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10th AUSIT Queensland Branch Mini Conference
University of Queensland, Brisbane
24 August 2024
9:20-10:00am
Carl Gene Fordham
“Professional Development: An Ethical Notion”

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Lecture #5: Professional Development: An Ethical Notion

Introduction

First I’d like to thank Eyal Chipkiewicz, Carina Mackenzie and the other members of the Queensland branch for taking the time to organise this very special event.

It is a great honour to be the very first speaker at the 10th AUSIT Queensland Branch Mini Conference at the School of Languages and Cultures of the University of Queensland.

To kickstart our conference today, I would like to offer some ideas for your consideration on the topic of professional development: an ethical notion. As Vice-President (Professional Development & Events) of AUSIT, but also as a court interpreter and forensic translator myself, ethics is a topic that very close to my heart. It is also a topic close to the hearts of many of my colleagues — colleagues who understand that ethics are not just an optional extra, a plug-in, a box to be ticked on their NAATI recertification form. Ethics make our profession. Without ethics there would be no profession.

Language Proficiency — A Mere Foundation

I’d like to start off by posing a question to the members of our audience today. I want you to cast your mind back to the time when you were a student. Maybe you were taking a short course or maybe you were enrolled in a diploma or masters course in translation and interpreting. Or maybe you’re one of my students in which case you are currently completing your studies. What was your biggest concern? What was the the most important thing you felt you had to improve on? What was your biggest weakness? And what became your most urgent priority?

Now I haven’t conducted a formal survey on this, but I have a hunch that many of you were most worried about your proficiency in your second language. You were probably feeling anxious about whether your English, Chinese, Japanese, or Spanish skills were good enough to pass the course and begin your career as a translator or interpreter. This is a common concern among the students I teach in the Master of Translation and Interpreting program at the University of Queensland. Most students spend their time memorising vocabulary, studying grammar textbooks, practicing pronunciation, and so on.

This of course is completely understandable. We are after all learning how to be the most competent and capable bilinguals we can be. And many students in these programs are fairly young. Many have yet to even work in environments where their second language is spoken.

But if you talk to experienced translators and interpreters, you might notice a common theme. Many of us have had a revelation — that the things we stressed about as students turned out to be the least of our worries after we graduated. On the flip side, the biggest challenges we encountered in our careers were often things we had little knowledge of as students. Some of the most difficult aspects of our profession were completely unknown to us back then. Some weren’t even taught to us.

Language proficiency is incredibly important, there’s no denying that. Being a native speaker of one language and having near-native proficiency in another is crucial for the work we do. It’s the foundation, the starting point for any translation project or interpreting assignment.

But let’s be real. If all it took to be a translator were knowing two languages, then any bilingual person could do it. Communication is so much more than just words. If people spoke like robots, just spitting out binary code, saying exactly what they mean and meaning exactly what they say, then we wouldn’t even have a job. But thankfully, communication is messy and complicated, and that’s where we come in as language professionals.

Importance of Non-Linguistic Skills and Knowledge

So to transition from learning a second language to becoming a language professional, it is crucial to consider the additional skills and knowledge required. Continuous professional development is key in bridging this gap, and I must commend NAATI for their forward-thinking approach. The implementation of the Certification System in 2018 was a game-changer, replacing the outdated accreditation system that had been in place since 1977. While some colleagues initially resisted the change, the addition of a universal recertification requirement was a brilliant move. This ensured that professionals had to continually demonstrate their work practice and engage in professional development to maintain their credentials. We are truly fortunate to have a national certifying body like NAATI in Australia, setting the standard for translation and interpreting at home and abroad. Many countries and regions lack such a system to uphold the same level of standards that we are privileged to have.

Now, coming back to those additional skills and knowledge, I think when it comes to skills the answer is probably fairly obvious. We know for example that translators need to know how to use computer-assisted translation tools. That interpreters need to know how to be active listeners and take notes. These skills are obvious to us. If you watch a translator or interpreter in action, you’ll see these skills in play. That’s why a lot of training programs focus solely on teaching these skills.

