FTI hosts the 6th edition on Interpreting for Public Services

Les realitats menys visibles de la interpretació als serveis publics, a la UAB

The need to guarantee professional interpreters in cases of domestic violence, phone monitoring and asylum and refugee processes are the focus of the 6th edition of the Interpreting for Public Services workshop, organised by the MIRAS Research Group and taking place on 29 May at the FTI.

18/05/2015

The workshop will dedicate the first half to exposing and discussing the conclusions reached by the European project SOS-VICS (Speaking Out for Support), conducted by nine Spanish universities, including the two Catalan universities UAB, with lecturers Marta Arumí and Anna Gil-Bardají, and the University of Vic-UCC, with lecturer Xus Ugarte.

SOS-VICS is a pilot project coordinated by the University of Vigo with the aim of creating training resources for interpreters specialising in working with foreign victims of domestic violence (DV). The project included the participation of over 600 professionals from different sectors providing assistance to these victims and in which several problems with the interpreting services were detected.

As part of the workshop, Carmen Toledano from the University of La Laguna will offer a plenary session in which she will expose the current situation interpreters find themselves in when working in contexts of DV and the need to legally guarantee that these victims have access to professional and specialised interpreting services in all stages of the assistance process.

Marta Arumí, Director of the research group MIRAS (Mediació i Interpretació: Recerca en l’Àmbit Social), and Mireia Vargas will present the materials and resources developed by the project to train interpreters working with cases of DV, as well as the manual “Interpreting in Domestic Violence Contexts” (in Catalan), a website offering training tips and exercises, a good practices guide when working with interpreters, aimed at professionals who assist victims of domestic violence, and several multilingual resources victims can consult.

A third conference regarding these issues will be offered by Maria Antònia Coscollola Feixa, magistrate of the Court for Violence Against Women number 4 of Barcelona, who will speak on the task of judges and magistrates in these types of courts.

Other presentations will include interpreting in a court of law and special emphasis will be put on the use of Romanian in the courts of Barcelona; communication barriers in health issues in Barcelona and Montreal and the role of interpreters in phone monitoring and telephone tapping services.

Finally, a debate will be opened to reflect upon and discuss interpreting in public services dealing with cases of asylum and refugee processes.

Sixth Edition on Interpreting for Public Services