Conference

Abstract for “Discourse on the Language at the Valencian Congress —the Propagation of the Dichotomous Distortion”

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Diamar Ferrer García, University Jaume I

During the 20th century, a wave of migration from monolingual Spanish-speaking territories into the Valencian area brought about an increase of the Spanish influence in the latter area due to migrants not integrating linguistically. Nowadays, Catalan is a minorized language within the Valencian region which is further minorized by other international languages in the academic field, such as the English language, as an additional motivation to disregard the use of Catalan within those fields which are symbolically important for the promotion of linguistic policies. From 1995 until the 8th Spanish Legislature, the Valencian Court was dominated by parliamentary groups which boosted the monolingual view of the central administration and caused Catalan to become minorized in some social fields such as politics and education. Against the background of these policies, opposition parliamentary groups argued in favour of enhancing the use of Catalan as a co-official language of the administration. They also positioned themselves in favour of bilingualism and multilingualism.

In this contribution the discourse of parliamentary groups with representation in the Valencian Congress on the situation of the Catalan language will be analyzed. The aim is to see which arguments have been advanced from the different regulatory positions —including as to communication with the citizenship and operating policies. The analysis of these arguments will be conducted in two phases. Firstly, topoi will be identified and analysied using a content analysis of parliamentary discourses and interviews conducted by the author. Secondly, possible cognitive distortions will be categorized to explain the propagation of certain populist tendencies in our society.

Semi-structured interviews with a member of each parliamentary group with representation in the Valencian Congress were conducted containing two specific questions related to the role of the Catalan language within the Valencian region. Further, a corpus was built with the inaugural discourses from the 1st to the 8th Legislatures (1983 to 2015). The analysis of the discourses and the interviews is based on critical discourse analysis. In addition, the cognitive distortion known as ‘dichotomous thinking’ is used in order to provide insights as to how the sociolinguistic panorama in the Valencian Country is structured by the different members of the political groups.

Conference

Abstract for “Conference Interpreters: How to Serve the Cause of Minorized Communities in the New Postmonolingual / ‘Postmonodiscoursive’ Order”

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Ana Isabel Leal Lobato, University of Antwerp 

Globalization has led to changes in the field and practice of the so-called profession of conference interpreting. The arena of international conferences used to be restricted to economic and political elites. However, it has now become a diverse space, where civil society organizations are increasingly present. A paradigmatic example is the emergence of organized movements of indigenous communities reclaiming justice before international organizations. Based on the testimonies of fellow conference interpreters and my own experience as a professional conference interpreter in Brussels, I claim that international interpreted communicative events (ICE) involving minorized communities, such as indigenous peoples, give rise to new linguistic and cultural demands for the interpreting community as they depart from mainstream discourses in traditionally interpreted discourses in the international arena. Through the critical discourse analysis of a real life event involving indigenous representatives, I provide an account of recurrent patterns and translatable strategies to deal with this and comparable events aiming at facilitating conference interpreters navigate the current culturally diverse and ‘postmonodiscoursive’ order.

Keywords: globalization; conference interpreting; indigenous communities; interpreted communicative event (ICE); critical discourse analysis (CDA); ‘postmonodiscoursive order’; critical interculturality

Conference

Abstract for “Excuse me, Your Honour, I Am a Sign Language Interpreter—Observational Template Design of Sign Language Interpreters in the Courtroom”

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Belén Pérez Senra, University Jaume I, Castellón

When a sign language interpreter enters a courtroom, her function is to ensure that one or more deaf or hard of hearing individuals have effective access to information and communication. In the courtroom, hearing and deaf people, who may be living in the same country and who may share a common culture, use different languages and have different sociological backgrounds. These differences, however, are generally unknown to hearing conversational partners. The resulting imbalance is intensified by two important factors: the information in the courtroom is usually conveyed by audio-visual media to which the deaf community have access difficulties, and the courtroom has its own norms and specific languages which are generally unknown to citizens, both hearing and deaf. In this work, and based on my own professional experience as a court sign-language interpreter in the Valencian Community, I examine the differences between the minorized sign language and the dominant spoken visual-gestural language which are not taken into account by any court agents and the challenges and hindrances that this unawareness poses on communication in judicial settings. I will particularly focus on the power imbalances that have been described for court settings, which are intensified for sign-language users.

Keywords: sign language; interpreting; court settings; judiciary