Integration of Minority Speakers of Britain - Essay Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxx Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : Barriers of provision of interpreters of public services in the integration of minority speakers of Britain Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2011 Introduction Interpreters are translators of speech or spoken language with the aim of getting rid of the communication barriers between the communicators and none communicators of a certain language. This is effective in cases where foreigners are involved. They may not be conversant with the language as well operations of organization or nation hence the need for someone to guide and explain everything to them. Interpreters are trained depending on the areas of specialization. There are many sectors of public services in Britain which requires some professional interpreters to ensure that all the members of the public can access the services, for example, hospitals, solicitors, police and social services. These interpreters however have some negative impacts on the members of the public that they serve. The study below considers ways through which the provision of interpreters of public services in Britain acts as a barrier to integration of minority speakers. Interpreters of public services in Britain Mostly the work of the interpreters entails face to face communication as the professional interprets things to the clients. This is done through the context of arrival interviews or casework interviews whereby the interested individual is expected to book in advance. Both cases require provision of simultaneous translation of information or activities. With the advancement in technology, everything is turning to be online as people struggle to make things easier. Telephone interpreting is becoming very common in Britain especially in legal, health and local government (Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, 2004). The interpreters are required to have knowledge of all the languages used in the local communities as well as those that are internationally accepted like English. However some of the languages especially those used by people in the most marginalized areas are overlooked. The official language like English is the common used and accepted especially in the professional fields like medicine and schools thus the minority speakers may not have equal opportunities to access the services because of the communication barrier. The public institutions make the languages used by the majority of the people the sole medium of public communication the minority language speakers feel isolated and not recognized in the society where they belong. The speakers of some of the minority languages personally complain when they object to the monolingual policy in reference to their own interests either as individuals or as a group. The less educated are the most affected because they may not be bale to access the information or services offered in the public institutions due to the communication barrier. The main complain is that the monolingual policies do not recognize the legitimate interests that they have in the struggle to accommodate their language. They also join hands to express their impersonal complains concerning the isolation of the entire group. It is the interest of each member of the social group to have their cultural activities maintained like the indigenous language (Ostarhild, 2002). Provision of the interpreters in the public services shows that the state is encouraging monolingualism in which English is the language which is likely to be favored since it is considered as the national language in Britain. Instead of supporting and encouraging the locals to use their languages they discourage them by using English in most of the public offices even those located in the interior parts thus creating communication barriers between the locals and the professionals. There are some sensitive issues like in the health sector which the individuals may not be comfortable with the involvement of the third party as the interpreter since they are a bit confidential. Therefore, the affected ends up not accessing the required health services because of the fear of sharing their personal information to more people. The senior politicians are so keen on ensuring that the immigrants learn the majority languages so as to easily communicate to most of the people. This ends up stigmatizing the languages of the minority speakers because they are also forced to neglect their original languages and adapt those used by the major societies. The commitment of the government of the state to the process of monolingualism is reflected by designating only English language to be official and demanding all the workers to learn and consider using this language. Mostly these leaders prefer privileging their own languages for the material benefits of their social groups if identified as the major and superior groups in the state thus have some benefits over the other groups in the competition for the resources and other opportunities (Roda, 2000). Sometimes we cannot always trust the interpreters especially in cases where he acts as the link between two parties which cannot understand each other. The interpreter might be tempted to give false information under influence of certain interests like spoiling the relationship of the two parties or for other personal interests. The most affected people are the minority speakers especially the less fortunate who may not be able to access education thus they may not be bale to communicate or understand any other language. The minorities may not be able to acquire the positions of becoming interpreters because of the many expectations and requirements. For example he must be a complete member of National Register of the Public Services Interpreters as well as a holder of Diploma in Public Services Interpreting or have met the qualifications of Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and have gone through the assessment of the Metropolitan Police (Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, 2004). Those interested are also