But while the skills are fairly obvious to us, in my view focusing too much on them is like losing sight of the forest for the trees. It would be like spending a whole semester teaching medical students how to use a stethoscope. Or asking a law student to spend three weeks learning how to write an email. These are necessary skills of course but a profession is so much more than just a bundle of skills. We are not butchers, bakers or candlestick makers — we are translators and interpreters.

An Ethical Notion

And so we need more than language proficiency and translation and interpreting skills. We need something that can help us navigate the complexities of the modern workforce. We need a moral compass, a notion of ethics. And this is where I must take my hat off to AUSIT, who wrote the very first Code of Ethics for translators and interpreters in 1996, and published its second edition in 2012. I take my other hat off to the Judicial Council on Diversity & Inclusion who published the Recommended National Standards for Working with Interpreters in Courts and Tribunals in 2017, and published its second edition in 2022. These two documents form the precious ethical framework of our profession. It is a framework that is absent in many countries and regions around the world.

However, while I am very grateful that we have these documents to guide us when faced with ethical dilemmas — which, by the way, we face almost every day on the job, and you if don’t agree with me, then you aren’t paying attention — that they exist is not enough. It would be impossible for any document to be able to provide guidance on every single ethical problem in any setting in which translators and interpreters work. Again, we are not butchers, bakers or candlestick makers. Our professional environment is much too complicated for that. And so we look to high-quality CPD on ethics to bring these documents to life. To provide more specific guidance on ethical issues we may not have even considered before, even if we have read the Code, even if we have years of professional experience.

Ethics Make The Profession

Now, just before I made a big claim. That ethics make the profession. That without ethics there would be no profession. Still not convinced? Let me paint you a little picture. Imagine you’re working for a court and your job is to book interpreters for legal proceedings. You need an interpreter for a rare language, and there are only two in the whole country. The first interpreter has tons of experience, but they’re known for being a little shady. The second interpreter just got certified, so they’re not very experienced, but everyone says they’re very ethical. Who would you pick? Interpreter A, the experienced unethical interpreter, or Interpreter B, the inexperienced ethical interpreter? Obviously, you’d go with Interpreter B.

Why? Well, even though the first interpreter has a lot of experience, you can’t trust them to do the right thing. In a high-stakes environment like a courtroom, the risk is just too great. An innocent man could go to jail. A company could lose thousands of dollars. In a healthcare setting, someone’s life could even be put at risk by an unethical interpreter. The second interpreter might be new at the job, but at least you know they’ll handle things ethically. For instance, the first interpreter might skip over a word they don’t know because they’re too embarrassed to ask. But the second interpreter would speak up and ask for clarification because they know accuracy is essential when interpreting evidence. That’s the kind of interpreter the court needs to provide access to justice for people with limited English proficiency.

Now suppose that very case had some documents that needed to be tendered to court and those documents were very important evidence that was in a language other than English. In order for the evidence to be tendered as an exhibit, it would need to be translated. This task would fall on one of the lawyers, who must find a forensic translator to get the job done. The translator may even be called to testify as an expert witness during the trial. Now, think about it – if you were the lawyer would you want a translator with a solid understanding of ethics? Of course! A translator with strong ethics would have the language needed to justify their translation decisions if they were asked to do so at the witness box. Without that professional language, it would be very easy to poke holes in the translated evidence. And how could you be sure that justice could be done? You see, it’s one thing to translate something; it’s another thing altogether to be able to explain why you chose to translate that way. That’s the kind of translator the justice system needs.

Why You Should Care About Ethics

You might be thinking, “Sure, it’s important for the court to have an ethical interpreter and for lawyers to have ethical translators, but what about me? Why should I, as a translator or interpreter, care about ethics?” Well, let me give you a few reasons to consider.

First off, there’s NAATI recertification. That’s a pretty obvious one, but we don’t want to just see ethics as a box-ticking exercise for our professional development. It’s about more than that.

Understanding ethics can help you steer clear of ethical pitfalls. And ethical pitfalls can quickly turn into legal pitfalls. While no translator or interpreter has been successfully sued for an ethical breach yet, it’s only a matter of time. I think the only reason it hasn’t happened already is because many lawyers don’t fully grasp the importance of our work. But as our field grows, that’s bound to change.

Another reason to care about ethics is the service we provide to our community. In Australia, community translation and interpreting dominates the work we do. Most of us didn’t choose this path for the money (definitely not for the money), but because we want to help people in need. Having a solid foundation in ethics allows us to better serve those who rely on our skills.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about my students lately. The translation and interpreting field is relatively new compared to other professions like law and medicine. Even though people have been translating and interpreting for ages, it wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the idea of a professional translator or interpreter really took off. It’s only been about 50 years since translation started becoming a recognised profession, or 80 years if we start counting from the Nuremberg trials when simultaneous interpretation was first used. That’s not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things. It usually takes centuries for a profession to gain widespread recognition and respect.

Now, the fact that translation and interpreting is a fairly young profession causes all kinds of problems for students when they finish training. They often don’t have many clear pathways for their career development. It’s not like with law where you finish a law degree and try to find a job as a lawyer. The T/I industry itself is very complicated and hard to understand. It’s hard enough for people in the industry to understand, let alone people just entering it. And our industrial conditions and workplaces vary enormously both in Australia and abroad. That’s why when people outside our industry ask us questions about what our work is like, we can only ask back: what region are you talking about? What language combination? What kind of work? The day-to-day work of a French interpreter working for the United Nations would be completely different to that of a freelance Japanese translator who localises video games.

What CPD in ethics does is it opens a window into highly specialised forms of skills, knowledge and training. Things you can’t get anywhere else. For example, on 5 June we were lucky to have Angelo Berbotto, former National President of AUSIT, present a PD session for the Spanish Language Division on understanding testamentary wills. Then later on 22 June we were joined by Lynn Geng and Cintia Lee, two highly experienced legal interpreters, who talked about how to communicate our needs as interpreters to judges and court registries. Another example was the PD session delivered by Dr Mahshid Sadeghpour on the topic of cyber security. All of these training sessions — and there are many others — are highly specialised but very relevant to our work.

Another important benefit of CPD in ethics that is often overlooked is its ability to teach professionals how to improve their self-advocacy skills. Self-advocacy means putting your own interests first as a professional, being autonomous, and assertive. This is especially crucial in Australia, where the majority of translation and interpreting work is done on a freelance or casual basis. Unlike in other parts of the world, most of us in the Australian T/I industry work as freelancers. Without the safety and structure of a permanent position in a company or organisation, we need to develop the expertise to represent ourselves and look out for ourselves in a highly competitive and constantly changing workplace. To give an example, on 1 June this year, we were fortunate to have Dr Angie Knaggs from UQ present a national professional development session on personal branding in the era of AI.

“Artificial Intelligence”: A Hot Topic in CPD

Speaking of AI, it’s definitely the hottest topic in CPD right now. The National Council of AUSIT has been listening to practitioners and delivered three PD events on AI this year. On 30 July, Ramon Inglada gave a webinar on the risks of using AI tools, the importance of human input, and how we can train translators to work with AI. Back in March, I got to lead a panel discussion on AI. We had some fantastic thought leaders like Sam Berner who shared how AI is changing the industry, the challenges it brings to traditional roles, and the amazing new opportunities it offers. And in April, Joachim Lépine gave a webinar on generative AI and how it can help translators, covering everything from privacy and sustainability to the latest apps and workflows.

Of course, AUSIT isn’t the only organisation hosting CPD events on AI. There are a lot out there. Some are top-notch, others are rubbish. That’s why I suggest being picky about which events you attend. Quality CPD on AI should cover all the bases. Sure, talk with us about how AI can boost our productivity. But let’s not forget to also shed light on the not-so-great aspects of this technology.

First things first, let’s clear up the confusion about apps like ChatGTP, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini. They’re not actually AI – they’re just large language models that use predictive text algorithms. They basically guess what the next word should be based on a bunch of text they’ve seen before. They have no ability to think for themselves. Some companies like to throw around the term “artificial intelligence” to make their products sound fancier than they really are. It’s all just a marketing ploy to get people excited and attract investors. So, be wary of any claims that seem too good to be true when it comes to AI tools.

