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Ever on the lookout for globalization and language issues, we experienced some recently on an emergency room visit to Mass. Eye & Ear for a torn retina -- evidenced by two "tears" in the surface of the retina. This adventure got us thinking about a few topics that we've covered in our research and here in the Global Watchtower: 1) translation for multicultural audiences, 2) children as interpreters, and 3) mistranslations by machine and humans.
First of all, there's the question of "Translation: Es la ley." In August 2003 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revised its rules for when and how health care providers -- doctors, hospitals, and other medical professionals -- should make interpretation and translation services available to individuals with limited English proficiency. States like New York have taken the lead on the language front. Meanwhile, if this sign at Mass Eye and Ear (click on the photo above for an enlarged version of the whole sign) is any indication, the hospital has some work to do before it complies with la ley. Thankfully, there a lot of Spanish speakers on its staff, so hispanohablantes won't suffer too much. Other ethnicities might.
Next, we recently wrote about California's plan to ban child interpreters in hospitals and clinics. Well, we're not children, but we certainly felt like kids in the emergency room. Long-forgotten words from our high-school biology class like vitreous and macula were thrown about by doctors, nurses, and technicians. We imagined a child interpreting for a hurt parent, unable to interpret the poster-size cutaway of the human eye as specialists poked and prodded. Add to the medical argot all of the grown-up words that came with getting admitted to the hospital, insurance, and waiving of privacy rights. We can see where California's proposed regulations came from.
Finally, there's the question of mistranslation, whether by machine or by human. E-mails to friends noted "tears" in the retina, a word that was interepreted by one correspondent as lachrymal fluid rather than rips in the retina. We could imagine the same problem with an untuned machine translation server wrongly interpreting these heteronyms.
Sick, injured, giving birth -- whenever people find themselves in a hospital, they are at their most vulnerable and typically retreat to their most basic selves. Health care professionals and institutions that can provide information in a form that patients can understand -- including jargon-free English -- will do their patients a huge service.
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