When written in Chinese, the word ’crisis’ is composed of two
characters: one represents danger and the other represents
opportunity.
John F. Kennedy
As one of the latest publications generated from the EU-funded International Network on Crisis Translation (INTERACT) project, Translation in Cascading Crises is a particularly timely contribution, which addresses the critical role played by translation and interpreting in multilingual communication during times of crisis. The empirical studies in this volume, conducted by experts from multiple disciplines around the globe, contribute to a deeper understanding of crisis translation, an emerging field under Translation Studies.
The overall structure of the book takes the form of 11 chapters, comprising an introduction and three main parts, which cover the contextual, technological and methodological aspects of crisis translation research, respectively. It begins with an introductory chapter by Federici and O’Brien, which establishes the theoretical context of the “cascading crises” and the interdisciplinary nature of crisis translation, situated among Translation and Interpreting Studies, disaster risk reduction, and risk and crisis communication. As the editors indicate, “This book intends to stimulate a broad, multi-disciplinary debate on how communication is bound to be extremely complex in cascading crises and on the role translation and interpreting can play to facilitate communication” (12).
Part I is composed of three chapters about various crisis settings. Chapter 2, by Al-Shehari, addresses the needs of volunteer translators and interpreters in international humanitarian organisations in the Yemeni crisis, examining their self-perception of their roles and identifying several significant challenges they face. In Chapter 3, Drugan focuses on multilingual communication in the crisis setting of human trafficking at emergency reception centres in the UK and the impact of language on various roles. Filmer’s Chapter 4 stresses the lack of communication about sexual and gender-based violence at medical healthcare centres in the European migrant crisis.
Part II, “Instruments and Support”, consists of four chapters, illustrating the efficacious interactions between technologies and crisis translation. In Chapter 5, Rodríguez Vázquez and Torres-del-Rey probe into the accessibility of multilingual information for people with disabilities in all stages of cascading crises. Chapter 6, by Rico Pérez, investigates the use of translation technologies in various “contact zones” in the third sector by drawing on examples from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the humanitarian aid chain. Following on from that chapter, Parra Escartín and Moniz’s Chapter 7 features the ethical issues involved in machine translation (MT) and crowdsourcing in crisis translation workflows. In the subsequent chapter, Cadwell, Bollig and Ried conduct a case study of the management and training of linguistic volunteers at Cochrane Germany.
Part III considers the methods and data used for crisis translation research. Cadag’s Chapter 9 addresses language needs and the adoption of participatory methods in disaster research and disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM). In Chapter 10, Bajaj aims to raise awareness about communication between pilots and air traffic controllers in the aviation sector by drawing on conversation analysis of pilot-controller communication in the Avianca Flight 52 disaster. Rossetti employs a semi-automatic approach to evaluate the readability and comprehensibility of intralinguistic translation of medical content produced by the NGO Cochrane in the final chapter.
As the logo of the INTERACT project shows, this book encompasses a diversity of research topics in relation to crisis translation, including ethics, policies, training, simplification and MT. In terms of methodology, the empirical studies collected in this volume showcase how an interdisciplinary approach to crisis translation has moved from solely “product-oriented” research to “participant-oriented” and “context-oriented” research (Saldanha and O’Brien 2014), such as the participatory action research methods adopted and proposed by Drugan and Cadag. The participatory methods demonstrated in this volume could be effectively applied to other research in Translation Studies and beyond. Conceptually speaking, as an edited volume of empirical studies, this work may lack a consistent theoretical research paradigm from which findings could be generalised.
All in all, the present work adds to the rapidly growing body of crisis translation research that demonstrates the crucial role of multilingual communication, and translation in particular, as a basic human right, in diverse crisis scenarios from man-made disasters to natural catastrophes. The fresh insights gained from the studies in this book may be of specific interest to the general public and those working in humanitarian aid, and it may have theoretical and practical implications for professionals, scholars and students in Translation and Interpreting Studies, intercultural communication and disaster research, as well as for stakeholders and policymakers in DRRM.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Great Britain-China Educational Trust.
Yuan Ping
Hangzhou Dianzi University (China); University of Leeds (UK)
E-mail: y.ping@hotmail.co.uk