Language policy at an abortion clinic

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Brynn Quick speaks with Dr. Ella van Hest (Ghent University, Belgium) about her ethnographic research related to language diversity at an abortion clinic in Belgium. The conversation focusses on a co-authored paper entitled Language policy at an abortion clinic published in Language Policy in 2023.

Even genuine attempts to include linguistically diverse patients, can end up denying choice and creating a form of “exclusive inclusion.”

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Transcript (by Brynn Quick, added 07/07/2024)

Brynn: Welcome to the Language on the Move Podcast, a channel on the New Books Network. My name is Brynn Quick, and I’m a PhD candidate in Linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

My guest today is Dr. Ella van Hest. Ella is a postdoctoral research associate at Ghent University in Belgium at the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication, where she is a member of the MULTIPLES research group. She is also affiliated with the interdisciplinary Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees, also known as CESSMIR. Her research interests include language and migration, multilingual communication, (non-professional) interpreting, and language policy. Her previous research for her MA focused on the effects of Flemish language and integration policy on adult newcomers to Belgium.

Today we are going to talk about the research that she conducted for her PhD, which was a linguistic ethnography on language diversity at an abortion clinic in Belgium. The paper, which she co-wrote with July De Wilde and Sarah Van Hoof, is entitled Language policy at an abortion clinic: linguistic capital and agency in treatment decision-making and was published in 2023.

Ella, welcome to the show, and thank you so much for joining us today.

Dr van Hest: Thank you for inviting me.

Brynn: To start off, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you became a linguist as well as what led you to wanting to conduct research into the language practices of an abortion clinic in Belgium for your PhD?

Dr van Hest: Yeah, sure. So actually, when I was 17 years old and I had to make a decision on what to study, I just knew for sure, okay, I want to do something for languages. Like at that point, I was not so reflexive or so aware of what linguistics actually was or what you could do with it.

But I really wanted to do something with languages. So I started Applied Linguistics, German and Spanish, and then into Dutch, which is my native language. And after that, I did a master’s in interpreting.

And well, as I said, at that point, I was not so aware of all the options within linguistics and all the sub fields, but it sort of started when I was doing my master thesis research that I really got interested in the link between language and migration, and especially what it is like for people who come to Belgium, for instance, or any other host society, so to speak. How is it for them if they are learning the language, which was what I focused on for my master thesis, or how is it for them when they don’t speak the language, they’re needing language support, which was then the focus for my PhD research. So that’s how I sort of got interested in that.

And then the fact that I ended up doing research on abortion care and linguistic diversity in abortion care in Belgium was sort of a matter of, okay, what is an unknown context, an underexplored context or setting to study language diversity, because we already know something about it in other medical contexts, for instance, but I thought, okay, abortion care is so relevant and so understudied. And yeah, that’s actually a little bit how I ended up doing that. And I’m also, I have to say, I’ve been very grateful for the clinic, the abortion clinic where I could carry out my research that they allowed me in and let me do that ethnographic research there.

Brynn: That’s what I found so interesting about your paper was the setting. The research that I’m doing for my PhD also looks at medical settings and how language is assessed and how linguistic proficiency is assessed and then how interpreters are then called or used or not used. That’s what was so interesting in reading your paper was that it was at an abortion clinic, which I personally haven’t come across before. But as you said, it is such an important setting where we do need to know more about what happens with language at this clinic.

And in the paper, you start off by talking about the language policy of that clinic where you were conducting the research. This particular institution’s policy said that a patient seeking a medical abortion needed to have a strong proficiency in Dutch, English or French.

Can you just tell us as listeners, what exactly is a medical abortion? How does that differ from a surgical abortion? And why did the clinic state that this language policy was necessary?

Dr van Hest: That was indeed the most important point of this particular paper that we’re discussing now, which was also published in the Journal of Language Policy. So, like the focus was really on that particular aspect of the linguistic diversity in the clinic, because I also focused on, as you mentioned, right, like using interpreters or not, or also conversational, interactional dynamics of multilingual counselling sessions.

