Naslov
Language mediation in emergency migration context: a case study of the 2015 migrant crisis in Croatia

Autori
Čemerin, Vedrana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, pp prezentacija, znanstveni

Skup
V International Translating Voices Translating Regions - ‘Minority languages, risks, disasters and regional crises’

Mjesto i datum
London, Ujedinjeno Kraljevstvo, 13.12.2017. - 15.12.2017

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
refugee crisis, language mediation, emergency interpreting, crisis translation

Sažetak
The aim and scope of this paper include a case study of translation and interpreting processes (collectively included as sub-practices under the umbrella term language mediation) during the refugee and migrant crisis in the autumn of 2015 on the territory of the Republic of Croatia. Since Croatia is an EU member state right in the middle of the Balkans migration route, its rescue and protection services were heavily involved in the relief efforts as hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants passed through its territory following the Balkans route to the West. During the Homeland War in the 1990s, Croatia faced a refugee crisis of its own, involving refugees from the occupied areas in Croatia and those from Bosnia and Herzegovina (cf. Toth 2001, Esterajher 2015). This experience exerted a profound impact on the attitudes of the general public towards the Syrian refugees and the practical lessons learned by the rescue and protection services in handling such humanitarian crises during the 1990s were utilized in 2015. During the 1990s, crisis translation and interpreting services were mainly restricted to the personnel of the UN forces and various NGOs, as is well-attested in scholarly literature on the subject (cf. Apter 2001, Kelly and Baker 2013), so the 2015 crisis was a quite exceptional occurrence with regard to rare and emerging (in the Croatian context) languages, such as Farsi, Dari, Urdu, Pashto and other languages used by the refugee population. The translation market for those languages in Croatia is relatively limited and the pool of professional certified translators quite small, so the relief efforts were mainly conducted through volunteer work on an ad-hoc basis. As the 2015 crisis unfolded, several refugee camps and reception centers were established in Croatia under the authority of the Ministry of Interior, National Protection and Rescue Directorate (NPRD) and including the involvement of both the official personnel from protection and rescue services, the police and emergency medical services, as well as numerous volunteers from the Croatian Red Cross and other non-governmental organizations. This paper shall focus on the practical management of this crisis with regard to translingual mediation. Several aspects of the practical handling of both interpreting and written translation tasks throughout the duration of the crisis shall be explored and the methodology utilized will include mainly qualitative methods, such as interviews with the volunteer translators and the analysis of written materials and guidelines for handling the linguistic issues during the crisis produced by the competent authorities and organizations, in order to provide a clear and comprehensive overview of the case study.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija, Interdisciplinarne humanističke znanosti

POVEZANOST RADA