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- Convenor:
-
Kayoko Takeda
(Rikkyo University)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussant:
-
Hiroshi Inagaki
(Kokugakuin University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Language and Linguistics
- Location:
- Lokaal -1.91
- Sessions:
- Friday 18 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
This panel explores how Japanese central and local governments view the needs for interpreting services and the role of interpreters in their undertakings by examining issues around court interpreters, interpreters in municipal services and the use of AI-based interpreting devices by governments.
Long Abstract:
With growing numbers of foreign residents as well as temporary workers and visitors from abroad, central and local governments in Japan must engage with interpreters on a daily basis to address the linguistic needs of non-Japanese speaking individuals in a range of settings, including health and welfare services, judicial proceedings and disaster response. Although the Japanese government places interpreters in the "professional and engineering workers" category of the Standard Occupation Classification, interpreters in the public service sector lack "professional" status. Features generally associated with a profession, such as a national certification program, clearly defined qualifications, high compensation, and standards for professional conduct, are almost non-existent for interpreters sourced by governments for their administrative undertakings. To investigate this seeming lack of governance in the use of interpreting services, this panel explores what views government officials may have regarding the needs of interpreting services and the role of interpreters as well as how such views may impact the work of interpreters and the reception of interpreting services.
The panel first discusses how the linguistic needs of non-Japanese speaking suspects, defendants and witnesses are addressed in the criminal justice system. Interviews with court interpreters reveal that, in the absence of professional guidelines, they often find themselves alone in dealing with issues of accuracy, working conditions, etc. The panel then provides an analysis of local governments' views regarding the role of interpreters based on interviews with municipal officers, interpreters hired by them, and users of their services. It suggests a lack of basic understanding on the government side about what transpires in the act of interpreting, leading to indifference toward the qualifications of interpreters, as well as the importance of "trust" in communicative events. Thirdly, the panel discusses the increasing use of AI-based machine interpreting devices by local governments, which is promoted by the central government. Factors for this new development are analysed, and the issue of liability is raised. Finally, the discussant comments on the panel presentations from the perspective of public administration and policy studies, with attention to the history of the central and local governments' policies towards foreign residents and visitors.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 18 August, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
This paper addresses systemic issues surrounding court interpreting in Japan, focusing on what these issues can tell us about the beliefs of legal practitioners about interpreters and how interpreters see their role as participants in criminal proceedings involving non-Japanese speakers.
Paper long abstract:
One of the most frequently raised issues pertaining to court interpreting in Japan is that, unlike other G7 nations, it lacks an accreditation (certification) system for interpreters. Courts usually interview candidates to assess their linguistic skills and motivation and then determine whether they are adequate to serve as interpreters. Whether a centralized, nationwide certification system would solve all, or even most, issues concerning court interpreting, especially those related to languages of lesser diffusion, can be a subject of debate. The lack of such a system, however, leads to considerable challenges for both prospective and practicing court interpreters and those needing their services, including legal practitioners and non-Japanese-speaking participants in judicial proceedings, mainly defendants and witnesses.
One such consequence is that interpreters are left without clear guidelines of what is expected of them. As a result, there are few official educational platforms that would allow them to gain or improve the required skills and knowledge. Furthermore, how to address ethical matters and dilemmas, too, is left to interpreters, making their role and responsibility in the proceedings only vaguely defined and, more often than not, out of step with recent developments in scholarship concerning court interpreting. Therefore, one conclusion that can be drawn is that interpreters are not viewed by those who work with them as equal professionals who would require a level of education and expertise in their field similar to that of legal practitioners.
