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Article published In:
The Journal of Internationalization and Localization
Vol. 6:2 (2019) ► pp.86–107
Invited Article

Translation in the COVID-19 health emergency in Wuhan

A crisis manager’s perspective

| Municipal Government of Wuhan

Intercultural crisis communication in an interconnected and globalized world emphasizes the need for translation to be put in place as foreign nationals with cultural and linguistic barriers might rely on it to prepare for a possible crisis or make informed decisions when already affected by a crisis. However, translation is an underdeveloped tool in crisis management, particularly in China. Considering it a special branch of public service translation, the author investigates crisis translation by using a case study of the disruptive outbreak of novel coronavirus disease in Wuhan. Based upon the author’s first-hand experience as a crisis manager at the Office of Foreigner Affairs in the Municipal Government of Wuhan, this article describes how government translators with the help of external volunteer translators made language services available and accessible to affected foreign nationals in the response phase from 8 January 2020 to 7 April 2020. It analyses these translation-mediated activities from a crisis manager’s perspective. Despite the preliminary nature of the findings, which still call for further validation, it is hoped that insights from this article will be of interest to those who are engaged with crisis translation services and to those who research crisis translation.

Keywords: COVID-19 health emergency, crisis translation, crisis translators, crisis manager
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Review of literature: Translation in crisis situations
  • 3.Motivations of providing language services in the crisis setting
  • 4.Translation services provided by translators at the Office ofForeigner Affairs
    • 4.1Professional translators and volunteer translators
    • 4.2Act of translation and interpreting
    • 4.3Use of translation technologies
  • 5.Assessing crisis translation from a crisis manager’s perspective
    • 5.1Translation in preparedness and recovery phases
    • 5.2Communication strategy
    • 5.3Training volunteer translators
    • 5.4Translation quality
  • 6.Conclusion and future work
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jial.00014.wan
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