Translation, migration, and democracy: Managing multilingual access to information in the greater Helsinki area and in Tallinn

This project analyzes the policies and practices guiding the translation of information targeted at migrant populations in the major cities of the Greater Helsinki Area (Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa) and the city of Tallinn in Estonia, as well as the dissemination of translated information for migrant workers in selected companies and institutions of higher learning in these regions. 

The project combines the theories and methodologies of functionalist and sociological translation studies and critical approaches to linguistics. Multilingualism constitutes a challenge to democracy: the language barrier prevents many migrants from having the opportunity to be involved in social, cultural, and political life and to operate as members of their local communities and the society as a whole. 

Translation policy is an important tool to promote the integration of migrants. Today, translated information is readily available on websites and social media. However, the COVID-19 crisis has shown that all migrants do not use the information or have access to it. The exact reasons why the information does not reach all the end users are not known. This brings to the fore the need to do a thorough analysis of the guiding principles, implementation, and effectiveness of current translation policies and practices in migration contexts. 

We approach translation as a practice of governmentality and power production that allows the participation of migrants but can lead to inadvertent inequalities and discriminations. We analyze the texts providing the foundations for current translation policies, a sample of translated texts, and the online environments in which the translations are disseminated. In addition, we interview persons who take part in the different phases of design, implementation, and consumption of translation policies and practices. 

The goal is to propose solutions in cooperation with the stakeholders in order to improve the quality of translation policies and practices.

Funding and duration of the project

The project “Translation, migration, and democracy: Managing multilingual access to information in the greater Helsinki area and in Tallinn” has received funding from the Kone Foundation in its 2021 call for proposals. In this round, Kone Foundation received a total of 6,319 applications, of which 342 were funded.

The awarded grant was part of the new funding programme “Is Democracy Eroding?” under the theme of “Language, Power and Democracy”.

This project has a duration of three years and will be implemented between 2022-2025.

Improving communication with migrants for crisis preparedness: lessons learned from COVID-19

Migrants are one of the vulnerable groups most negatively affected by the COVID-19 crisis at various levels (unemployment, economic instability, etc.). Those who do not speak the language of the host country face bigger challenges and higher risks in the face of emergency situations, such as the current pandemic, for linguistic diversity has not been systematically integrated into crisis planning.

This project aims at developing an appropriate communication plan, based on effective translation practices and policies, which can provide a quick response to the current crisis and future emergency situations in disseminating relevant information among migrant communities. It also seeks to strengthen cooperation between the states of the Baltic Sea Region to deal with cross-border emergencies and use the knowledge generated by this cooperation to tackle problems at the local/state level.

For that purpose, we will first analyse the information provided during the COVID-19 crisis by stakeholders from different sectors (governmental institutions, companies, universities, NGOs and media) in Estonia, Finland and Latvia ─ states with different migration patterns, translation policies and linguistic compositions─, with the focus on the methods, quality, timeliness, accessibility and languages information provided to those with poor skills in the official languages. This first analysis in the three states involved will enable us to carry out a cross-national comparative study to identify a series of good practices which serve as the basis to suggest new strategies in translation policies.

The resulting guidelines for communicating essential multilingual information to migrants will not only contribute to a faster recovery from the current crisis, but could also be adapted and scaled to address future emergency situations in the Baltic Sea Region.

Funding and duration of the project

The project “Improving communication with migrants for crisis preparedness: lessons learned from COVID-19” is funded by the Council of the Baltic Sea States (Grant Agreement No. PSF2021/8). CBSS Project Support Facility 2021 call is dedicated to innovative solutions for strengthening resilience and inclusiveness in the Baltic Sea Region during a period of crisis.

This project will be implemented between 1 October 2021 and 30 September 2022.

On the Translation of Verse Form. Shakespeare’s Sonnets into Spanish

This work deals with the translation of the poetic form from a corpus of 69 Spanish translations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets published between 1877 (when the first translation appeared) and 2018. The study primarily addresses three aspects of this subject.

Firstly, the metatranslational discourse in translatorial prefaces on issues concerning the translation of form, which are generally based on the recurrence of certain topoi, or ‘translation memes’ (Chesterman 1996; 1997). Then, it reveals the features of the translation of the outer form, or macrostructure, of the sonnets, taking as a point of departure Holmes’ classification of the ‘metapoem’ forms, as well as the mechanisms of repetition in the translated poems (mainly anaphora, parallelism and alliteration).

And, lastly, it provides a rationale on the translation process of formal poetry based on translation as recreation and built upon the interpretation of the results obtained in the previous chapters and the discourse on poetry translation found in scholarly papers. The issues to be addressed, then, can be summarised in three basic questions regarding the translation of poetic form: What do the translators say? What do they do? How do they do it?

Funding and duration of the project

The doctoral project “On the Translation of Verse Form. Shakespeare’s Sonnets into Spanish” was funded by the University of Vigo (Doctoral Fellowship), the European Regional Development Fund and the Republic of Estonia (Dora Plus scholarship for visiting doctoral students).

This project was developed between April 2016 and December 2020.