With English functioning as a lingua franca in the academic world, many non-Anglophone scholars wish to publish their articles in English-medium international journals and seek professional ...assistance with translating them into English. Translators facing this task may encounter several issues stemming from cross-cultural differences in the style and structure of academic texts. While linguistic errors alone rarely result in rejections, deviations from Anglo–American conventions in scientific writing may even lead to the reviewers questioning the author’s competence as a scientist. For example, there are significant differences between two intellectual traditions: Teutonic, which has influenced the Polish style of academic communication, and Saxonic, which has shaped Anglo–American standards. As a result, introductions written by Polish scholars often do not meet the requirements of English-medium international journals. This may inadvertently place Polish authors in a disadvantaged position. It is therefore important that translators should know how to approach these differences when they encounter them. Drawing on existing literature, this paper calls for an inquiry into the role of the translator in these circumstances, including the scope of their responsibilities and strategies for dealing with potential problems.
Nous repensons ici les situations de communication plurilingue et interculturelle en contexte médical sous l’angle des injustices épistémiques (Fricker, 2007). À l’aide d’entretiens ...narrativo-explicitatifs portant sur deux situations relevant du rapport à la naissance et à la mort, décrites par deux médiatrices interculturelles, nous analysons les pratiques de ces dernières et mettons en évidence la manière dont elles s’y prennent pour que la parole des personnes allophones soit écoutée et crue. Notre étude contribue, d’une part, à mettre en lumière certains aspects liés aux injustices épistémiques dans la communication interculturelle, et, d’autre part, à repenser de manière critique le rapport entre les ontologies sous-tendant la relation à autrui, au corps et à la santé, mobilisées dans les institutions médicales.
Through this paper, we explore plurilingual and intercultural communication’s situations in a medical context from the point of view of epistemic injustices (Fricker, 2007). Using narrative-explicitative interviews on two situations (concerning birth and death), described by two intercultural mediators, we analyze their practices and highlight what they do to ensure that non-native speakers’ voice is listened to and believed. Our study contributes, on the one hand, to highlighting certain aspects related to epistemic injustices in intercultural communication, and on the other hand, to rethinking critically the relations between the ontologies underlying the relationship to the other, to the body and to health, mobilized in medical institutions.
This article analyzes interaction taking place in an after-school digital storytelling project, involving a group of teenagers in Catalonia, Spain, with different lingua-cultural backgrounds. It ...focuses on intercultural mediation activities carried out in one of the early project sessions in which a young girl of Ghanaian origin mobilizes her previous life experience to mediate, for her local peers in Catalonia, understanding of a video produced by Ugandan youth. The data is transcribed and analyzed using a multimodal conversation analytic perspective. Drawing on the theoretical concepts of intercultural mediation, cosmopolitanism, and funds of knowledge, this article investigates the following: (a) how the girl mobilizes her funds of knowledge to mediate the content of the video and the other audience members and, (b) how cosmopolitanism is developed in intercultural mediation. The article also touches on how intercultural mediation is collaboratively constructed across modes, languages, and material objects. The findings indicate that the young participants’ cosmopolitan stances are enacted and enabled in intercultural mediation, as the youngsters can make sense of cultural concepts that they can not tackle as well on their own. The findings further help to reconceptualize the competences, knowledge, and resources of youth in the superdiverse and interconnected world.
Picturebooks are good resources for intercultural mediation with children given their multimodality and topic range related to contemporary living. When carefully selected, picturebooks may help ...children reflect on the multicultural world they live in and learn about meaningful intercultural action. Some examples of picturebooks are used from the Identity and Diversity in Picture Book Collections project (IDPBC) in order to explore topics related to the superdiversity of contemporary societies, such as, living in communities, multiple linguistic identities, approaches to mass migration and (voluntary and enforced) mobility. Fictional resources such as these are capable of generating empathy in readers and thus can be used to help children understand the growing cultural diversity around them, as well as the social phenomena of migration, refugees. These fictional resources may also contribute to children’s understanding of social complexity at the global scale, at the human rights level, and within rules of democratic action as global citizens. Some inclusive didactic approaches are further suggested for using the selected picturebooks with five to 12-year old children in contexts of intercultural mediation.
The article deals with the linguistic representation of the linguoculturological triad "domestic – foreign – intercultural" as part of the theory of reflective and translation turns developed by D. ...Bachmann-Medick. Globalization has transformed the principle of binary categorization and mapped out the possibility of their synthesis and formation of a third space of communication. The purpose of the study is to analyze and describe translation strategies and techniques used for the transfer of intercultural meanings that create a third space in the perception of the global recipientt, where neither basic, nor adaptive culture markers are preserved. The empirical basis of the study is represented with the original and translated texts of international artistic festivals, memoirs of Russian and foreign artists, as well as the verbal content of news online platforms dedicated to the 150 th birth anniversary of S.P. Diaghilev. As a result of the analysis, three key strategies for the translation of linguistic-and-cultural units have been identified: domestication, foreignization and intercultural mediation. They are interchangeably used in the process of translating the Russian texts under consideration. However, owing to the communicative task of original texts – to convey the specifics of Russian culture and include national art in the world cultural fund, the strategy of intercultural mediation is the most frequently used one. This strategy is implemented through the use of Gallicisms in translated English and German texts, international vocabulary, and elimination of national and cultural specifics. It has been shown that a translator's individual style is imposed on the systemic and cultural specifics of natural languages.
Together with the numbers of refugees rising globally, those seeking asylum have increased dramatically, as more countries grant temporary status to those awaiting determination of their refugee ...petitions. As asylum seekers, they dwell in legal liminality, having neither the civil rights or service access of citizens nor the rights of those officially recognized as refugees. In countries like Israel, where immigration policies indefinitely prolong such legal liminality, asylum seekers are afforded only “temporary collective protection” without entitlement to services. To the extent that aid is available, it is provided by an informal network of NGOs. Within this context, a semi-formal network of “mediators” has arisen from among asylum seekers. Having acquired the host country’s language, they are employed by NGOs and volunteer in their own communities, providing not only language translation and interpretation assistance, but also intercultural translation. Using in-depth, semi-structured interviews of 14 mediators, this study explores the professional, communal and personal impacts on mediators of prolonged legal liminality. It shows how language can be a significant tool that can alter perceptions of civic status and challenge legal liminality. Formally leveraging the skill set of mediators by cooperating with and directly employing them in government offices, can help to stabilize an especially vulnerable and transient community, benefiting both the state and asylum seekers.
•The number of asylum seekers globally has increased significantly.•In some countries, they experience prolonged legal liminality, with limited rights.•Informal language and cultural mediators bridge the community-state space in Israel.•Interviews with mediators in Israel explore the impacts of legal liminality.•Language alters the perception of civic status, challenging legal liminality.
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