Intercultural Communication and Translation News

Were you aware that British Sign Language is the second most widely used language in the UK?  Despite this however, British Sign Language still fails to have the same legal recognition afforded to those using other indigenous UK languages, such as Scottish Gaelic and Welsh.

Deaf members of our community face such discrimination on a daily basis and are often precluded from participating in society as fully contributing members. Take for example, the recent well publicised case of Mr McWhinney who was told that he could not serve on a jury due to his need to have a sign language interpreter present for deliberations.

The desire to help further improve services for the Deaf Community and to help publicise the cause makes Kwintessential extremely happy to be able to launch their new British Sign Language Interpreter Service.

In addition to providing interpreting services for the majority of world spoken languages, Kwintessential now seek to address the interpreting needs of those within the community who require sign language interpreting services.

“We have regular requests from clients for the provision of British Sign Language interpreters and we are now seeking to bridge that gap.  Focusing on fully qualified sign language interpreters only, we have built an excellent team of individuals who will be engaged for assignments. As with our spoken language interpreting services, we will invest all our efforts into ensuring that an excellent level of service and professionalism is provided and delivered. We will also help promote the campaign to have BSL recognised as a legal language,” explains Nikki Johnson, who will be overseeing the service.

The British Sign Language Interpreting service forms a significant part of our strategy in gaining recognition as the UK leader in setting and delivering excellence in the provision of language services.

Please visit the service at > British Sign Language Interpreters

Messages often get “lost in translation”—literally and figuratively—during cross-cultural communication. When talking or writing to clients, colleagues and competitors from different cultural backgrounds, we often find ourselves in communication snafus. Sometimes the receiver of the message fails to understand the message or, worse, assumes a contrary meaning. In other words, client communication techniques that work in Shanghai don’t necessarily work in Sydney or Salzburg.

Communication is key to the success of the attorney-client relationship. How can law firms and individual lawyers ensure that their messages accurately cross the cultural divide? How can they trust that their meaning is understood as intended? Here are some strategies to maximize the effectiveness of your cross-cultural client communication.
Make Every Client Communication Count

Every kind of communication—from legal bills to cocktail party conversation—is an important client cultivation opportunity. Before sending out a bill, letter or memo, or before speaking to a client at a meeting or social event, a lawyer should ponder, “How can I communicate with this particular client in a culturally sensitive way?”

Not long ago in London, I led a panel discussion about cross-cultural client development for the American Bar Association’s Section of International Law. During the panel discussion we shared our client communication strategies in different cultural contexts. One panel member was Cyndee Todgham Cherniak, a lawyer with Lang Mitchner’s Toronto office who works in China so often that she has even secured a local cell phone number comprised of “lucky numbers.” Before each trip abroad, she reviews a little tip sheet she has prepared, reminding her of things to bring (lots of extra business cards) and appropriate ways to greet and interact with Chinese clients.

Read more> Janet H. Moore 

Facts and Statistics

• Location: Central Europe, south of Poland and sharing borders with Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Ukraine
• Capital: Bratislava
• Climate: temperate; cool summers; cold, cloudy, humid winters
• Population: 5,447,502 (July 2007 est.)
• Ethnic Make-up: Slovak 85.8%, Hungarian 9.7%, Roma 1.7%, Ruthenian/Ukrainian 1%, other and unspecified 1.8% (2001 census)
• Religions: Roman Catholic 68.9%, Protestant 10.8%, Greek Catholic 4.1%, other or unspecified 3.2%, none 13% (2001 census)
• Government: parliamentary democracy

Slovak People, Society and Culture

• The People

The people of Slovakia descend from the Slavic peoples who settled around the Danube river basin in the 6th and 7th centuries. Traditionally, Slovaks were what could be termed the “peasant class.” Their links to the earth and land still remain to this day. Under communism some industrialization was undertaken and today Slovak society includes both elements of folk traditions and modern society. The political transformations of 1989 brought new freedoms that have considerably widened the societal outlook of the populace, yet many of the cultural movements are still in their infancy and consequently a large part of the elderly population is still rural and dependant on agriculture.

On January 1, 1993 Slovakia became an independent nation-state, recognized by the United Nations and its member states. Although some aspects of the society already had a unique national character, namely the language, many of the customs, laws and conventions were still deeply influenced by past rulers: Czechs, Hungarians and the Austrian Habsburgs.

