Perceptions from the outside in cases of gender violence. ‘What are you [the interpreter] doing here?’

Carmen Valero Garcés; Raquel Lázaro Gutiérrez

doi:10.1515/eujal-2015-0023

Article

Perceptions from the outside in cases of gender violence. ‘What are you [the interpreter] doing here?’

An erratum for this article can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1515/eujal-2016-1000

Carmen Valero Garcés and Raquel Lázaro Gutiérrez

Published/Copyright: January 15, 2016

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From the journal European Journal of Applied Linguistics Volume 4 Issue 1

Abstract

A 2011 Gender Violence Macrosurvey carried out by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS, Spanish Centre for Sociological Research) in collaboration with the Spanish Government warns that “the prevalence of gender-based violence amongst foreign women is twice that of Spanish women.” The problem gets worse when these women do not speak the contact language, in this case Spanish. The efforts of the Spanish Administration and the information and support provided to every gender violence victim hardly ever reach foreign victims, who essentially need the assistance of interpreters. When the presence of qualified interpreters (or interpreters at all) is not guaranteed, this may lead to inadequate, inaccurate and inefficient communication. The main purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey conducted in 2013 amongst the main agents involved in the communication process with foreign victims of gender violence who do not speak Spanish or co-official languages. The sample size is about 600 answers by agents distributed in four fields (police, legal, health, welfare) with the majority of respondents from the police. The survey includes questions about how communication problems without an interpreter are solved, which protocol – if any – is followed to seek the assistance of an interpreter, how often they use interpreters, what problems they have experienced working with them and what they think is the interpreters’ role as well as what strategies or specific knowledge interpreters may have.

Keywords: public service interpreting; gender-based violence; translation and interpretation

Note

This article summarizes the report produced by the SOS-VICS project: Communication between professionals providing attention to gender violence victims/survivors who do not speak the language, and published by Del Pozo Triviño, M., Vaamonde Liste, A., Casado Neira, D., Pérez Freire, S., Vaamonde Paniagua, A., Fernandes Del Pozo, D., & Guinarte Mencía, R. (2014). The report can be accessed at: http://cuautla.uvigo.es/sos-vics/blogs/files/informe-cuestionario-2015.pdf

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Published Online: 2016-1-15

Published in Print: 2016-3-1

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/eujal-2015-0023

Keywords for this article

public service interpreting; gender-based violence; translation and interpretation