expected to complete and submit an application incase they think their languages should be considered. The qualifications of the language to be shortlisted are determined by the number of entries supporting it. This means that the languages used by the majority of the people are always shortlisted because there are more people in support of than it is with the minority speakers who may not meet the required entries. These people are required to learn and use other languages which are considered to be used across the state. There is hardly a single minority language which is used national language or learnt by the interpreters for the purpose of enhancing the society access the public services (Lapidge, 2002). The minority speakers may not be in a position to access training and assessment programme which enable maintenance of high and standard interpreters. The programme is conducted by Language Services Limited, a branch of the Institute of Linguistics. The trainers of the programme are assessed in all the languages that are registered to be learnt. This has positive impacts in the efforts to sustain these languages because most of the local people will be interested to learn and use them for communication in the public sectors. The minority languages which are rarely used continues to fade out calling for the members of these societies to use the nationally accepted languages which will enable them access the public services without having to hire an interpreter. The provision of these interpreters is leading to un-uniform development of the societies because the minor communities feel like they are isolated from the rest of the society thus are not able to interact with the others. They also do not have the freedom to access the public resources which might enhance their development. This is because they lack the official language of expressing their feelings or desires. The political leaders also consider those from the major groups because they are recognized as the origins of the national languages and have their representatives who are involved in planning and implementation of the public projects. The main duties and responsibilities of government are to offer public services to the citizens. For this to be effective, the interpreters are trained and provided to improve the communication which is the major aspect determining the achievement of the set goals and objectives (Phelan, 2003). The efforts of provision and training of the interpreters does not favor the minority speakers because their languages are not recognized but instead fades due to their decreased usage. The government of Britain should consider even the minority languages for the purposes of recognizing these groups. The commonly known problem caused by the language barrier to the minority speakers is the obstacle to access primary healthcare. Although the government has provided the interpreters to ensure that these people are able to communicate with the professionals working in the public facilities like hospitals, schools and administration offices. Interpreters in these facilities may not have learnt the minor languages hence not able to interpret them when people from the minor groups comes seeking for the services. The professionals end up offering inappropriate services or completely not treated because the nurses may not understand their problems and may not have efficient facilities to examine the complication of the patient. It is very difficult for the nurses to identify the disease without the understanding of the history or symptoms of the patients. The training of the nurses who offers interpreting services and the interpreters are is sometimes inadequately done thus affecting the quality of the interaction between these interpreters and the patients. These primary care nurses act as the gatekeepers for the interpretation of the services and deliver information based on their personal interests. The health professionals are therefore relying on the information from the family members who may be able to communicate in the national languages rather than the other champions who are trained to interpret the information (Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, 2004). The background ethnic groups are often expected to undertake various aspects in the process of carrying out their daily lives even with the limited English. The use of these professional or accredited interpreters is becoming minimal in the primary health care services because they are assumed to be undermining the principle of equity in the National Health Service. There should be equality in the language used by people in the locality thus they can freely access public services without having to seek anyone’s help. Conclusion The interpreters in the public services are considered to have positive impacts to the lives of the Britain citizens because they unable all the people access the services offered in the public institutions like hospitals, schools and administration offices. These professionals however have negative impacts or barrier to integration of the minority speakers. The interpreters are expected to learn many and different languages however, most of the languages which are learnt are those used by the majority speakers thus the minorities are expected to learn them so as to effectively communicate. The impact of this is fading out of the minority languages because they are rarely used and are not recognized at national levels. Bibliography Ostarhild, E., 2002, Careers using languages, Kogan Page Publishers, London. Roda, P., 2000, The critical link 2: interpreters in the community : selected papers from the Second International Conference on Interpreting in Legal, Health, and Social Service Settings, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 19-23 May 1998, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Oxford. Lapidge, M., 2002, Interpreters of early medieval Britain, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Phelan, M., 2003, The interpreter's resource, Multilingual Matters, England. Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, 2004, Papers by command, Volume 61, HMSO, Manchester. Read More