Translation and Discourse as (Non)Discrimination

Contents

1. Foreword: Translation and Discourse as Positive Action

   Cornelia Ilie

2. Introduction

   Catalina Iliescu-Gheorghiu

3. Translation and Translanguaging Literacy for Inclusion and Integration

   Sara Laviosa

4. Presuppositional Effects and Common Ground

   Fabrizio Macagno

5. Türkiye at a Linguistic Crossroads

   John A.G. McKeown

6. Interpreting Policies at Emergency Reception Facilities for Refugees in Spain:A Case Study of War Displaced Ukrainian Citizens

   María Jesús Blasco Mayor and Juan-Miguel Ortega-Herráez

7. The Cost for The Right to an Interpreter Is Exclusion: Discursive Discrimination as Barriers to Collaboration with Interpreters

   Elisabet Tiselius

8. Translation as a Tool of Affirmative Action: A Non-sexist Revision of the EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World

   María López Medel

9. Translating in Interdisciplinary Collaborative Practices: Fostering Interdisciplinary Abilities in a Georgia-Japan Collaborative, Intercultural, and Interdisciplinary Project

   Takanori Kawamata, Hiromasa Tanaka and Lasha Markozashvili

10. How Accessible Is Audiovisual Media Content for Children? A Review on the Accessibility of Disney+ Films in Spain

    Carla Botella Tejera

11. What Does Positive Discrimination in Interpreter-Mediated Bereavement Support Sessions Mean? An Overview of The Spanish Context

    Elena Pérez Estevan

12. Investigating ‘the thing’, ‘this thing’, and ‘that thing’: Euphemisms in Medical Interactions in Nigeria

    Oluwaseun Onaolapo Amusa

13. Appendix

14. Notes on Contributors

Foreword: Translation and Discourse as Positive Action

Cornelia Ilie cornelia.ilie@gmail.com Strömstad Academy, Sweden

This volume incorporates a wide range of investigative and analytical perspectives with fresh insights on multilingualism-shaped position-takings, culture-embedded perceptions, and translation-driven discourse problematizations. It is both a topical and a well-timed publication, in response to pressing concerns about theoretical and practical issues arising from cross-linguistic and cross-cultural (mis)communication challenges. The editor offers a peer reviewed selection of papers whose authors focus on salient aspects of the consequential shift from monolingualism through plurilingualism to multilingualism in increasingly polyethnic and multiracial societies, which is now an engaging debate topic in linguistics, translation / interpreting, education scholarship and cultural studies. In particular, the field of translation and interpreting has a decisive role to play in current attempts to counteract redundant monologues, binary discursive structures, exclusionist and manipulative messages, providing an array of (scholarly, pedagogical, and professional) tools to meet the needs of related or neighbouring fields of research.

Earlier conceptual maps pairing meanings of culture (in the anthropological sense of a community) with meanings of translation (as rewriting and as transposition), as discussed by Conway (2012) or Trivedi (2007), for example, are being reconsidered and explored based on updated circumstances and new premises. Also, several different conceptualizations of the notion of cultural translation that contradict and/or complement each other have been transcended by means of empirical investigations carried out in specific social-cultural contexts with specifically identified agents. The connection between translation and migration is a growing area of interest (from a social, economic and political viewpoint) not only in translation studies, but also in a range of research areas. Thus, current cross-disciplinary and multi-level research reveals that the convergence of differentiated language practices and multi-voiced discourses is directly connected to migration processes, leading to broader understandings of translation and its socio-political and ethical dimensions.

Following the recent influx of migrants and refugees from all over the world, Europe has become increasingly multilingual and multicultural, with a growing number of cultures and languages underpinning post-modern European nation-states. When interacting verbally in these newly emerging European contexts, we are co-constructing and challenging culture-related meanings in ways which can lead to understanding, but sometimes also to misunderstanding, both within and across national borders. As a result, in institutions and the media, cultural and linguistic differences are often manipulated for ideological and political purposes by means of stereotypical formulas, false dichotomies or rhetorical dissociations, often based on the use of conventional or recycled keywords (Ilie 2013).

The unprecedented linguistic and cultural diversity which is the result of the migration flows is shown by the book contributors to involve communication challenges due to (linguistic and/or behavioural) barriers in the destination countries between service-providers and service-seekers. There are situations in which communication breakdowns occur both at individual and social level, with some people talking at cross purposes, misrepresenting and distorting the meaning of what others are trying to say, which makes it more necessary than ever to speak with one another, rather than at one another in order to achieve mutual understanding and concerted action. Such types of situations led Bohm to conclude that “shared meaning is really the cement that holds society together, and you could say that the present society has very poor quality cement” (Bohm 2004: ix). Consequently, to reach shared meaning it is essential to understand and reinforce the mechanisms of socially and culturally effective dialogues across (social, gender, cultural, etc.) groups and communities of practice in increasingly multicultural interaction contexts.

