Grady Health System in Atlanta. “What isn’t simple is the collaborative effort it will take to make national certification a reality.”

One of the most significant outcomes of the forum this year was a formal recommendation, favored by all attendees, to roll out a pilot of a national medical interpreter certification test by May 1, 2009. Supporting this initiative are the results of the second annual needs assessment survey conducted in April 2008 and reported at the forum. The online survey findings provide some indication of what national medical interpreter certification will ultimately look like. Completed by 794 industry stakeholders, 33 percent of whom were medical interpreters, the survey was conducted to check the pulse of those who will be directly affected by a national medical interpreter certification. Survey respondents indicated that a viable medical certification test should offer more than one level of certification, have pre-requisites that include a high level of linguistic proficiency, a minimum age of 18, and some college or certificate coursework. In addition, the option of remote testing, either by phone or over the computer, was highly acceptable to the respondents. They also felt strongly that re-takes should be available to candidates who are unsuccessful on their first attempt and that continuing education should be a requirement once candidates do pass the test.

“Both the dialogue at the forum and the survey findings conclude that we need to move forward collaboratively on a national medical interpreter certification initiative,” explains Louis Provenzano, President and COO of Language Line Services, the company that sponsored the survey and hosted the forum. “To that end, there is much we can learn from Oregon’s ongoing commitment to provide at-risk populations with competent linguistic and cultural access to health care, as well as the other proactive states and industry organizations around the country.”

Oregon is among a small group of states that has formalized, or is in the process of formalizing, medical interpreter certification standards. Others include Iowa, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Washington. “I’m thrilled to be a part of this important initiative to govern the quality of language services in our nation’s health care institutions,” says Jenny Lee-Berry, Acting Director of the Oregon Office of Multicultural Health. “The forum will also help raise awareness of the important role played by medical interpreters every day in health care delivery.”

About National Medical Interpreter Certification Forum

In its conceptual phase, the National Medical Interpreter Certification Forum is an emerging group of stakeholders, large and small, private and public, working together to collaborate with a specific focus on the topic of National Medical Interpreter Certification. The purpose of this initiative is to improve and support standardization of the quality of language services in our nation’s health care institutions.

Source: http://www.redorbit.com

Assistant Professor – Comparative and/or World Literature and Translation Studies

Fixed Term Contract for 2 years, £33,779 – £40,335 pa

You will be able to supplement the Centre’s strong international reputation in both research and teaching. You will develop your own research and will have the opportunity to teach at postgraduate level within the fields of Comparative and/or World Literature and Translation Studies, including the other subject areas covered by the Centre. An interest in interdisciplinarity would be an advantage.

Interview date: 1 July 2008

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Source: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk

Guardans (CiU) pregunta por ausencia catalán, euskera y gallego en cursos UE

El eurodiputado de CiU Ignasi Guardans pidió explicaciones a la Comisión Europea por la ausencia del catalán, el euskera y el gallego en los cursos intensivos de idiomas Erasmus, destinados a promocionar las lenguas menos utilizadas en la Unión Europea.

Según Guardans, estos cursos ofrecen a los universitarios becados con el programa Erasmus la oportunidad de estudiar la lengua del país de acogida durante un periodo de hasta seis semanas. En el período docente 2007-2008, la iniciativa cubre 20 de los 27 Estados miembros de la UE y tres países terceros (Turquía, Islandia y Noruega). ‘Sorprendentemente, en esta lista no figura España, un país donde en muchas universidades la lengua oficial es el catalán, el euskera o el gallego, todas ellas susceptibles de poder ser parte de los idiomas seleccionados en los cursos intensivos de idiomas Erasmus’, lamenta Guardans en su interpelación. El eurodiputado pregunta a la Comisión Europea las razones de esta selección y si piensa adoptar alguna medida para posibilitar, en próximos años, el aprendizaje de dichas lenguas.

Fuente: http://actualidad.terra.es

Euskera para todos, pero sin imposición

El Gobierno abre el debate sobre una política lingüística “progresiva y flexible”

La ecuación que equipara el conocimiento del euskera a su utilización ha fallado. Los datos lo corroboran. Cerca del 84% de los trabajadores públicos titulares cuenta con el perfil de euskera exigido, pero el uso hablado entre ellos y entre administraciones oscila entre el 30% y el 40%.

Muchos de los alumnos que estudian en euskera, cuando pasan del aula al patio de recreo juegan en castellano. Ante ejemplos como éste, el Gobierno vasco ha puesto en marcha un debate social para diseñar una nueva política lingüística, que pasaría por ser menos voluntarista y más pegada a la realidad. Esas son al menos las ideas que recoge el documento base que servirá de plataforma para el debate. El texto ha sido elaborado por las siete personas que integran el grupo permanente de la comisión especial denominada Bases para la Política Lingüística de principios del siglo XXI, formada a su vez por 40 personas de diversas ideologías y ámbitos públicos y privados.

