Citizen Translators’ ‘Imagined Community’ Engagement in Crisis Communication

Teng, Yanjiang

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-87817-7_11

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 29 publications

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“…According to language policies in Shanghai, Shanghai government departments have issued foreign language translation policies for foreign nationals, particularly multilingual services in public areas. However, the multilingual services during major pandemics, as seen in COVID-19, are deficient (Yu and Zhang 2021;Teng 2022), which means that there are some unresolved issues relating to translation policies and practices in terms of public health communication. As a multilingual and multicultural city, Shanghai needs to be prepared to cope with multilingual needs in public health emergencies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trust to test translation practices

Zhou,

Meylaerts,

Hua

et al. 2024

TTMC

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Trust is important in public health communication to culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities during pandemics. This empirical research, using quantitative data from 107 foreign nationals at a university in Shanghai, probes into how trust varied in official translation services (OTS) and non-official translation services (NOTS) during COVID-19. Statistical analysis was carried out by IBM SPSS Statistics 26 and it was found that (1) NOTS which are more frequently used are more trusted compared with OTS; (2) NOTS are uncorrelated with demographics while OTS are correlated with demographics, among which education and trust in OTS suggest a linear positive relationship (Sig. = 0.003, β = 0.467), whereas age and trust in OTS suggest a linear negative relationship (Sig. = 0.027, β = −0.348); (3) there is a positive relationship between the frequency of using services and trust, i.e., higher frequency implies higher trust. The findings of this case study can have implications for policy makers and the representatives of CALD communities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trust to test translation practices

Zhou,

Meylaerts,

Hua

et al. 2024

TTMC

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Emergency messaging and dangerous translations

Diget

2024

Pragmatics &Amp; Beyond New Series

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The early onset of the Covid-19 pandemic brought a wealth of communication challenges. Rapid public access to appropriate and accurate information was at the utmost importance, though greatly challenged by the rapidly changing nature of the emerging crisis. This chapter investigates key issues pertaining to Covid-19 emergency public health messaging and translatability. It is outlined how early Covid-19 discourse included novel vocabulary, previously unknown to the public. It is argued that effective community-wide emergency public health messaging requires careful consideration of these initial word choices, as the inclusion of novel terms can pose barriers for effective cross-translatability. This is because it is uncertain whether equivalents exist or will develop in other languages. Further, time constraints can lead to suboptimal translation practices, including the use of machine translation. In combination, this can lead to poor, and in the worst cases, dangerous translation outcomes. Ultimately, this chapter suggests that in times of crisis, authoring messages with translation in mind can foster better and more effective messaging outcomes.

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Cultural mediation in crisis translation

Zhang,

Zhuang,

Chang

2023

TIS

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This article presents a snapshot of citizen translators as cultural mediators in public services settings by investigating their role in multicultural communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they attempted to resolve potential conflicts in a crisis situation. The study, which focuses on university communities in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) in China, is one of the rare cases examining community translation and interpreting in a non-immigrant country where non-Chinese speakers are in a linguistically weaker position. The role of citizen translators in cultural mediation is outlined by recontextualizing mediation through interview-based qualitative research. During times of crisis, citizen translators arguably go beyond linguistic mediation and resolve conflicts by assuming extra duties and social responsibilities to ensure equal access to public services in multicultural communities, thus contributing to the emotional stability of the community and the smooth delivery of information on anti-epidemic measures.

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Citizen Translators’ ‘Imagined Community’ Engagement in Crisis Communication

Cited by 3 publications

References 29 publications

Trust to test translation practices

Trust to test translation practices

Emergency messaging and dangerous translations

Cultural mediation in crisis translation

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