But for this particular paper, the focus was on this language policy about medical abortion. So, what is medical abortion? Well, in Belgium and also in a lot of other countries, but there are some differences, but in Belgium, usually women, when they want to terminate the pregnancy, they can choose between two different treatment types.

And one is a medical abortion and the other one is surgical. And the medical abortion, which this paper is mainly about, consists of taking several pills, medication. Usually this is done in two phases, but again, there are differences in approaches and in other countries, sometimes they only use one type of medication or they do it in a different way.

So, but the situation in Belgium is that usually women first take medication that blocks the pregnancy hormone. And then later on, like two days later, they have to take medication that actually will make the uterus contract and cause a miscarriage. So that’s one treatment option.

And that’s very different from a surgical abortion where it’s actually a doctor who performs the abortion, who empties the uterus via a suction, like a suction aspiration. And so those are two completely different types of treatments. And there’s some factors that influence eligibility.

For instance, pregnancy duration. And here there’s differences between countries, but in Belgium generally, they limit it until about eight, nine weeks of pregnancy. Because after that term, the foetus is larger and it could lead to more complications.

So, a surgical abortion is preferred. And then there’s also all other kinds of medical or psychosocial factors that could influence the decision for which treatment. But, and that’s the main point of this paper, in this particular clinic, also language plays a huge role.

And it’s actually a little bit complicated, so maybe bear with me. The whole point of this medical abortion, as I just explained, it’s about taking medication on two different days and it’s about your body causing you to have a miscarriage. And it’s really a whole process of managing, it’s a woman who has to sort of do the work.

There is a small risk of complications. It’s very small, it’s a very safe procedure in general, but something might happen, and usually that’s excessive blood loss. But in any case, these complications might occur.

And especially since COVID, there’s a lot of emphasis on making sure that the clinic can follow up while women are doing this treatment at home. So, before the pandemic, that’s also, I didn’t specify that earlier on, but a large part of my data collection was during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, the clinic made sure to sort of plan the two phases of the medication in the clinic.

So, women would have that miscarriage in the clinic usually, but also there, there was sometimes, the problem sometimes was that the miscarriage did not happen in the foreseen timeframe. And so, they reserved a certain time slot for women to be in the clinic to have that miscarriage, but then in some cases it didn’t happen. And then they sort of, they had to send her home and say, look, okay, you’re going to have this miscarriage at some point during the day.

In case there’s anything wrong or you have questions, you need to call us on this phone number. And so that’s where phone communication, verbal communication comes in and that’s where language starts playing a key role. And during the pandemic, the clinic decided sort of as a measure to limit the amount of people present in one physical space, right?

They said, okay, let’s do all these miscarriages from home. So, like, let’s have the women manage the miscarriage from home all by themselves, but with telephone backup, right? So, it’s sort of almost like a kind of help line to call the clinic, but not even just a help line.

Like they were actually also really supposed to call the clinic between a certain timeframe during a treatment to update them. Like how is it going? How is the blood loss? How is the treatment going?

And so, with that in mind, the clinic said, okay, this is too complicated when there’s a language barrier. When we cannot understand each other, it’s very hard for us to assess, are these cramps normal? Is this too much blood loss or is it a normal amount should we send this woman to emergency care or not? Yeah, what is she feeling? How is she doing?

And so, to ensure safety, the clinic said, okay, look, if there’s too much of a language barrier, we don’t offer this option. And as you mentioned, Dutch, English and French are the three languages which are allowed, so to speak, to have the medical abortion. So, if a woman has some or enough proficiency, whatever that is, because the definition of what exactly is enough proficiency is not that clear-cut.

But in any case, she needs to have proficiency in one of those languages. And that’s a logical consequence of the linguistic reality in Flanders, which is where I carried out my research. So in Flanders, Dutch is the official language, mother tongue of all the staff working in the clinic.

But since we’re in Belgium, and French is another official language, many of the staff also speak some French. And then there’s English as the global language that everyone in high school learns and is supposed to know or have proficiency in when they look for jobs and so on. So those three institutional languages, so to speak, are okay for being eligible for a medical abortion.

