Translation policies in times of a pandemic
An intercity comparison
In 2020–22, multilingual vaccination communication became an urgent priority around the world, requiring trusted communication in non-official languages. In Brussels, Melbourne and Shanghai, quite different legal frameworks and language policies were challenged by the need for behavior-change communication in a wide range of culturally and linguistically diverse communities. In all three cases, practices were developed that showed the limitations of existing translation policies. Here we use policy analysis to explore the nature of those challenges, to compare the different solutions found in the three cities, and to propose how policies might be developed and adjusted to enhance time-pressured trust-building communication.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Brussels
- 2.1Languages in Brussels
- 2.2Belgian federal language and translation policy
- 2.3Brussels-Capital Region language and translation policy
- 2.4Multilingual vaccination information in Brussels
- 3.Melbourne
- 3.1Languages in Melbourne
- 3.2Australian national language and translation policy
- 3.3Victorian language and translation policy
- 3.4Multilingual vaccination information in Melbourne
- 4.Shanghai
- 4.1The linguistic background
- 4.2Chinese national language and translation policies
- 4.3Shanghai government language and translation policies
- 4.4Multilingual vaccination information in Shanghai
- 5.A cross-city comparison
- Note
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References