High-quality CPD on AI should be very clear on these facts. They should help us understand the significant risks involved with the use of AI, not just in the T/I industry, but in all sectors of modern society. And make no mistake — there are many risks. 1. Data breaches (oops! there’s a reason that tool you are using is free — as the old adage goes, if you’re not paying for a product, then you are the product). 2. Environmental destruction (oops! training that tool consumes thousands of megawatt hours of electricity and emits hundreds of tons of carbon). 3. Job displacement (oops! the company has decided to no longer engage humans to translate its subtitles and just uses AI instead).

Here I am greatly inspired by the French theorist Paul Virilio. Virilio believed that each time a new technology comes on the scene, the potential for accident comes with it. With trains came the potential for derailment. With airplanes came the potential for crashes. I often wonder what Virilio would say about generative AI if he were alive today.

But I think one of the most worrying accidents of AI comes as a result of another theory of Virilio’s. You see, Virilio was very interested in speed. He believed that that which is fast dominates that which is slow. That the speed of something changes its essential nature. Food is one thing; fast food is another. Dating is one thing; speed dating is another. And the faster you go to war, the more intense the war becomes.

So for all translators I pose the following ethical question: what accident could occur when you use an AI tool? Recently, the Institute of Translation and Interpreting in the UK proposed its ‘slow translation’ manifesto. They point out that, on the one hand, the adoption of AI tools has further boosted the demand for multilingual content, because it has made it more accessible to more people. And yet, on the other hand, more and more translators are becoming too reliant on machine translation, which has compromised the nuance and cultural context of their translation products.

This ‘slow translation’ concept provides great food for thought to practitioners. But in my view, it comes back to something even more fundamental: that is, the teaching of translation at university. More and more students are turning to generative AI to translate. University managers are mostly concerned about plagiarism. But teachers are worried about something else. What impact will this practice have on students’ professional training? What happens to students’ learning when they use these tools to take shortcuts? You see, when you think about it, learning is all about struggling — if you aren’t struggling, are you really learning anything? I fear we are producing a generation of professionals who cannot translate without the assistance of applications.

If you recall, I mentioned that AUSIT published the second edition of its Code of Ethics way back in 2012. AUSIT is preparing to begin work on its third edition. I have no doubt that these emerging ethical issues will find themselves into this new version. So watch this space.

Tips to Improve Your Ethical Decision-Making

In the meantime, I would like to offer five tips for your consideration today. These tips are all about improving your ethical decision-making as a translator or interpreter. I think that any of these tips could be taken as a CPD opportunity on their own.

Tip number one: Read the Code and, if you’re an interpreter, the RNS as well. No, really read them. I know we’ve all read them before when we were preparing for the NAATI examination or studying at university, but it’s easy to forget their contents if you’ve been working in the profession for some time. You might be surprised at what jumps out at you when you go back and read them again with some professional experience under your belt. The best way to read the Code in my opinion is to read it section and section. After you finish reading one section, put the document away, and immediately start writing a summary of its contents in your other language. This is a great way to ensure that you understand each section, and will also help you retain that knowledge for future use on the job.

Tip number two: Keep a look out for ethical risks on the job. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again — there are ethical risks on almost every interpreting assignment, every translation project we work on. The question is do you know where these hazards are hidden? The answer may not come to you very easily if you’ve haven’t practiced reflecting on your professional conduct before. Ethical risks can come out of any situation. One example I give in my teaching is: Imagine you are interpreting for a patient undergoing a colonoscopy at a hospital. At one point, you are left alone with the patient. The patient says they are nervous about the procedure and asks you to pour a cup of water for them. What’s the potential risk here? Have a think about it. I am not judging the interpreter who chose to give them water in that situation. We make hundreds of decisions every day on the job. It is not possible to give full consideration to every ethical dimension in every situation. However, we want to encourage that colleague who did give the patient water to take the time to reflect on that decision after the assignment has finished. That’s our end goal. Not black-and-white rules, but helping colleagues cultivate their ethical understanding.

