Ethical Business Blog: Callum Walker

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the UK Translation and Interpreting Landscape

Translation and interpreting (T&I) are critical to the social and economic landscape in the United Kingdom, not only bringing commercial benefits to the UK economy, but also ensuring the accessibility of vital services, and aiding the integration of migrants into the country.

Despite the importance of translators and interpreters, and the wider need to protect the sustainability of language services, there has been little systematic attempt to research routes into the professions from an equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) perspective.

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In the UK, the traditional route into T&I – GCSEs, A Levels, undergraduate language degree, postgraduate T&I degree – only applies to common, largely European, languages. The cost of tuition fees is often prohibitive to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and especially to international students.

Languages not considered ‘mainstream’ are therefore neglected in the traditional education system in the UK. This is despite recent census data showing that Polish, Romanian, Panjabi, Urdu, Arabic, Bengali and Gujurati are among the top ten foreign languages spoken in England and Wales.

The impact of unexpected events like the coronavirus pandemic or the Russian invasion of Ukraine also give rise to urgent language service needs, which can prove difficult to cater for. This picture poses problems for the sustainable recruitment of qualified translators and interpreters, and also relates to the wider professionalisation of T&I.

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Much T&I for community languages relies on ‘language brokering’ by family or friends, and migrant workers are also often recruited for rare language combinations, sometimes without formal training.

This causes bottlenecks in the provision of T&I services, making it difficult to cater for languages beyond the typical outlet from the pipeline of UK linguistic talent, which is insufficient to meet demand, as already acknowledged by the CIOL. This picture falls short of desirable EDI standards, and threatens not only supply to the sector, but also fulfilment of demand for those who need such services.

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On the one hand, the supply of suitably qualified labour is inadequate, and there are considerable inequalities in training and opportunity across the sector. The number of ‘home students’ coming through the UK education system is insufficient and such students still cater predominantly for the so-called FIGS languages, alongside a limited number of others (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, etc.).

In such languages, specialist translation programmes are in decent supply, but high-quality public service and other forms of interpreter training is extremely limited in terms of universities offering such training and the languages on offer. Brexit has also further reduced the supply of suitable students to such programmes.

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However, countless ‘community languages’ are in short supply across the public service sector. Formal training in such languages simply does not exist, and where it does, costs can be prohibitive. Migration policy also means that translators and interpreters are not listed among the UK’s skilled worker shortage occupations, precluding many potential migrant workers from plugging the gap in supply.

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On the demand side, the insufficient supply causes inequalities in accessibility for communities requiring T&I services for social, health or other reasons. Pressure on funding for public services is one of a number of constraints identified by NRPSI alongside the availability of interpreters in the right locations, at the right times, and in the right languages.

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Funding has been secured from the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities and the AHRC for the Centre for Translation Studies (University of Leeds) and the Association of Translation Companies to jointly supervise a PhD project shining a spotlight on these very issues.

Experienced translator, interpreter and voiceover artist Fardous Bahbouh begins her research in October 2023, collecting valuable primary and secondary data on the backgrounds of those working in public service T&I; the support for linguists from community backgrounds to become qualified translations and/or interpreters; and practitioners’ impressions about their work, support, and training.

The research will help to map out the current landscape and lead to policy recommendations for industry and public stakeholders.

About the Author

Dr Callum Walker is an Associate Professor of Translation Technologies at the Centre for Translation Studies, University of Leeds, UK.