Intercultural Communication and Translation News

Medical staff require professional interpreters and specific training on intercultural awareness, a new study published in the open access journal BMC Health Services Research suggests. The authors reveal that doctors are dissatisfied with the treatment they provide to their non-native patients, and that they cite cultural differences and language barriers as the key factors causing the disappointment with the level of care that they provide.

Birgit Babitsch from the Berlin Institute of Gender in Medicine in Germany, and co-workers from Berlin and the UK, gathered the results of questionnaires completed by doctors working in the internal medicine and gynaecology departments of three Berlin hospitals. The responses were then narrowed down to those relating to native Germans and those of Turkish origin and analysed in conjunction with the patients’ medical records. Over 2400 doctor questionnaires and corresponding patient records were finally analyzed.

The researchers found that doctors’ dissatisfaction with the patient-doctor relationship was much greater with regard to their Turkish patients. The two main reasons given were communication difficulties and the doctors’ perceptions that the Turkish patients did not always require urgent treatment. Around 20% of doctors were dissatisfied with the course of treatment for Turkish patients, compared to 10% for German patients. Minor differences were found in doctors’ satisfaction with regard to the patient’s gender.

Dr Babitsch states: “The use of professional interpreters for improved communication and the training of medical staff for improved intercultural competence are essential for the provision of adequate health care in a multicultural setting.”

Read more > EurekAlert

BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, the global leader in securities servicing, has launched a new innovative multilingual reporting solution for institutional clients, beginning with simplified Chinese. Over 2008, the company will add ten more languages including Portuguese, Traditional Chinese, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Korean to facilitate expanded use by its growing multilingual international user base.

This latest enhancement to BNY Mellon’s reporting capabilities will allow clients the convenience of being able to translate their reports into the local language of their choice. When clients choose to import data files such as excel; column headings will be provided in the selected local language enabling the creation of local language reports. Multilingual formats supported will include web drill-down, PDF, Excel, XML, CSV, TSV, and text. Previously all information was only available in English.

Read more >  BNY Mellon

Police in West Palm Beach, Fla. quickly nabbed two armed robbery suspects when a Spanish-speaking victim, using a police-supplied translation card, pointed to a car brand and color and descriptions of the attackers. The cards, introduced recently in West Palm Beach, depict weapons and vehicle manufacturer logos on one side with bi-lingual word descriptions for people, clothing, types of vehicles, and colors on the reverse side.

A West Palm Beach police officer saw a translation card being used by Charlotte-Mecklenburg law enforcement in North Carolina and brought one home to Florida, where it was adopted for use by his department on April 7, 2008. Within four hours of distributing the cards, officers had suspects behind bars in their first use of the translation cards.

Read more > Police 

Of all the things Dave Gray worried about when he branched out overseas, tripe never entered the equation.

Gray, founder and chairman of Xplane, a consulting and design firm based in Portland, Oregon, acquired a small firm in Madrid in late 2006, hoping to establish a European outpost and break into Spanish-speaking markets worldwide. Gray was eager to establish rapport between his Spanish and American staff members, and face-to-face meetings seemed like the best way to forge a bond. But during one dinner meeting in Madrid shortly after the acquisition, a visitor from Xplane’s St. Louis office refused to sample the tripe — considered a delicacy in Spain — and proceeded to make crude jokes about it.

It was a minor incident, but only one in a series of minor incidents that ultimately created tensions between the six employees in Xplane’s Madrid office and the 45 in its U.S. offices. “I expected to come in and say, ‘This is how we do things,’ ” says Gray, who relocated to Madrid to oversee the transition. But he quickly learned that the Madrid and American offices were separated by more than just an ocean.

Read more > Inc.com 

 Some of the strongest hiring intentions recorded are in Singapore, India, Peru and Romania, while China reported the weakest hiring outlook according to Manpower’s latest Employment Outlook Survey.

Thirty-two countries and territories expect positive hiring activity for the second quarter.  However, as the majority of the predictions are weaker compared to the previous quarter, the general trend indicates a step back in hiring for many of the world’s largest economies, according to the latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.

Some of the strongest hiring intentions recorded are in Singapore, India, Peru and Romania.  These results reflect a high demand for talent in markets where foreign direct investment and labour mitigation are increasing.  China reported the weakest hiring outlook.

