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Nottingham University initiative to help globalised business

Experts at The University of Nottingham are leading an initiative to help business succeed in an increasingly globalised society.

Academic research on language, translation, intercultural studies and conflict resolution will be taken directly into professional practice as part of Translating Cultures in International Mediation.

The project aims to equip and improve professional translators and mediators in both the political and business arena with the skills needed to navigate the sensitivities of cultural differences and minimise the possibilities for misunderstanding.

Funded with a £30,000 grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the project is being led by Dr Xiaohui Yuan in the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies.

Dr Yuan has previously working in Geneva as a professional interpreter with the United Nations agencies, the World Health Organisation, the International Telecommunication Union and the UN Assembly while studying for her PhD.

She said: “We want to investigate the impact that language , body language and the cultural variables and differences have on the mediation process and to highlight and understand how they are represented in translation or interpreting.

“We are also very interested in how interpreters interact with parties in conflict and represent their intentions and attitudes in this dynamic process.

“People from other cultures such as the Arab world, China or Malaysia have very different ways of expressing themselves to those from the Western world and as an interpreter it is very important to represent these differences accurately in a cross-cultural context.

“However, there is currently next to no training in these skills for translation and conflict resolution specialists.”

Mediators are used to avoid legal action and to protect confidentiality, and can be involved in multinational company disputes or disputes between governments over contracts for international companies.

Working across nationalities, ignorance about the use of facial expressions, language and body language in other cultures to express ideas and values, can sometimes lead to misunderstandings.

Dr Yuan added: “In situations like this, mediators must have a good grasp of the cultural differences that are at play, how language is used and the impact on the other party when that language is not their mother tongue.

“The project is interested in the role of interpreters, the power they have, how they represent the parties’ intentions and where the boundary lies for their actions.”

Translating Cultures will culminate in August in a two-day international symposium where experts from Canada, the US, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK will present the latest research in the fields of language, translation and intercultural studies.

Speakers here will include Dr Karl Mackie, CEO of the London-based Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) and Mr Danny McFadden, CEDR’s Director for Asia and an arbitrator, lawyer, mediator and trainer; Professor Guo-Ming-Chen, Professor of Intercultural Communication at the University of Rhode Island; and Dr Angela Cora Garcia, Associate Professor of Global Studies at Bentley University in the US.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .