Agustina Marianacci: Professional Linguistic Services in English and Spanish
Back in November, I presented at the 2022 conference organised by the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (AUSIT). Days after, I flew back to Argentina and promptly forgot that it ever happened, until a dear colleague asked for permission to share the presentation with someone else.
I believe it was 2021, in the very midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, when my dear colleague Alejandra González Campanella approached me with an idea: editing a special issue on a scientific journal about trauma and interpreting. “I’m in”, I said, even though I don’t think it was exactly an invitation. Since that day, it took us over a year to get that issue published. We contacted the New Voices in Translation Studies editorial team and never looked back. We happily became guest editors in a team of welcoming and flexible scholars who were happy to offer their support while also letting us lose to do what we thought best.
Community interpreting norms and research have been heavily influenced by a Western-centric community of practitioners and an individualist, positivist philosophy. This has resulted not only in an entrenched emphasis on professional interpreters’ detachment, neutrality, and invisibility but also in research which often ignores interpreting service users from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. This article addresses the complexity of operationalising horizontal methodologies during interpreting research in an effort to centre marginalised voices and epistemologies. The study involved a research project conducted with the Latin American community in Aotearoa New Zealand, employing horizontal one-on-one and group dialogues to assess interpreting service users’ views on allyship and social justice in spoken-language community interpreting. In this article, horizontal methodologies are presented as a culturally affirming way for Latin American service users to co-produce knowledge, and for Latin American researchers to engage with their own identity, recognise their impact on society, and challenge colonial research practices and interpreting norms.
The project aimed to explore what interpreting students’ written reflections reveal about the impact of Interprofessional Education (IPE) on their development as future practising professionals. Student health interpreters from the Auckland University of Technology and postgraduate Speech Science students from the University of Auckland, who were already registered speech and language therapists (SLTs), had a shared 3-hour interprofessional education session which involved semi-authentic role play scenarios. Student healthcare interpreters took turns taking on the role of interpreter or client, while SLTs conducted assessment sessions as they normally would. Scenarios involved a child with language delay accompanied by a parent, and an elderly adult being assessed following a stroke. Student health interpreters reflected on the experience in written reflective assignments which were thematically analysed and coded into five main themes using NVivo software.) Student reflections showed that they had found the experience very beneficial, with comments focusing on the interpreters’ code of ethics; understanding each other’s roles and how these differ in the SLT context; collaboration between professionals; competence; and the importance of practice for problem-solving.
Machine learning is unstoppable. As a professional translator and interpreter, I am not scared. Technology has been making our lives easier for decades, offering tools that help us polish our skills to perfection. Technology has been helping us learn, teach and produce content, and yet fearmongering and lack of information have been instilling dread among us all.
Some months ago I wrote a review for Word for Word, a journal ran by the New Zealand Society of Translators and Interpreters, about a webinar I attended entitled “Spanish legal translation – a comparison of two different legal systems”.
You can find the full review here, together with other pieces on the ethics of machine translation, indigeneity and linguistic validation of patient-reported outcome instruments, among others. Go have a read! Do it!
Photo by Juanedc
It’s been nearly a year since my last piece and I have one excuse which is only partly true, but you’re gonna have to roll with it: I’ve been doing postgrad and working full time. However, because I truly love what I’m doing, I find myself permanently excited by the content I’m being taught. Around a week ago, I had an epiphany and managed to truly understand why I do what I do. Without further ado, this is my rant of 2018, just in time for International Translation Day.
Interpreting models have developed over the years to reflect interpreting theories and the evolution of our role. From machines to allies, interpreters are experiencing the consequences of greater social awareness and the acknowledgment of power intrinsic to our profession.
A month ago (and I’ve been postponing this piece for that long), I attended a course entitled Cultural and Bilingual Translation through Text Analysis, hosted by Dr Elaine Espíndola. Among other things, I found myself reflecting upon erasure through translation. I’ve been thinking about erasure of minorities a lot in 2017, but it never occurred to me that it could be linked to my very own profession.
Hello, everyone! It’s been a while! 2017 has been a long year, what can I say. I revamped this website, though, so you’ll have to give me some credit.
I’m back here to share this beautiful certificate I got from the people at NZTC Interpreting, from the New Zealand Translation Centre, one of the translation and interpreting agencies I work with as a freelancer.
Translations with AM 