• The Family

The family is the centre of the social structure. It, together with close friends, forms the basis of financial and emotional support. Obligation to the family is a person’s number one priority.

• A Spa Culture

Slovakia has a large number of natural curative springs as well as extensive deposits of high-quality healing peat and mud. Throughout the ages people have taken advantage of these resources to cure a variety of diseases and ailments. The country has more than 1,160 registered mineral and thermal springs. Even Marcus Aurelius´ Roman legions tried out the thermal water, and several of the better-known spas are visited every year by people from many countries.

• A Private People

Slovaks value their privacy. It takes a while for them to open up to and trust new people. As a result they can seem overly formal and reserved. They are not exuberant and are not given to emotional displays. Once you develop a personal relationship Slovaks will start to open up. Although always polite, they seldom move to a first-name basis with people outside their extended family or very close friends.

Read more> Slovakia Country Profile 

Press Release, San Francisco, CA, January 06, 2008 :

“The more than 100 million multicultural consumers in the US, are not just multi-colored or multi-lingual but cross-cultural and transcultural as well. They are rapidly evolving and challenging the definition of “ethnic” or “multicultural” marketing,” says Valerie Romley, Chief Research Officer and author of “Beyond Translation; The Marketer’s Field Guide to Understanding Today’s Transcultural Consumer”.

“What was effective yesterday is no longer relevant and what is effective today may not resonate with tomorrow’s moving targets. It’s time for marketers to go beyond relying on translation and color and language based segmentation and understand the roles that culture and context have in influencing beliefs and attitudes and driving consumer behavior.”

Read more> Beyond Translation 

Jonas Lindberg, Google Software Engineer, writes:

“OK, I cheated. I don’t really speak Chinese. But I know a bot that does, and we’re releasing it today together with number of other translation bots. For those not familiar with bots, a (ro)bot is a piece of software that acts as a chat contact and provides some fun or useful functionality.

If you want to try it, just add en2zh@bot.talk.google.com as a friend in Google Talk and send it a message to translate from English to Chinese. You can use it as an interpreter in your group chat, or as a pocket translator in your Google Talk client for BlackBerry.

For more languages, just add any of the 29 23 other translation bots. They’re named using two-letter language abbreviations as “[from language]2[to language]@bot.talk.google.com”, and the supported language pairs are: ar2en, de2en, de2fr, el2en, en2ar, en2de, en2el, en2es, en2fr, en2it, en2ja, en2ko, en2nl, en2ru, en2zh, es2en, fr2de, fr2en, it2en, ja2en, ko2en, nl2en, ru2en, zh2en. So, for French to German translation, talk to fr2de@bot.talk.google.com.”

Read more>  Google Talkabout

What are the top ten trends in training and human resource development that are expected to dominate in 2008?

HumaNext, have devised their own unique way to arrive at the answer. They don’t use surveys nor ask people what issues they “think” are important. They look for the areas in which companies have invested their money by buying products that addressed these issues in 2007. HumaNext offer over 700 products, from training programs and videos, to online courses, CDs, off-the-shelf-packages and onsite workshops, and thus are able to develop a very good idea of the kind of topics in which companies and consultants spend most of their money.

The thousands of orders they received in 2007 from customers among leading American corporations, government, educational, and non-profit organizations give us enlightening guides to the shifting trends in the training and HRD business.

They also monitor customers’ inquiries and requests for products that might not yet have developed, which helps gauge future needs and trends. And thirdly they monitor what their large number of affiliate program producers and publishers are planning to introduce in 2008.

Finally, they review published surveys on related topics to benefit from their findings. For example, they confirmed some of their findings with those of a new study from Novations Group Inc. that surveyed more than 2,500 senior HR and learning executives in December 2007 as reported in CLO newsletter.

Based on this multi-faceted approach, here are the top ten training topics and trends that they expect to see in 2008:

1- Leadership / Management Development, and Team Relationships: these areas are old but there is a growing interest in providing leaders at all levels with soft skills that help them lead and inspire their teams and relate to others effectively. Recent survey results confirm the expected growth of these areas.

2- Diversity and Inclusion/ Cultural Competence: Diversity is another old topic that is enjoying a renewed interest, because of the increasing diversity of the workforce, increased immigration, and the need for global skills to meet the needs of globalization.