It’s quite complicated. It has to do with safety and the unpredictability as well of the medical abortion. Perhaps I did not emphasise that enough before, but I talked about the small risk of complications, but there’s just also a general unpredictability in the sense that with surgical abortion, you know upfront very clearly, treatment is going to happen like this and it’s going to take about 20 minutes.

Whereas with the medical abortion, for some women, this miscarriage happens within three, four hours. For others, it can last up to even 24 hours. So there’s a very high variation in how smooth it goes, also in terms of pain, like some women experience like bearable cramps, others have a lot of cramps, a lot of pain.

And so that’s why it’s so hard to manage. And that’s why communication plays a key role for this clinic.

Brynn: And it’s really interesting that what you mentioned about the communication on the telephone being so important, and especially in this sort of post-COVID world, and like you said, collecting this data during COVID, all across the world, we all know that medical centres kind of had to make a lot of choices. Whether you were in a hospital or a GP or an abortion clinic, anything like that, there was this real reduction in the number of people who could come into the medical centre. And so that’s what is fascinating in this paper, is the amount of telephone communication that needs to be happening in this circumstance.

And kind of on that note, a really interesting piece of data that you uncovered in your research was that this staff at this clinic seemed to be kind of unaware of the potential for using telephone interpreters with their linguistic minority clients. And that non-professional interpreters, or what we might call ad hoc interpreters, such as the client’s family member, were often used to facilitate communication, especially for the psychological counselling aspect. Can you tell us about why the clinic had not made the use of professional interpreters more of an institutional policy?

Dr van Hest: Yeah, of course. And I think I have to also nuance here a little bit or give some background information. First of all, you mentioned that sometimes they use non-professional interpreters, like the client’s partners or relatives or friends, like a person they brought along to the clinic with them for language support and other types of support.

And so perhaps I should explain here that in Belgium, women, when they want to terminate the pregnancy, they first need to receive counselling, like the first appointment. And then they have to sort of do this session with an employee of the clinic, which can be a psychologist or a nurse or social worker to sort of see, you know, are they sure that they want the abortion and then explore a bit the context. There’s usually also the whole explanation of the treatments, you know, like what to expect.

And, you know, also this decision-making usually when they’re eligible for both. And contraceptive counselling. So that’s sort of this first session.

And then, and then that’s stipulated by Belgian law, women have to wait for six days before they can have their actual treatment. Yeah, so then during that first appointment, it’s the second appointment for the actual treatment is then scheduled. And so, it’s during those counselling sessions that they do sometimes use professional interpreters. I have to say rarely, but I mean, there were staff who offered this option. I sometimes saw it happening. It was not the majority of cases while I was there for sure.

But very often this person that the client had brought along would act as the interpreter during that consultation, that counselling session, let’s say. But then this medical abortion and then this whole fact of, you know, it has to be followed up on by telephone. There, indeed, as you mentioned, I noticed while interviewing staff that they were not really considering to use telephone interpreters and that they were not really aware of the technical option to do so, so that you sort of have like this three-way telephone conversation.

But what they also mentioned, and that’s actually true, looking at the numbers of interpreting services in Flanders, is that there’s just a shortage of certified interpreters. And especially in terms of what I just explained about this unpredictability of the medical abortion, the clinic says, yeah, look, even if we would know how to technically do this with telephone interpreters, we’re still not sure that there’s actually an interpreter available at that point, because we never know when the client is going to, if she’s going to call us, if so, when she’s going to call us to ask about certain problems or complications that she’s experiencing. So that unpredictability aspect is still there, despite, I mean, even if you would have the technical knowledge to connect an interpreter on the phone.

And then what I perhaps should also explain is that in this particular clinic where I carried out my research, it was just one, like it didn’t visit various clinics in Flanders or in Belgium for that matter. But the majority of clients is, well, let’s say, I mean, I have difficulty using the word native, but you know what I mean? Like there’s usually like not really a huge communication barrier.

