How can multilingual bureaucracy be incentivised?
Aidan Wilson writes…
Regular readers of this blog will be aware of the phenomenon that the late Michael Clyne labelled the Monolingual Mindset: the outdated, flawed notion that it is normal for people to speak only one language, and that speaking two languages is both uncommon and difficult, and that bi- and multi-lingual people speak each of their languages inadequately. We at Fully (sic) loudly and proudly rally against the Monolingual Mindset wherever and whenever it emerges; and this morning is a prime example.
A report in The Age today, reveals that the Victorian Department of Human Services (DHS), which administers public housing, surveys its residents for valuable feedback, but does not provide the form in any language other than English. Moreover, the questions on the 12-page form are reportedly difficult to understand even for a native speaker of English. The provided example is ‘How can good tenant behaviour and mutual obligation be incentivised?’
This is a problem because, according to tenants’ advocacy groups, up to 60% of residents in some areas are not from English-speaking backgrounds and instead speak languages such as Dari and Hazaragi (from Afghanistan), Dinka (from South Sudan), Greek, Turkish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian and Arabic. Mere-Paore Epere, chairwoman of one such tenants’ group, rang the department to ask whether the survey was available in other languages, but was told to get family friends of the residents to help them fill out the survey.
Surely the department would be aware that for many residents, especially those from Afghanistan and South Sudan, there is a high chance that they would not have family friends in Australia and, if they did, they would be similarly unlikely to be first language speakers of English. It would also be unreasonable to expect the tenants’ groups to shoulder the burden of ensuring that residents get their say in these important feedback surveys by providing interpreters, although I’m sure some groups already do so.
Imagine you and your family live in a foreign land and don’t speak the language, and you receive a bunch of very official looking documents and questionnaires in the mail but are unable to understand or answer them properly. I imagine that most people in this scenario would feel tempted to ignore the survey entirely, and that would be tantamount to them losing some of their rights as residents.
The department’s website has, in its footer, links to information available in no less than 28 languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, Dari, Persian, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese (both simplified and traditional), Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, Macedonian and Filipino, although not all documents are translated into each language, but instead, a somewhat random selection. Some languages like Hindi and Somali, don’t have any documents available in them.
I realise the pragmatic difficulty of translating all departmental documents into all languages, but the department should be making more of an effort to protect public housing residents’ rights. Having this feedback survey translated into enough languages to account for the breadth of their residents, and providing interpreters where necessary, should therefore be a priority.
Here’s some free advice to DHS: Google Translate, while not perfect, is better than nothing, and it might force you to abandon stupid words like ‘incentivise’.
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“Incentivised”? Come on
AidenAidan. I trust you are being satirical, or I will have to “sarcastisise” you.And our most immediate and numerous neighbours speak Tok Pisin (or variants). Can you find a bi-lingual interpreter for this?
I think not.
This came home to me when I recently had to try and explain thyroid-hormone deficiency to a Pisin speaker with only an average grasp of English.
I reckon there are probably close to 100,000 Pisin speakers in Australia – maybe more – and we ignore it.
And how many schools teach Pisin?
Did you read the post? The title (crap as it is, I’m sorry) was intended to parallel the quoted question from the survey:
WRT Tok Pisin, I agree. There are enough speakers of Tok Pisin in places like Brisbane and Sydney to warrant the translation of documents. But there probably wouldn’t be enough speakers of Tok Pleis languages like Motu or Watam to warrant the same, and moreover, everyone who speaks the latter languages would certainly speak Tok Pisin.
Wouldn’t be difficult at all to find someone who’d be willing to work as a translator; plenty of former linguists who are fluent in Tok Pisin and need the work!
This whole discussion of which languages deserve official recognition in the form of government documents and so on quickly becomes very political. I mentioned Dinka in the post, but what about the Lopit, another ethnic group from South Sudan who have established a community in the suburbs of Melbourne. They may have spoken Dinka as a lingua franca back in Sudan, but they would probably want to see documents in their own language, not the language of the ethnic majority of their homeland.
It’s a terribly complex issue, but I think more should be done.
Well you probably have to be a bit more reasonable about interpreting/translating services and prioritise communication over language ideology. If Lopit speakers are also Dinka speakers, and there is only so much money in the interpreting/translating services pot, you are going to translate documents into Dinka.
Expecting all citizens to be functional in a common unifying language is not a symptom of a ‘monolingual mindset’, but simple common sense.
This is not the same as actively discouraging the speaking of other languages, but merely asserting that for obvious practicalities, there must at least one common medium of communication amongst the citizenry.
And unless the public service is going to cater every language other than English spoken in Australia it is also the most fair way of doing things. Why should speakers of major immigrant tongues such as Mandarin be accommodated whilst those who speak some obscure minority language are not?
The most equitable, sensible and practical solution is to encourage all to speak one common language when dealing with the public and the public service. To call this a ‘monolingual mindset’ is silly: no one is being told to stop speaking one language, merely to be functional in another.
Yes, Howard, but when it’s something as important as dealing with the agency that provides you with housing (a basic human right), maybe for something important like a tenancy agreement, what are you going to do? Provide multilingual services or wait 3-5 years until the tenants have acquired enough English to handle government-speak and legal documents? Language learning takes time remember. You can’t just *will* people to function in English. Some people are old and struggle to learn other languages. Some speak languages that are crazily different to English. Some have recently arrived and haven’t had a chance to learn much English. And yes, some people might be stubborn about speaking English or just find it bloody hard. They’re still our fellow residents. Have a heart mate.
As for Tok Pisin, I had a look and was shocked to find that there are no accredited Tok Pisin interpreters in Australia (www.naati.com.au)
Also, FYI, there’s a nice portal for government multilingual services: mylanguage.gov.au
Wamut
Specifically, I was replying to Aidan’s conflation of the active disdain and discouragement of languages other than English (the monolingual mindset) with the eminently sensible and practical idea that all citizens should be unified by a common language.
However, I will take you up on your ‘helping hand’ angle.
Putting aside those who arrive here fleeing from perilous situations, this issue is a non-starter. Entrance to Australia outside of the humanitarian intake is selective and competitive. It is not unreasonable to expect that those who arrive on their own volition to be willing to take their chances in acquiring a functional command of the unifying tongue.
I’m not completely without sympathy, my wife is from an Asian nation, my house is trilingual and we regularly help out friends with matters English. However, it is not the taxpayers’ obligation to subsidize people with translation services who have arrived of their own free-will.
Refugees are a different kettle of fish, as they have not willingly left the place in which their native language is king, and thus there is a case for some sort of transitional translation services.
Furthermore, given that not all migrant languages will be able to be accommodated, there is the issue of creating an ‘unlevel playing field’ among non-humanitarian migrants in this regard
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