Effective translation policies for official communication in diverse communities

“Language is (not) a barrier”: Towards effective translation policies and practices for official communication with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities in linguistically superdiverse cities.

The details

Metropolises like Brussels or Melbourne are sites of unprecedented cultural and linguistic diversity. This creates pressing challenges for multilingual officials, as seen in the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing those challenges will require change in translation policies and practices, with close attention to real-world effects.

Our research analyses the policies, practices and effects of official translations that address culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities in the two cities.

Our particular focus is on COVID vaccination information in the two cities in 2021 and 2022. Since this form of pure behaviour-change communication fails in situations of distrust, we are interested in policies that can help promote trust in official messaging.

We focus on communities that speak Arabic or Dari in Melbourne, and on the Moroccan community in Brussels.

The Melbourne-based graduate researcher on this project is Rachel Macreadie.

The Leuven-based graduate researcher on this project is Kadija Bouyzourn.

Supervision team

Principal Investigators (PIs):

The University of Melbourne: Professor Anthony Pym

KU Leuven: Professor Reine Meylaerts

Co-Principal Investigators (Co-PIs):

The University of Melbourne: Associate Professor Andrea Rizzi 

KU Leuven: Professor Elke Brems