Striving to open up communication channels among individuals and groups of individuals is a basic prerequisite for creating what Pickering & Garrod (2021) labelled a shared workspace account. Thereby, providing a new understanding of interpersonal and inter-group relationships can extend the scope of cognitive exploration of language use beyond individuals by considering group dialogue in terms of institutional norms and moral values and their impact on how individuals enact language practices in the public and private spheres of life. Building upon a commonly shared concern for the rights and opportunities of linguistically disadvantaged individuals and communities, translanguaging is often utilized, as both theory and practice, in teaching and in curriculum materials because it offers cognitive and social benefits for linguistically and culturally diverse students (Poza 2017). Translanguaging works as a powerful tool to construct understandings, to include others, and to mediate understandings across language groups, as indicated by García (2013). At the same time, the contextualized use of the concept and practice of translanguaging calls for a critical stance and for softening the boundaries between different language groups (Lewis, Jones & Baker 2012, and Tsokalidou 2016).

Responding to migration-driven changes in the demographic configurations and geo-political environments of nation states, the contributions to this volume tackle several social and cultural challenges from cross-disciplinary and complementary perspectives. The authors explore a range of many-sided problematisations of ongoing migration processes, migrant or immigrant experiences, intercultural (mal)adaptation and shifting public perceptions of (im)migrant-related stereotypes. They critically engage with languaging, translanguaging and multilingualism issues regarding the dynamics of representations around discourses of identity, agency and power at various societal levels. Language policies meant to maximize the effectiveness of individuals’ and groups’ communicative potential are expected to make use of the positive benefits of dynamic transfer in language learning that have been pointed out by Cummins (2001). His concepts of common underlying proficiency and linguistic interdependence move the focus from how many languages an individual may have at their disposal to how well they use all their language resources to achieve their purposes.

The case studies investigated and analysed in the chapters of this volume display a wide variety of worrying or controversial situations, complex problematics, and (often) constructive solutions. The following are the central topics that are dealt with in each of the chapters: the need for a common agenda regarding translation and translanguaging practices to reach a convergence of the efforts pursued by educational linguists and translation scholars to include and integrate migrants into a plurilingual and pluricultural community (Sara Laviosa’s chapter); the role and functions of presuppositions as a ’common ground’ that lies at the basis of various dialogic activities (Fabrizio Macagno’s chapter); overcoming the social issues resulted from the recent shift of migration to Türkiye (earlier from Syria and Iraq, and currently from Ukraine) by responsively addressing the challenges and opportunities of diversity as a valuable resource to bridge communication gaps and to facilitate linguistic convergence (John McKeown’s chapter); establishing a positive discrimination scheme in the Spanish case of war-displaced Ukrainian citizens by ensuring the provision of interpreters to secure their rights to language services and thereby implementing the EU temporary protection directive (Blasco Mayor & Ortega-Herráez’s chapter); removing the barriers that prevent the collaboration with interpreters in Sweden so as to rule out discursive discrimination due to insufficient availability of and collaboration with interpreters (Tiselius’s chapter); promoting translation (from English into Spanish) as a tool of affirmative action to fight gender inequalities following non-sexist guidelines in Spain (López Medel’s chapter); enhancing the transformative potential of translation and interpreting for interdisciplinary communication in a project built on Georgian-Japanese collaboration (Kawamata, Tanaka & Markozashvili’s chapter); increasing the accessibility options of the audiovisual content of Disney films for children in Spain by providing subtitles, and programs with audio description and sign language options (Botella Tejera’s chapter); ensuring the inclusion of a positive discrimination policy whenever an interpreter is available, for example in bereavement support for individuals with limited Spanish proficiency (Pérez Estevan’s chapter); explaining the positive impact of the euphemization of taboo expressions used in three different languages, i.e. Yoruba, Nigerian English, and Pidgin, in medical contexts in Nigeria (Onaolapo Amusa’s chapter).

To outline the insights that highlight the volume’s thematic focus, a range of theoretical approaches have been used: translation theories, discourse analysis, argumentation analysis, ethnographical analysis, corpus analysis, and linguistic gender analysis. This volume provides multiple-voiced research from across the professional and academic spectrum about migration movements, identity and power issues, and institutional policies, all of which reflect and/or shape public debate at local, national, European and international levels. As a result of migration, several new manifestations of cultural and linguistic diversity have the potential to contribute to forging new discursive and behavioural landscapes in more integrative and cohesive societies. An essential message of the book is that newly emerging socio-cultural configurations call for jointly designing a common and inclusive agenda aiming to implement transformative teaching methodologies framed within a broad plurilingual and pluricultural perspective on education.