The Journal of Internationalization and Localization - Current Issue

This paper examines how digital users in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia responded to the COVID-19 pandemic via engaging with crisis translation by subtitling COVID-19-related videos. It explores two aspects: (1) how did social media during the pandemic encourage subtitled videos? and (2) how were these clips distributed and received by social media users? It is argued that during the pandemic, social media facilitated the production and circulation of user-generated content by both individuals and institutions to subtitle global news and other genres. To understand the socio-digital dynamics of (fan)subtitling, this article analyses the subtitled clips posted on Twitter by the Saudi Ministry of Health (MoH) and 17 fansubbers during 2020. Subtitling is considered crucial in spreading accurate information to KSA people in time for them to take precautions against the pandemic in 2020. Another relevant factor is the developed technological infrastructure in KSA and the increased digital practice of Saudi Arabians using social media. Following the analysis of 175 clips from the 17 chosen fansubbers and 255 clips from the MoH, it was discovered that social media increased the visibility of COVID-19 clips with subtitles. There was an apparent competition among the fansubbers to accumulate social capital (social media capital), which gave rise to social media fansubbing, a form of non-professional subtitling produced by social media users. The subtitled clips were accompanied by various digital parataxis that supports the analysis and examination of social media fansubbing and crisis transition on Twitter¹.

The main focus of the study lies on the challenges, procedures and consequences in personal and interpersonal competence development in university translation and interpreting (T&I) students during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reflects the significant change in learning conditions in Slovakia after shifting from campus-based to remote learning throughout the three waves of the pandemic, considering the personal and interpersonal competence an integral part of the curricula. The attention of the authors centres on the students’ perspective – their insight and evaluation of the applied training procedures in selected personal (self-assessment, time management, compliance with instructions and deadlines) and interpersonal (teamwork, collaborative tasks, communication with the client/assignor) skills. The year-on-year comparison of students’ responses shows improvement in training and learning strategies in almost all observed aspects of personal and interpersonal competence development and demonstrates students’ general adaptation to the changed learning environment. The findings of the research, however, raise several concerns related to students’ well-being and potential risks of mental health issues which appear to result from the overall crisis situation, social distancing, but also increased workload and work-life imbalance.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted people’s professional and personal life in different ways across the globe. Adopting an enlarged view of localization which goes beyond market interests and extends to public concerns, this paper aims to examine the adaptive processes through which interpreters (and by extension providers and users) have localized the COVID-19 phenomenon in Qatar. To do so, it draws on an approach which combines narrative and practice theories. Considering that practices are storied and narratives are enacted, we focus on the ‘doings’ and the ‘sayings’ of interpreters. We present the findings of a case study conducted with Qatar-based interpreters. The primary data consists of qualitative, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with active interpreters across settings and levels of expertise in the Qatar interpreting industry. This sample allowed us to collect rich stories of interpreters’ experience at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: between March 2020 and March 2021, coinciding in Qatar with the first lockdown and the subsequent easing of restrictions with the establishment of precautionary measures. The findings show that interpreters adapt to the COVID-19 crisis and contribute to its response in ways that are specific to the cultural, temporal and spatial configuration of practice.

In 2020 the first two courses on localization were introduced in Slovakia. During their preparatory stages, it was thought that they would be taught in person. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovakia had worsened by the end of the summer of 2020; teaching over both semesters was moved online and the syllabi had to be promptly adjusted to the new situation. Another change in the syllabi was required in the following academic year as teaching began in a hybrid format.

The presented paper is a case study, and it will deal with the adjustments made to the courses; it will briefly introduce the first syllabi and then present the changes made after the switch to distance teaching and after the switch to hybrid teaching. The various parts of the syllabi are accompanied by statements from students that were gathered in an anonymous survey after each semester to see whether they were satisfied with the course and whether they understood the problems they had been dealing with. The results of the paper will discuss the changes, their positive and negative impact on the overall syllabi of the first two localization courses, and improvements and changes.

Access to healthcare information for Thailand’s migrants remains a challenge throughout the COVID-19 crisis, despite the Thai government’s efforts to support this vulnerable group. This study investigates the Thai authorities’ approach of health communication for migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role and network of translators/interpreters as the state’s agent by adopting the concepts of translation and interpreting in crisis communication and actor-network theory. This article focuses primarily on Myanmar translators/interpreters in the Thai context. The findings show that the state’s translation/interpreting efforts during the pandemic were lackadaisical in meeting such linguistic demands for migrants who have contributed significantly to Thailand’s economic growth for more than two decades. Despite the state’s adoption of a national language policy, Thai linguistic nationalism remains dominant. Such a move appears to unintentionally contain the sense of ‘foreign contamination’ brought to Thailand by these ‘inferior’ nationals but stands in stark contradiction to their trans-border language demands. Furthermore, the existing network of Thai translators/interpreters, which should assist the government in strengthening health communication for disadvantaged communities, is underdeveloped. Competing factions, non-inclusive member recruiting, and a particular priority on language pairs all thwart the network’s establishment process. The private hospitals’ translators/interpreters for Myanmar are not strongly affiliated with professional networks but with an imbalanced structure of networking.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mutual relationship between work and family among translators and how that affects their job satisfaction and performance. More specifically, the study centres around the notions of work-family conflict (Greenhaus, and Beutell 1985) and work-family facilitation (Frone 2003) and analyses what effect they have on translators’ job satisfaction and performance. The study also tests the influence of the changes imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the parenting role. Following Choi and Kim (2012), a survey was conducted among a group of professional translators which contained questions on all variables under study: work-family conflict, family-work conflict, work-family facilitation, family-work facilitation, job satisfaction and job performance. The results reveal the influence of the work-family interface on job outcomes. The findings of the study have implications for professional translators and the clients they work for.

With the rapid development of digitisation and the dominance of social streaming platforms, the way we approach pedagogy for translation has changed significantly, especially under the circumstances of COVID-19. Teaching traditionally in the classroom seems insufficient to account for today’s overall distance learning atmosphere. Combined online and offline teaching models, this paper borrows the concept of “multimodality”, developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2001, 4), to capture “when and how technologies are specialised or multi-purpose” in the application of remote teaching and learning for translation. Therefore, this article describes a teaching project which investigates the insights into three critical components inspired by non-professional subtitling and dubbing into a formal teaching context. These are a two-step pre-course preparation: a student-led questionnaire and an in-class quiz, the teamwork production of AVT works and a final post-reflection targeted at oral presentation and written review. Pedagogically, this collaborative approach enables students to improve translator competence, cultural awareness and technological capacities.