3- Managing Generational Differences: This sub-area of diversity is becoming a critical topic in its own right. Because of the aging baby-boomers and the increasing number of generations X and Y in the workplace, consultants and managers are seeking training programs to help managers handle generational differences at work.

4- Leadership Communication: Although interest in communication skills training is old and stable, there is a new emphasis on leadership and executive communication that is based on the notion of leadership as a series of critical conversations. Our Critical Conversation training continues to enjoy good reception by various organizations and training departments in off-the-shelf packages, on site training, and certification.

Read more> HumaNext

In order to make Facebook available in many different languages, the company could have paid dozens of professional translators rather large fees.  Instead, in what we’ll call an “accountant-approved alternative,” Facebook has decided to involve its users and crowdsource the issue.

A new application called Facebook Translations allows people to suggest translations and vote alternatives up and down.  Or would allow them, anyway – the accountants may have pinched a few too many pennies, as the app isn’t in working order at the moment.Facebook Launches Self-Translation App

Still, we know it was running, because Rodney Rumford reports, “There are already 839 people translating the site to Spanish.  All for a whopping cost of ZERO Dollars.”  And he offers several screenshots of Facebook Translations if you can’t get the link to function, either.

Once working, the app should make Facebook more accessible in a number of countries; this will likely translate into a large number of new users.  The project should, at the least, result in added dedication from its participants, since they’ll have something invested in the outcome.

On a less optimistic note, given its failures in English, we have to wonder how well Facebook can handle privacy issues in multiple languages.

Read more> Facebook 

More than 88 percent of America clinical research, healthcare, and medical device industry professionals surveyed encounter non-English speaking patients and subjects on a regular basis. The November 2007 survey, which was conducted by Global Language Solutions (GLS), polled the firm’s clients and industry contacts on the types of languages spoken by their patients or research subjects, as well as the one(s) used most often.

GLS, which specializes in translation and interpreting services for the medical devices, pharmaceutical, and healthcare industries, was not surprised to find Spanish as the non-English language most commonly cited by respondents; with 90 percent those surveyed who encounter non-English languages listing it as the most common. Other languages listed included French (37 percent), Chinese (25 percent), and Russian (20 percent).

Read more> GLS 

Business globalization and localization industry research and consulting firm, Common Sense Advisory (http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com), has released its technology and business model predictions for the language services and software industries for 2008. From machine translation to the impact of the shrinking U.S. dollar, the analysts include the following as globalization and localization trends for the coming year:

1. Foreign exchange drives more translation and shifts production centers. The shrinking U.S. dollar signals an opportunity for companies in markets with strong currencies to get more translation for less money. Meanwhile, the same euro-dollar exchange rates will cause pains for language service providers billing in dollars but paying for staff and utilities stronger currencies; many LSPs will bill even their American customers in euros and look for translators they can pay in dollars. While they’re shopping for bargain-basement iPods and Hermès scarves in New York and Chicago, non-American LSPs will look to buy U.S. vendors. Meanwhile, a weak dollar may translate into more exports for American companies – thus increasing the need for translation services in the United States. But with U.S. rappers flashing euros instead of Benjamins, it’s time to hedge your dollar-denominated investments.

2. Technology from new sources breaks traditional translation molds. The wave of new language technology that started in 2005 will continue, productizing new approaches from East and South Asia, Eastern and Central Europe, and the Middle East. Besides the switch in geography, firms closer to the corporate mainstream like acrolinx and MadCap will add multilingual functions, thus enabling cross-border marketing, CRM, and customer service applications. Open source devotees will add even more options to the multilingual support mix. Meanwhile, mash-ups will plant the seeds for a gmail-like translation memory software as a service.

3. Terminology pushes to the forefront. Terminologists will start to be seen as the druids of the translation process in 2008. Early adopters at IBM, Medtronic, and SAP will feel vindicated in their long-term, systematic attention to terminology. Companies at the third and fourth level of the Localization Maturity Model will begin paying for full-time terminologists. In fast-moving companies, Wiki technology and other collaboration tools will move terminology from a fervent hope to more of a mainstream function. Vendors of terminology management tools will feel pressure to open their product’s application programming interfaces.

Read more> Common Sense Advisory