Have you ever used interpreters, witnessed them working, or even thought about the interpreting profession?
If your answer is no, you’re not alone. Although interpreters are a lifeline for many speakers of minority languages, the ins and outs of interpreting remain largely unknown to the public.
Interpreters are often expected to be “invisible” at work, their role limited to transferring messages from one language to another without actively participating in conversations.
Such invisibility means that, unfortunately, many of the challenges faced by interpreters aren’t widely acknowledged.
In this piece, we address one particular challenge – gaining and retaining the trust of the public and those working in institutional settings.
We came to this as community-based researchers in vastly different speech communities – the Korean-speaking diaspora in Australia, and speakers of Australian Indigenous languages.
Our research projects centred on the experiences of Korean survivors of domestic violence, and Indigenous language interpreting in legal settings, respectively.
And, although our research focused on different languages and areas of research where issues of interpreting were frequently at the forefront, we identified remarkably similar problems.
In particular, we observed substantial trust issues among people working in institutional settings and the general public regarding the guidelines that govern the interpreting profession.
Professional certification of interpreters is issued in Australia by the National Accreditation Authority for Translations and Interpreters.
Certified professional interpreters are required to follow the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators Code of Ethics, which consists of the following general principles:
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Professional Conduct
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Confidentiality
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Competence
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Impartiality
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Accuracy
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Clarity of boundaries
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Maintaining professional relationships
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Professional development.
However, as we describe below, there’s a limited public understanding of the binding nature of these principles, which sometimes leads to mistrust in interpreters’ abilities, responsibilities and role limitations.
Public trust in interpreting quality
The high degree of casualisation of interpreters, coupled with limited opportunities to practise, especially for interpreters from very small-speech communities, can result in inconsistent quality of interpreting.
This, in turn, can cause clients to lose trust in interpreters’ professionalism and competence in such situations.
Our research identified instances where clients openly doubted interpreting quality, discouraging them from using interpreting services.
“They were talking so weirdly, so I said [to the police officer that] I couldn’t work with them [interpreters]. So, I quit using the interpreting services and just did as much as I could with my own bad English. So it went like that, and anyway, after that, I didn’t call the interpreters.” – Korean domestic violence victim-survivor
“I’ve even heard of kids getting taken away [because of a faulty interpretation]”, stated another Korean victim-survivor. “You can never trust (an) interpretation.”
Similarly, legal professionals working with Indigenous language speakers revealed they didn’t always trust interpreting accuracy, especially when the interpreter’s English fluency didn’t meet their expectations.
“I think the difficulty we’ve had with some interpreters during this period of not being trained, and only some, not a large majority, is that we’re not in a place where we would talk to the interpreter like we’re speaking to an English-as-a-first-language client. We are modifying our language to talk to the interpreter who then modifies the language again, and that can be tricky. If we’re already thinking, and it’s really good and important to have the ability to break things down simply, but where it’s been broken down a bit beyond simple terms, it gets a bit hard.” – Lawyer
When working with interpreters of heritage languages such as Korean or Indigenous languages, legal professionals commonly rely on the interpreter’s English proficiency as the primary indicator of interpreting quality.
However, such perceptions may be unduly influenced by dialectal and accent variation, such as the use of Aboriginal English.
This highlights the need for improved education and training for legal professionals to strike the right balance – avoiding passing judgments based on language proficiency when they lack sufficient linguistic skills, yet still expressing legitimate concerns about the accuracy of interpreted interactions.
Securing trust: Interpreters and confidentiality assurance
Interpreters must maintain confidentiality and refrain from sharing information about clients or cases.
Clients may be concerned, even fearful, of the potential sharing of their details, especially in contexts such as counselling or child protection cases, where they’re already vulnerable and reluctant to divulge intimate or private information.
“One of the ongoing issues is confidentiality, because they’re closed courts. The interpreters, they go through training, and they have all that confidentiality training. But there’s also the whole thing about child protection, and they could be related. We could have one interpreter, and they could be related to them. That can really affect trust.” – Lawyer (speaking about interpreters working in a family court)
“In Melbourne, there was a rumour in the Korean community about an interpreter that did not abide by the confidentiality rules, and spread client information. The Korean diasporic community is so small that even if you don’t say any names, one can guess [who it was] just from hearing the situation.” – Korean counsellor
Interpreters from small communities are more likely to encounter this problem. They often assume dual roles as professionals and members of their respective communities.
For instance, interpreters from small Indigenous communities are usually familiar with, and may even be related to, numerous community members. Interpreters must reassure community members that their information will remain confidential.
Equally important is educating community members that maintaining confidentiality is mandatory for all certified interpreters.
The interpreter’s dilemma: Fostering trust in impartiality and mitigating blame
Interpreters are obliged to remain impartial – not taking sides or assisting beyond the interlingual transfer of the message.
However, Korean and Indigenous interpreters have spoken about the difficulty of convincing some of their community members that they’re impartial and cannot influence the outcome of a court trial or negotiation.
Familiarity with community members can lead to support expectations, placing interpreters in a precarious position where they may be unfairly held responsible for unfavourable outcomes.
“Interpreting within the Aboriginal community is a really new way of doing things. People will see an interpreter working with the police. So automatically, if that person goes to jail, the interpreter is at fault because they helped the police put that person in jail. By the same thing, that might be the defendant's family having a go at them or the victim's family if the person gets off – you know, the interpreter helped them get off. There's all of that.” – Indigenous language interpreter
There’s a persistent fear among interpreters that they’ll be held responsible. It can result in their reluctance to interpret in significant cases, exacerbating the challenge of timely access to interpreting services.
Our research revealed that some clients tend to use blaming interpreters as a tactic when encountering unfavourable outcomes.
A Korean victim-survivor stated: “When you go to mediation [in the court], use an interpreter. Because of the off-chance it goes wrong [in case something goes wrong], then you can blame the interpreter. You can shift the responsibility. They [sector workers] told me like that.”
In these situations, the community’s understanding of interpreters’ roles and responsibilities is crucial. As the above examples highlight, there’s a need to enhance public awareness of the interpreting profession and ensure the community doesn’t unfairly blame interpreters, and offers assistance if they face such issues.
Why does it matter?
Mistrust of the interpreting profession by the public, including people working in institutional settings, can significantly affect interpreters’ professional experiences and working conditions, potentially impacting retention rates.
Given the current interpreter shortage, recruiting new interpreters and retaining those in the sector are both critical.
Professional interpreting services are crucial in ensuring equitable access to vital public services and institutional support for a significant portion of Australians with limited proficiency in English, the predominant language in societal and institutional settings.
Without an adequate number of interpreters, minority-language speakers are left to negotiate linguistically complex institutional settings without much-needed help.
In turn, it contributes to the further marginalisation of these small-speech communities.
This work was partially supported by the Core University Program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies.
