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The Linguistic Complexities of International Co-produced Research

Professor Thea Pitman, Professor of Latin American Studies, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies. t.pitman@leeds.ac.uk

As someone who is based in a School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, at The University of Leeds, my research is predicated on the fact that I conduct it in a language or languages other than English. It’s not that I actually research the languages themselves, but knowing the languages of the cultures and societies that I research is key to being able access and interpret the data I want without the need for intermediaries. So I value my language skills and the role they play in my research highly, but I also tend to underestimate the fact that, just because I’m understanding what’s going on around me in two or three different languages, doesn’t mean that there aren’t linguistic complexities that I need to account for when the research is being co-produced with others. While it’s self-evident that not everyone in a team will have the same level of language skills, as PI, it’s my job to account for that and it’s arguably more complex than just hiring interpreters or using AI translation tools.

Photograph of a group of researchers

Photograph of consecutive interpreting during the AIAI workshop; L-R, Loreto Millalén (Mapuche, Chile), Mariela Tulián (Tulián, Argentina), interpreters Fabiola Conceição, Seren Roff and Letícia Laxon Affonso Ferreira, and Immersive Networks members Christophe de Bénezac and Dave Lynch. Photograph by Laryssa Machada.

For now, I want to focus on the question of interpreting. A recent example from my own research is the Enhancing Research Culture project that I’ve run this year to develop a prototype AI image generator that responds better to Indigenous concerns around (self-)representation with AI tools than the commercial models that are currently available. This has involved bringing together a team of ten Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics, artists, writers, community and NGO leaders from Latin America, all of whom are fluent in Spanish and/or Portuguese, to work in collaboration with an English-speaking artist-technologist collective. (This, I should say, is a simplification of the linguistic competencies of the group that, for example, elides entirely the Indigenous languages also spoken by some.)

Even with four or five of the core organising team having good skills across all three languages, I knew we’d need interpreters for the workshop and I hired three, two who could work between Portuguese and English and one who could work between Spanish and English. However, this range of interpreting competencies does not account for the number of occasions when we actually needed someone to help translate between Portuguese and Spanish, because it isn’t all mutually comprehensible, or when actually the language being spoken was Portunhol (a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese) and it was anyone’s guess which interpreter should pick up the task.

Another of the conundrums was how much tech we should use: we could go much faster if we did simultaneous interpreting using the interpreting facilities on Zoom and had everyone connect with headphones via their mobiles than if we did consecutive interpreting, let alone consecutive interpreting that accounted for all three of the languages we were working across. But using the tech meant lots of technical hitches setting things up, the technological apparatus fixed the format rather than allowing for the fluidity of natural conversation, and the mere presence of all those gadgets seemed to make a mockery of being together in the same room for once. In the end we mainly went for the low-tech consecutive solution, with different members of the team pitching in where we were straying beyond the professional comfort zone of the interpreters.

One final point to make is that interpreters can only work for so long, but a group of people cohabiting for a week needs to keep communicating beyond working hours. Language barriers can be broken down creatively by group members during those times — and the amount of time members of the group spent experiencing Leeds’s nightlife is testament to the determination to communicate using all sorts of other resources — but equally, particularly in the early stages of the workshop, those language barriers created divisions across the group and led to suspicions that hampered the development of good group dynamics during the workshop. (We got over them in the end because those with a wider range of language skills could see what was happening and work to head off misinterpretations!)

The point of this reflection is twofold. While I’ve flagged up lots of the issues we had with communication across languages, even with the help of the interpreters, I have done so to underscore the central importance of languages to international co-produced research. We should never take this for granted nor assume that interpreting and translation will solve everything and remove all friction in communication. However, I also want to underscore the extent to which I am in awe of our interpreters — they did a fabulous job in far from ideal conditions (from a professional interpreting perspective) — and, since I know what was being said in all the languages being spoken, I can vouch for the fact that they did an excellent job in terms of conveying the information and the spirit of the communication. So it is a call to really value and recognise the work that interpreters do — they should probably also be listed as co-authors of any published outputs!

And so, to conclude, I would like to publicly thank our fabulous interpreters on the AIAI: Artificial Intelligence, Art and Indigeneity project — Fabiola Conceição, Letícia Laxon Affonso Ferreira and Seren Roff, all students on the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies’ MA Conference Interpreting and Translation Studies — for their talent, hard-work and sensitivity to what was required.

Photograph of a group of researchers

Group photo of 19 people including most of the core AIAI project members, one of the interpreters, and a few extras who came for the after-party. Photograph by Laryssa Machada.

If you would like any further information, please email Thea Pitman - t.pitman@leeds.ac.uk.

If you are a member of staff at the University of Leeds and would like to write a blog on your experiences of co-production, please contact lssi@leeds.ac.uk. Please join the Co-production Network, which is hosted on the Engaged Research MS Team (University of Leeds staff only).

The Co-production Network has 'moved' onto its own channel within the Engaged Research MS Team.  The purpose of this move is to have a central location for the materials and news about Co-production at The University of Leeds and have a community space where those interested in Co-production can share their experiences or ask colleagues for advice.

If you would like to produce a blog on your experience of Co-production, please contact lssi@leeds.ac.uk to discuss your idea.