Read more > Expatica 

2nd Issue: “Training and Competencies in an Intercultural Setting”
Call for Abstracts: 1st April 2008
Paper submission: 1st August 2008
www.cultusjournal.com
submission@cultusjournal.com

Cultus: the Journal of intercultural mediation and communication is an international refereed journal focussing on the role of culture in constructing, perceiving and translating reality. The Journal aims to develop an awareness of the interplay between language and culture in communication.

Managing diversity is now an issue, as an ever growing number of people are becoming increasingly involved in communicative interactions with others from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds: in business, education, media, tourism and also through immigration and political conflict. This Journal provides a stimulating forum, focussing on the experience of both practitioners and academics; their analysis of languages and cultures, and how the differences have been, or might be, managed.

The goal of this Journal is to promote research, education and training in communication by investigating language, languages, cultural models, conflict, mediation and interculturality. Furthermore, since translation is considered as mediation between cultures it will be included as a way of seeing cultural linguistics at work.

A fascinating feature of this Journal is constituted by a debate discussing a topic of relevant interest to those working in the field. The first issue, entitled “Translation at work” to be published in August 2008 will include an interview between translation scholars Andrew Chesterman and Mona Baker, where they debate their views on the role of the translator, professional ethics, conflict and the (im)possibilities of mediation.

A new marketing campaign for the Swedish vodka Absolut that shows California as part of Mexico has sparked a growing controversy.

The (Sweden) Local reported Saturday the new “In an Absolut World” campaign shows a map of 1848 America, when Mexico still controlled California, and at least one online blogger has taken offense to the marketing effort in Mexico.

“Absolut is pandering to ignorance, historical illiteracy and Mexican national chauvinism. I’ll never drink Absolut again,” said a blogger who identified himself only as Ted.

Absolut spokesman Jeffrey Moran assured such concerned consumers that the controversial advertisements will not run in the United States. The New York-based spokesman also denied any claims the marketing effort was indicative of the greater debate over immigration issues taking place in the United States.

Read more: Absolut 

What’s the difference between the rising star whose career is picking up speed and his counterpart who can’t seem to get the engine to turn over?

Often, the star has mastered the nuances of business etiquette — the subtle but critical behaviors that can make or break an important meeting, influence a first impression or impress a potential client.

According to Hilka Klinkenberg, director of Etiquette International, a business etiquette firm, the basics of professional etiquette are really quite simple. First, understand the difference between business etiquette and social etiquette. Business etiquette is genderless. For example, the traditional chivalrous etiquette of holding the door open for a woman is not necessary in the workplace and can even have the unintended effect of offending her. In the work environment, men and women are peers.

Second, your guiding principle should always be to treat people with consideration and respect. Although this may seem obvious, Klinkenberg cites this basic decency as a frequent casualty in today’s workplace.

Read more: Etiquette 

Although companies today generally understand the importance of search engine optimization on their home language Websites, they don’t take the same care when translating their Websites into other languages. Therefore, many companies have multilingual Websites that no one can find. These companies are unaware about what it takes to get their foreign sites well positioned by search engines. As a result, they are missing out on potentially huge opportunities.

Here are ten common mistakes these companies make when creating multilingual Websites:

1. Companies often don’t realize the enormous power of search engines. Did you know that nearly 90 percent of Website traffic is generated by search engines? However, it’s not enough to simply have your multilingual Website included in search engine indices. You need to get ranked in the first three pages. Research has shown that more than 80 percent of searchers do not look beyond the third page.

2. Worldwide corporations sometimes don’t spend the money to hire a good translator. Maybe you know someone who can speak the language into which you want to translate your Website, or perhaps you’ve thought about hiring a student at a local university who knows the language. Think again. You need to hire a professional. Your Web copy needs to be well written in English and the language in which you are translating it. If not, your company could look uneducated or unprofessional to your non-native English speaking audience. Not only most the translator be fluent in the target language as well as in the originating language, but he or she must be very familiar with the industry under discussion. Also, make sure your translator is familiar with search engine marketing. Translators not only need to know the language, they need to know how to get eyes on your page.

Read more: Multilingual SEO 

Google Spreadsheets got nifty new feature this week in the form of language translation support.

According to Google Operating System, Google Spreadsheets has added support for the Google AJAX Language API. googgadgettransWith this addition, you can enter any text in English, and then translate it using any of the languages supported by Google Translate, such as French, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and more. Every time you add to the document and re-publish it, the translations will be updated, or you can set it to re-publish automatically every time you make a change.Read more: Google