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“The prisoner may be helped by someone from the corrective services facility”: Language policy in prisons around the world 

Aída Martínez-Gómez

The growing numbers of imprisoned linguistic minorities around the world face multiple inequalities related to communication barriers. In fact, the language barrier has been identified as their main source of problems (Van Kalmthout et al. 2007: 17). Besides their hampered access to facilities and services, speakers with limited proficiency in the vehicular language(s) of the institution where they are being held are often disadvantaged by their lack of understanding of prisoners’ rights, the system of detention, and complaint and appeal procedures, as well as by their limited access to rehabilitation and treatment programs (Cole 2009: 109-110).
However, the legislation on foreign prisoners in different parts of the world demonstrates that protection of language rights fails to be a priority. This presentation will examine translation and interpreting policies in fifty prison systems in forty different countries, which were selected for this study based on their numbers of foreign prisoners. Their overt policy instruments (prison legislations and internal prison directives, when available) were analyzed qualitatively, following a bottom-up coding process facilitated by the software NVivo. This presentation will summarize the three-level typology of prison systems arising from that analysis. In it, prison systems are grouped according to the level of comprehensiveness of their policies. Selected examples will illustrate the policies that are representative of each category and the different types of policy instruments used to provide for language issues.

References
Cole, Andrew. 2009. A Human Rights Approach to Prison Management. London: International Centre for Prison Studies.
van Kalmthout, Anton; Femke Hofstee-van der Meulen & Frieder Dünkel (eds.) 2007. Foreigners in European Prisons. The Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers.

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Linguistic injustice despite language rights? In dialogue during detention: raising awareness on language barriers for detainees in Belgium

Heidi Salaets, Shanti Heijkants & Katalin Balogh

The right to an interpreter is part and parcel of the roadmap for strengthening procedural rights of suspected or accused persons in criminal proceedings. Directive 2010/64/EU on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings has sought to lay down common minimal rules on this right to a fair trial. Arguably, the directive could be seen as a push towards the institutionalisation of interpreting and the professionalisation of interpreters in criminal proceedings. 

Assuming that vulnerability means a suspect’s or accused’s difficulty in understanding or following the content or the meaning of the proceedings, the interpreter could be seen as the gateway to facilitating such understanding. 

In our presentation, we will focus on Flemish and Brussels prisons in Belgium and answer the question as to how far language rights reach, assuming that they are at least respected during the criminal procedures that eventually lead to incarceration. Thanks to empirical data we obtained from foreign-language-speaking (FL) prisoners explaining their service paths up until detention, we will show that even during pre-trial and court proceedings, the interpreter is seldom or wrongly deployed. Moreover, language rights seem to stop at the prison gates in Belgium: the Law on the prison system and the legal status of detainees, along with the Coordinated Laws with regard to language use in administrative affairs, show that language rights are downsized to an absolute minimum. Since language in administrative affairs in Belgium concern Dutch, French and possibly German (to a lesser extent), almost half of the prison population (49 % being foreigner) depends on Google Translate, the use of second and third languages, pictograms, inmates and staff that operate as self-proclaimed interpreters, and all sorts of gestures. This information was obtained through interviews with prison staff and management and will describe also how fundamental human rights are violated through denial of language rights.

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Exploring the application of ally theory in community interpreting in Aotearoa New Zealand from a Latin American service-user perspective

Agustina Marianacci

“Community interpreters hold a powerful position within any interpreted event due to their linguistic and multicultural knowledge (Mason & Ren, 2013). However, interpreters’ power is often unacknowledged as a result of non-engagement and invisibility ideals in professional interpreting, as well as cultural and linguistic hegemonies which hide systemic injustices (Coyne & Hill, 2016). Unlike restrictive conduit views of the interpreting role, the ally model of interpreting recognises interpreters’ power and contextualises decision-making within historic oppression and inequality (Baker-Shenk, 1991). This enables interpreters to act in ways that promote social justice, empower interpreting service users, and offer equality of access (Witter-Merithew, 1999). However, the ally model has mostly been studied from within the field of signed languages, in relation to the deaf community (Baker-Shenk, 1986; Hsieh et al., 2013). Additionally, interpreting guidelines have remained mostly in the hands of the practitioners (Rudvin, 2007), as there is limited research from the service users’ point of view (Edwards et al., 2005).

This presentation will focus on a research project on allyship and social justice in spoken-language interpreting from a service-user perspective. The research was conducted with the Latin American community in Aotearoa New Zealand, employing a horizontal methodology developed by Latin American and European transdisciplinary researchers (Kaltmeier & Corona Berkin, 2012). The findings highlighted users’ appreciation for interpreters’ humane qualities, even over linguistic proficiency. Professional practice was seen to require empathy, flexibility, self-reflection, and a middle ground that avoids over-intrusions and unnecessarily rigid behaviour. This approach to practice was seen to promote an understanding of situated needs and challenges and, consequently, to enable a consideration for social justice and critical perspectives. While the findings suggest that there is room for the incorporation of the ally model in spoken-language interpreting, they also reinforce the need to complement discussions about role models with the development of professional responsibility and a focus on the consequences of interpreters’ actions, similar to other caring and practice professions (Dean & Pollard, 2018; Drugan & Tipton, 2017).

Keywords: allyship, social justice, interpreting service users, community interpreting, interpreter power

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The right to an interpreter – a guarantee of legal security and equal access to public services? 

Kristina Gustafsson, Eva Norström & Linnéa Åberg

Since the 1970s, the Public Administration Act in Sweden has regulated the public service obligation to use interpreters in contact with persons who do not speak Swedish and persons with impaired hearing, sight, or speech (SSB 2017: 900 § 13). Hiring an interpreter is stated as a guarantee for transparency, participation, and legal security. Based on theories about legal security in welfare institutions, the use of public service interpreting as a right and guarantee of legal security and equal access to public services is formally fulfilled every time an interpreter is assigned. Our previous research shows that this does not necessarily guarantee or secure the quality of the interpreting service at hand.

Therefore, this paper seeks to discuss linguistic rights from an ethical and material perspective on legal security. The analysis is based on migrants’ narrations of interpreted encounters in Swedish welfare institutions. The empirical data consists of observations of lectures conducted by interpreters in dialogue with refugees and migrants who take Swedish language courses. In these dialogues, the interpreter describes the regulations and ethics of interpreting and their experiences of interpreting in various welfare settings. The participants react and comment on this information, sharing their own experiences of interpreting services. A significant amount of their testimonies describes shortcomings and feelings of being silenced even if there is an interpreter at hand.        

Hence the paper aims to take public service users’ perspective and analyse discrepancies that arise between the right to public service interpretation as specified in the legislation and the quality of the public service interpretation services offered. Leading questions are raised about the right to speak, understand, and be understood, and who deserves these rights in their contacts with public service authorities.