Elena Ruiz-Cortés
Digitally mediated communication in the public sector has changed how citizens and authorities communicate. Within this digital context, it has been identified that language problems may be an underlying cause of social exclusion for migrant groups (see Khorshed & Imran 2015: 347), which seems to indicate that the lack of language proficiency in the host country’s language may give rise to new forms of digital divides in migratory contexts. Here we contend that, for migrants with language barriers, access to key digital services within the public sector can be fostered by translation provision, which may be used as a tool to digitally empower them. Thus, in this paper the digital empowerment (Mäkinen 2006) of migrant communities is explored, assessing to what extent the implementation of translation policy empowers migrants’ digital communication with the host country’ authorities within the public services (our goal). We will focus on a case study, the translation policy implemented in the digital communication between the Spanish ministry for Migration and migrants in the case of two immigration procedures (EU migrants/ investors).
This is an exploratory analysis framed within Descriptive Translation Studies (Toury 2012), in which the collection of our data will be organised via the methodological concept of “domain” (González 2016). Our initial findings suggest that the translation policy implemented by this Spanish Ministry results in diametrically opposed levels of migrants’ digital empowerment in our case study. Specifically, they show that the implementation of translation policy within the digital context not only impacts how citizens’ exercise their right to reside in another country, but it also seems to disguise elaborate forms of digital marginalisation (Mäkinen 2006: 383) based on linguistic grounds. This is so since, ultimately, when the inability to communicate in the dominant language prevents citizens from accessing digital (and non-digital) services that others readily access, exclusion takes place. Thus, arguably, even if translation policy should be used as a tool to digitally empower all migrants within the public services, here it seems to be used as a tool to empower only some of them; the most powerful migrant communities.
Keywords: translation policy, digital empowerment, E-government, immigration procedures, Spain.
 | Elena Ruiz-Cortés holds a Translation and Interpreting BA degree, an MA in Immigration Law and an MA in Professional Translation specialising in Legal Translation. In July 2020 she was awarded a PhD in Translation at the University of Granada (Spain), which focuses on Public Service Translation. Elena is Fellow of the Advanced HE of the UK, she is a researcher of the AVANTI Research Group and she is an official sworn translator and interpreter of English-Spanish. She has taught several undergraduate programs at Ulster University (UK), at the University of Malaga (Spain) and at the University of Granada, where she currently teaches. Her main research interests lie in the fields of Public Service Translation, Legal Translation, Migration and Translator Training. Elena has published several international papers on the fields above. |