A former employee who screened interpreters for Afghan languages at Mission Essential Personnel has blown the whistle on his former employer, citing that the practice of sending interpreters into battle — even though they did not speak the language(s) for which they were hired to interpret — is widespread. The video footage from ABC news is damning, to say the last. It clearly shows the interpreter violating many of the core tenets of interpreting — failing to interpret everything that was stated (omissions), interpreting things incorrectly (misinterpretations), making things up (embellishment), and even going so far as to say, “I hate these people” (referring to the Afghan villagers). Not exactly a model interpreter, to say the least. This kind of behavior does not come as a surprise. At Common Sense Advisory, we’ve heard numerous reports about the lack of qualified interpreters in the military, and have interviewed various members of the armed forces — including the linguists themselves — who have told us similar stories:
These problems are longstanding, and are not just limited to Afghanistan. Back in 2007, we received information on an open panel discussion on “Utilizing Linguists on the Battlefield.” Military officers reported that:
We’ve written before about the difficulty the U.S. government has had in finding enough qualified interpreters, while simultaneously losing some of their best and brightest linguists due to “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” And, we’ve written an entire report on the US$4.5 billion the government has spent on language services since 1990. Have those taxpayer dollars been spent wisely? As the ABC news report clearly shows, no, they haven’t. Military interpreters voluntarily risk their lives, and there are certainly many talented, well-trained interpreters that work in the field and should be respected for the work that they do. However, interpreters are also the gatekeepers to communication that is critical to the protection of the lives of thousands of troops and innocent civilians. When it comes to getting value for money, this is not the place to skimp. Only by implementing programs to thoroughly test, train, and monitor military interpreter performance, can the lives of others be protected.
This week, Google’s philanthropic arm (Google.org) announced an initiative called Health Speaks, which seeks to make health-related information available to individuals throughout the world, regardless of language. Starting with Arabic, Hindi, and Swahili, the project will use community, crowdsourced, and collaborative translation to address an important but often-overlooked disparity – access to health information. Read the rest of this entry »
Language technology supplier MultiCorpora today announced that it has acquired Beetext, another developer of translation management systems (TMS). The deal underscores the importance of offering a complete solution for companies managing large-scale projects.
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