And that’s where we come to tip number three: Reflect on past decisions. Reflection is one of the most underrated forms of learning and personal development. Taking the time to consider our actions throughout the day as professionals can do wonders for our ethical practice. But one thing worth remembering is that reflection doesn’t have to be a solitary activity. In fact, I would urge all colleagues to find a group that they can go to to debrief after difficult assignments. I started doing that a couple of years ago and I found it incredibly helpful, both in terms of improving my ethical decision-making but also helped take the mental load off my shoulders when things got stressful on the job.

If you would like to connect with more colleagues, I have three suggestions for you. One is to check out AUSIT Engage. This is a new platform set up by AUSIT that allows members to easily connect, communicate, and collaborate to enhance their professional development and network within the industry. So definitely check that out. Two is to register for one of our upcoming Meet and Greet sessions, which are held online and free for everyone. We are holding them in 38 languages this year and we will support any colleagues who would like to set up their own language division with AUSIT’s resources. Spanish already formed a language division, and their Meet and Greet session will be on Tuesday 17 September. I understand that Mandarin and Japanese are in the process of setting up their own language divisions. Their Meet and Greet will be on Wednesday 18 September. And three is to do some networking at this year’s National Conference which will be held in Melbourne from 21-23 November. Just because most of us work as freelancers, doesn’t mean that we have to work alone. Meeting new friends in the profession is one of the best ways you can reflect on the ethical dimensions of the decisions you’ve made during your career. And really they’re the only ones who can truly understand the demands of our jobs and the ethical standards we aspire to.

Tip number four: Work on your biases. Everyone has biases. We are after all only human. A professional, though, seeks to understand their biases, and tries their best to prevent their biases from causing them to deal with others in an unfair way. One example I give in my teaching is: Imagine that you are interpreting for a police officer who is visiting a family with a history of domestic violence. The policer officer suspects the son in the family has been severely beaten. However, you are fairly confident that the marks on his son’s back are guasha, a TCM treatment, not caused by domestic violence. What do you do? Or, importantly, what biases are at play here? I leave that for your consideration. We can talk more about it during morning tea if you like.

Tip number five: Seek feedback. This is one of the most difficult things to do in our profession. I think the reason for this is because the entry-level requirements to enter our profession are so high. You need to have so many years of education and training, plus you have to pass the certification examinations. So once you start working as a qualified translator or interpreter, it’s easy to become complacent, to think that there is nothing else you need to improve on. This is also a kind of cognitive bias, actually. But you can overcome this bias by actively seeking feedback. You could do this with the agency you work with, or your private clients, or even external stakeholders, such as doctors and lawyers that you work alongside. Even better, I would recommend you seek feedback from the debriefing colleagues I mentioned to you earlier. They would be in best position to provide a fresh perspective on your professional practice, while also understanding what is ethically expected of us as translators and interpreters.

Conclusion

To sum up, I hope I have persuaded you today as to why translation and interpreting requires more than just proficiency in a second language. The non-linguistic knowledge and skills found in ethical frameworks like the AUSIT Code of Ethics and the Recommended National Standards form the foundation of our very profession. It is crucial that colleagues cultivate their own notion of ethics based on these documents, but even more importantly, informed by their own professional experiences and feedback from their peers.

Before I finish, I would like to remind everyone that AUSIT is holding a special PD event titled “Ethics for translators: dilemmas and challenging situations”. I understand that many colleagues find it difficult to get enough PD points for ethics, so I thoroughly recommend you seek out PD events like these. This event will be a webinar held via Zoom on Saturday 31 August 3:30pm-5:00pm. It will be presented by Dr Jim Hlavac, an adjunct senior research fellow at Monash University. It is sure to be an eye-opening event. Registrations close tomorrow, so please don’t miss out. You can also submit questions about ethics to Jim. I submitted two, one about what to do if you’re translating an official document that you suspect is fake; and number two, are translators ethically obliged to disclose their use of generative AI during their translation projects. So I’m very much looking forward to getting answers to these burning questions of mine, and many others. And lastly I’d like to thank you all for taking time out of your busy lives — and on a Saturday, no less! — to attend this mini-conference at the University of Queensland. It truly shows your commitment to the profession and to your continuous professional development. I wish you all the best with the rest of the conference. Enjoy! Thank you.