Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INTERACT (The INTERnAtional network on Crisis Translation)
Reporting period: 2019-04-01 to 2020-03-31
Our work on “Policy” has involved an analysis of national and international policy frameworks for recognition of good practice and gaps in relation to the provision of translation and interpreting in all stages of the disaster cycle. We have published a journal article on one part of this analysis and we have produced a public report with recommendations, available on the project website.
Simplification refers to the option of not translating content, but making it more ‘plain’ or ‘simple’ so that it can be understood by limited proficiency readers. This work has a particular focus on health communication, the processes and technology involved in simplifying it, as well as measuring the impact of simplification by focusing on readability, comprehension and machine translatabilty of the simplified content. We have produced several conference presentations, a journal article and have published some recommendations on simplification on the project website.
Machine Translation (MT) is an improving, but not flawless technology. In disaster settings, the challenge is that there may be a sudden onset of the disaster, for example in an earthquake, the language requirements are not known in advance, and often include translation between languages that are not typically the focus of MT development (e.g. English to Haitian Creole). Our work in this area has involved researching techniques that might be useful to help overcome such challenges. In particular, we are interested in the effect of pivoting from one language to another and then into a third language. We have produced conference papers and prototype MT engines for research purposes. We have produced conference papers and a journal article on this topic.
In any disaster, volunteers play an invaluable role. This is true also of linguistic volunteers who may offer to translate in response to information needs. Such volunteers may not have any formal translation training. We are producing materials to help train ‘Citizen Translators’. This material is made up of short, 101 type content covering the basics of translating and of editing machine translated content. We have produced articles evaluating the course content and have made several presentations on this topic. We have delivered open course content called ""Translation 101"" and ""Machine Translation and Post-Editing 101"", which is available via YouTube.
Every aspect of the work mentioned above raises ethical issues: For example, what are the ethical implications if national and international entities continue to ignore language as a human right in humanitarian and disaster settings? Is simplification of content adequate, or does it still exclude some communities? Is it ethical to broadcast potentially poor quality MT in disaster response? Is it ethical to encourage untrained translators and interpreters to contribute to the production of crucial disaster-related information? These questions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to considering the ethical dimension of multicultural and multilinguistic disaster communication. We have addressed some of these questions and have one published journal article and public recommendations on ethical considerations."
- an increased awareness of the need for multilingual information in crisis communication, from North to South
- an established academic field called ""Crisis Translation"" that did not exist prior to this project
- creation of a cross-disciplinary network of expertise that did not exist prior to the project
- multiple academic and public reports on the topic"