El documento, abierto a “la más amplia participación social”, hace hincapié en que el euskera es “patrimonio de todos”, de los vascoparlantes y de los castellanohablantes, “por encima de ideologías políticas”, subrayó ayer el viceconsejero de Política Lingüística, Patxi Baztarrika, durante su presentación. A partir de ahí, la comisión permanente apunta las líneas que deberían marcar la nueva política lingüística. “Hace 25 años pensábamos que con una legislación y un apoyo económico adecuados seríamos capaces de lograr una sociedad bilingüe, pero esto se ha cumplido sólo en parte”, admitió el catedrático de Filología vasca Pello Salaburu.

Así que, de cara al futuro, plantea dejar de lado el voluntarismo como base de la política lingüística, como se ha tendido a hacer hasta ahora. Esto “fuerza mucho las cosas en la sociedad, sin tener en cuenta que una gran parte de ella no habla euskera. Y además, para el propio desarrollo y fortalecimiento efectivo del euskera como lengua realmente hablada y viva, acaba siendo un fiasco. El objetivo no es tanto la expansión de la lengua sin límites, sino el fortalecimiento de la comunidad lingüística”, argumentó el catedrático de Derecho Constitucional Alberto López Basaguren. Frente al voluntarismo, la comisión aboga por una política que sí ampare a la lengua más débil, en este caso el euskera, pero que esté más centrada en “la voluntad individual de los ciudadanos”. “La voluntad no se lleva bien con la imposición”, señala el documento base. Considera, además, que la política lingüística ha de ser “progresiva y flexible”, debe tener en cuenta “las características lingüísticas de cada lugar”. “Nuestra sociedad no será bilingüe en otros 25 años, pero debemos conseguir en pocos años que los bilingües dejen de ser minoría”.

Fuente: http://www.elpais.com

TC-STAR unifie l’Europe linguistique

Le projet européen développe une tour de Babel informatique permettant de traduire de manière illimitée toutes les langues parlées en Europe. L’un des buts est d’automatiser les services de traduction au Parlement européen.

Vingt-trois langues officielles sont parlées au sein de l’Union Européenne. Cette diversité linguistique pose problème au niveau des rencontres et des échanges intereuropéens, notamment d’un point de vue financier : les institutions dépensent plus d’un milliard d’euros chaque année en services de traduction et en contrats d’interprètes. Selon les membres du projet européen TC-STAR*, faire endosser le rôle de traducteur à des machines permettrait de réaliser des économies de temps et d’argent. Pour y parvenir, le groupe travaille sur un système informatique capable de proposer une interprétation pertinente dans la langue de son choix d’un discours prononcé dans une autre langue. Le tout, en temps réel, quel que soit le sujet abordé et le contexte. Le but étant de le rendre suffisamment performant pour remplacer les interprètes “humains” lors des débats au Parlement européen. Jusqu’à présent, les dispositifs automatiques ne pouvaient en général répondre qu’à une demande limitée, en fonction de leurs programmations.

Traduire de manière illimitée

Un processus qui est souvent à l’origine d’erreurs d’interprétation et de confusions grammaticales. Celui développé par TC-STAR, au contraire, souhaite autoriser la traduction parole-parole dans un domaine illimité. Une méthode qui permet à la machine de s’approcher des capacités d’un humain. Voire de les dépasser en termes de rapidité de compréhension. “Pour les individus, traduire des phrases est souvent un exercice périlleux. Nous devons en effet bien connaître deux langues pour effectuer une traduction valable“, explique Marcello Federico, chercheur au FBK-irst de Trento (Italie) et l’un des participants de l’initiative. Pour fonctionner, TC-STAR combine trois technologies de traduction parole-parole : la traduction automatique (ASR, pour Automatic Speech Recognition), est utilisée pour transcrire les mots entendus en texte. L’identification du langage parlé effectue la traduction de la langue d’origine à celle souhaitée. Enfin, la synthèse texte-parole améliore le rendu final.

70 % de réussite

Les phrases traduites sont ensuite proposées de manière orale ou au format textuel. Depuis le lancement du projet en 2006, plusieurs tests ont été effectués : traduction d’émissions télévisées du chinois à l’anglais, déploiement du système au Parlement, à l’occasion de débats en français et en espagnol… Selon l’aveu même des chercheurs qui travaillent sur le projet, TC-STAR est encore loin de proposer une traduction parfaite des phrases entendues. Les résultats sont cependant encourageants : les deux tiers des mots entendus seraient désormais traduits avec exactitude, même s’ils ne sont pas prononcés correctement par l’énonciateur ou s’ils sont employés d’une manière grammaticalement fausse. A savoir : onze compagnies issues notamment du secteur de l’informatique, des télécoms et du divertissement participent au projet, parmi lesquelles Nokia, IBM et Sony.

Source: http://www.atelier.fr