This paper addresses the various challenges surrounding court interpreters’ work against the backdrop of the systemic issues discussed above. To illustrate this, the paper draws on the voices of court interpreters interviewed in various jurisdictions in Japan. These in-depth interviews demonstrate how interpreters define their roles and how they believe they are perceived by those with whom they work. The interpreters’ voices bring yet another challenge to the fore that Japan’s judicial system may need to face in the near future; namely, that even though the number of interpreter-mediated criminal court proceedings in Japan remains steady, the number of those serving as court interpreters has seen a decline in recent years.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores controversies regarding the role of community interpreters based on interviews with local officers, interpreters, and users of their services in Japan. It focuses on “trust” as one of the essential factors and analyzes how “trust” is constructed in their narratives.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores controversies regarding the role of community interpreters based on interviews with local officers, interpreters hired by them, and users of their services, mainly in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, which has the second-largest number of foreign residents, especially of Brazilian and Peruvian origins, of any prefecture in Japan, after Tokyo. Thirty years have passed since Japan amended the “Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act,” permitting foreigners with Japanese ancestry to work and live in Japan. However, there is still an urgent need to overcome language and cultural barriers at schools, hospitals, and various local services to guarantee access to communication as well as information issued by local governments, etc.
In accordance with the revised Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication’s Promotion Plan for the Multicultural Local Society (2020) and its encouragement to local governments to offer multilingual assistance for foreign residents to facilitate their daily life and make them feel at ease living in Japan, many local governments provide multilingual consultation services for foreign residents. In this context, interpreters and bilingual staff are hired to provide multilingual assistance.
Nevertheless, Japan has no national certification program or accreditation system for community interpreters and expectations regarding the role of “interpreters” in public services are diverse. Furthermore, for minority languages such as Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Nepalese, as well as Portuguese and Spanish, the interpreters or bilingual staff hired are native speakers of these languages and sometimes cannot read Japanese ideographic characters.
The interviews identified some controversies regarding the role of an interpreter: some consider them to be merely bilingual staff and not professionals, while others consider them skilled and specialized professionals who need proper training. However, the common theme that emerges is the importance of “trust” between the interpreter and users of the interpreting services or the service provider. The panelist will show how “trust” is constructed in their narrative, even in situations in which the interpreter cannot read Japanese characters or in other circumstances.
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents a critical analysis of the Japanese government’s programs supporting the development of AI-based interpreting technologies and of local governments’ use of interpreting devices in the provision of municipal services for foreign residents, including recent evacuees from Ukraine.
Paper long abstract:
Whether responding to disasters and pandemics or completing daily administrative tasks, Japanese central and local governments are faced with the need to provide translation and interpreting services for non-Japanese-speaking residents. They must also engage in effective communication in different languages to promote inbound tourism as the Japanese government maintains its goal of attracting 60 million visitors to Japan by 2030 in order to revitalize the economy. One of the major government initiatives to address these linguistic needs is the Global Communication Plan (GCP) 2025, which was launched by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) in 2020. Advancing translation technologies developed under MIC’s previous initiative (GCP, 2014–2020), GCP 2025 aims to realize AI-based simultaneous interpreting in business and other settings by 2025. Through close readings of the plan and progress reports of GCP 2025 as well as interviews with members of the consortium leading this project, this paper provides a critical analysis of the views on the role of interpreters, language learning, language problems, and user education reflected in these documents. Further, to illustrate potential benefits and issues of using such AI-based interpreting technologies in government settings, this paper examines the use of machine interpreting devices by municipalities. Utilizing the machine translation engine developed under the first GCP initiative, some companies launched these devices and actively marketed them in municipal offices where day-to-day services are provided to a range of residents, including speakers of less-taught languages such as Vietnamese and Nepali. Recently, the use of AI-based interpreting devices by local governments to serve evacuees from Ukraine has attracted attention from the media. With the limited availability of Ukrainian interpreters as well as evacuees’ aversion to speaking Russian or facing Russian nationals, municipalities have resorted to these devices for transactional communication. Based on interviews with some municipality workers and a review of the user guidelines for such devices issued by the central government specifically for local governments, this paper discusses the trust issues surrounding refugees’ use of interpreting devices as well as liability issues by referencing a British government guideline for the use of translation devices in detention services.