The world is becoming increasingly interconnected and we can witness communities with a diversity of languages and cultures brought about by migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, overseas patients or international students. The United Nations states (2017, p. 1),
International migration has become a reality that touches nearly all corners of the globe. Modern transportation has made it easier, cheaper and faster for people to move in search of jobs, opportunity, education and quality of life. At the same time conflict, poverty, inequality and a lack of sustainable livelihoods compel people to leave their homes to seek a better future for themselves and their families abroad.
The United Nations International Migration Report shows that the number of migrants worldwide has continued to grow rapidly in recent years reaching 271 million in 2019, up from 173 million in 2000 and the number of internationally mobile students was about 5.3 million in 2017 (UN 2019). The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report indicates that there are nearly 24 million refugees including asylum-seekers around the world (UNHCR 2018, p. 61).
People starting a life in a new country may face a variety of problems in accessing public services (Corsellis 2008). As a diverse country, Australia had to deal with certain challenges to maintain a socially inclusive society up until the 1970s when it adopted a multicultural policy as a country dependent on skilled migration as a means to overcome the challenges of an ageing population (Eser 2016). Not all countries across the world have well-established systems to satisfy the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) members in their community. However, efforts to establish these services as a profession, while promising, are slow. Australia, Canada and Sweden are a few of the countries investing in community interpreting services in a more sustainable way (Corsellis 2008, p. 1). This book aims to provide a detailed discussion of the challenges and the strategies in the industry of community interpreting services in Australia and to use this as a basis for establishing implications for the future as a way of helping stakeholders navigate their way in and beyond Australia.
This introductory chapter looks at two aspects of community interpreting services: the context of the profession and the possible career paths of a community interpreter.
1.1 The Context of Community Interpreting
Mulayim et al. (2014) clearly state that professional interpreting is one of the few professions conducted wholly within another professional activity like hospitals and courts. Therefore, community interpreting is, by nature, interdisciplinary, and community interpreters are bound by the code of ethics of the institution they work with as well as the code of ethics of their own profession such as the AUSIT or ASLIA code of Ethics. Mulayim, Lai and Norma also add that interpreting is increasingly required on security grounds, a further area of professional activity:
Since September 11, 2001, security has become a global issue beyond national or regional borders, and this has resulted in an increase in the employment of qualified and trained interpreters by law enforcement agencies in the investigation and intelligence gathering stages of their operations. (2014, p. XXVIII)
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) is one of the five operational agencies and bodies within the Home Affairs Portfolio established in 2016. The Portfolio brings together Australia’s federal law enforcement, national and transport security, criminal justice, emergency management, multicultural affairs and immigration and border-related functions and agencies. ACIC creates a national intelligence picture of crime, targets serious and organized crime, delivers information capability and services to frontline policing and law enforcement, and supports crime and justice research to address crime in Australia. It responds to organized crime such as illicit drugs, fraud, financial crimes, money laundering, public sector corruption, cybercrime and violence.1 ACIC estimates that serious and organized crime cost Australia between AU$23.8 billion and AU$47.4 billion during 2016–17 (ACIC 2017). When transnational syndicates based offshore and the multicultural diversity in Australia are taken into account, the need for community interpreting and translation services stands out in sharp relief. ACIC officers may attempt to gather information from a variety of sources to produce intelligence.
The raw intelligence may contain inaccuracies and inconsistencies and require further analysis to confirm a fact or a set of facts. Intelligence consists of a process through which it is collected, analysed, produced and disseminated. This is what frontline officers may need to fight organized crime. Therefore, interpreting and translation services for intelligence purposes may extend beyond interlingual activities to include cross-cultural consulting. Examples of such activities include:
- translating a variety of documents such as passports, diaries, Interpol requests, corporate documents and media releases in foreign languages, and preparing forensic transcripts and statements for court.
- providing interpreting services to witnesses in interviews and attending to calls in foreign languages. This can also cover sight translations of documents.
- advising on the sociocultural aspects of operations.
Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have to grapple with certain challenges. To begin with, communication is not primarily intended for interpreting and translation. Communication events can feature the use of multiple languages and non-standard grammar. For example, the language used can be awash in criminal jargon, coded words and veiled statements. Furthermore, officers need to be careful with their choice of words and language use because their material can be used as evidence in court, and they may, in turn, be called on to appear in court as a knowledgeable person. In addition, translators and interpreters who work in these settings often need to work on-site, not from home. They must exhibit physical and psychological resilience due to the necessity of processing abhorrent material or engaging in situations such as child abuse. All things considered, staffing i.e. finding qualified interpreters, is a permanent issue.
There are other settings like healthcare, law, education and social services that involve community interpreting and translation services for the CALD members of a community who are in need of access to public services (Hale 2007; Corsellis 2008; Pöchhacker 2016). In her seminal book Community Interpreting, Hale (2007) focuses mainly on two settings: medical and legal. Community interpreters do not work in a vacuum. They have to work in the context of other professions like medicine and law and also have a set of competencies peculiar to community interpreting. These settings represent environments where professionals from two distinct disciplines have to work together. As a matter of fact, they need each other to do so. Clients will be affected directly if this collaboration leads to some challenges like ethical considerations and role boundaries. In their book titled Ethics for Police Translators and Interpreters, Mulayim and Lai (2016) contend that professionals in community interpreting services must develop an understanding of the duty of care in the professional sense. For their part, community interpreters have to cope with a highly specialized use of language in these settings and it takes them time to be able to develop the necessary skills, knowledge, and experience including an understanding of the codes of ethics in these specific areas. Mulayim et al. (2014) claim that the use of plain language by professionals who communicate through an interpreter will facilitate understanding. On the other hand, the complexity also arises from professionals like doctors and judges who work with community interpreters. There are instances that indicate these professionals lack an understanding of what it is like to work with interpreters and what challenges can exacerbate the performance of an interpreter ...