And there’s sort of like this minority parts of the clientele with whom the staff need to find ways to communicate. So perhaps it’s also, I can imagine, for instance, settings where clinics, where there’s a higher amount of migrant clients or that have a very specific target audience, for instance, where they would be more aware of and more explicit about language. But that was not really the case here.

And then in general, the use of interpreters. So even, let’s say for the counselling part, leaving aside now the medical abortion for a moment. Also there, I noticed, I mean, they have the infrastructure, they do sometimes offer, I mean, they have like this agreement with the certified interpreting service.

What I saw there was a lot of differences between staff members in terms of how familiar they were with the options of how to book an interpreter, how to make the phone call, what to ask, what to do when you’re doing a consultation with an interpreter. And yeah, also just like personal preference. Like there was a lot of discretionary power for staff to sort of decide what they wanted to do about it.

But I have to say that actually now I’m still in touch with people from the clinic where I conduct my research. So, I finished my PhD in October last year. So now I’m sort of seeing with them how we can make the findings of my PhD usable, like having really practical relevance for them and to sort of help them with decision-making aids on when to use an interpreter or when not and this kind of thing.

So, I do have to say that being there as a researcher, as an ethnographer, as an observer, this language awareness and awareness of using interpreting services did sort of grow. Yeah.

Brynn: And that part that you were just saying about it being so discretionary and how the decisions would sort of differ between staff members about, does this person have enough language proficiency to be eligible for a medical abortion or no, they don’t have enough language proficiency. They need to only be able to get a surgical abortion. That was really, really fascinating to see that there wasn’t sort of this, you know, assessment checklist or anything like that, because I’ve come across that in my research as well, that really having some sort of a concrete step-by-step process of this is how you assess a patient’s language proficiency, it doesn’t exist in that many places in the world.

So it was interesting to read in that context that that was happening for you too. And I’m really glad that you mentioned about how you as a researcher and ethnographer, sort of the research that you’ve conducted has now potentially led to some effects, which I want to get back to that. I want to hear about that in a minute.

I do want to come to one point in the paper because it stuck out to me. In the paper you say, and this is a quote, among the diverse group of clients in the clinic, a social order or stratification becomes apparent due to the linguistic capital that is unequally distributed.

Talk to us about what you mean by linguistic capital because not everyone who listens to us is a linguist. They might not know what this concept of linguistic capital is, but how did that capital affect the clients from different linguistic backgrounds?

Dr van Hest: Yeah, okay, so linguistic capital, we’re really entering into sort of the theory of social linguistics now, right? So basically, what’s the most important to understand that that’s sort of the viewpoint for which I look at language is that it’s a very social thing. Language can be a regulator or an enabler.

It’s like a resource for people to use. Language allows us to act as social human beings, you know? And this concept of language capital or linguistic capital, which was coined by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, is sort of a concept that helps us to see how language functions as a form of social power or within the framework of Bourdieu.

It’s a kind of cultural capital that gives you access to certain spaces in society and that has a certain value, and that’s the most important. So that’s also the linguistic capital. So Bourdieu theorized it as this kind of economic metaphor, like some languages are more valuable on the market than others.

So yeah, that idea of his has then been sort of picked up by social linguists, and then nowadays we also see this more as a dynamic. We use the concept to sort of also unpack the dynamics of how do these processes of differentiation come about and so on, whereas with Bourdieu it was a little bit more like static, there’s a certain value or not, whereas nowadays we sort of also look more like how do linguistic resources travel, right? That’s an idea of Jan Blommaert, this idea that your linguistic capital or your resources may be valuable in one place, but then when you go somewhere else, they’re not, or they’re only valuable in certain contexts or domains of society.

So yeah, that’s a little bit what linguistic capital is about. I mean, in a nutshell, right? I am sure there’s others who would explain this so much better than I do now, but I sort of found the concept useful to discuss what was going on in the clinic here because it sort of seems like certain clients in this abortion clinic, when they do have the linguistic capital, they have the free choice to choose between medical and surgical abortion, which is often also important emotionally, because there’s a difference between the clients in the clinic in that they have different linguistic capital, and if they dispose of the right linguistic capital, it sort of allows them to freely choose between medical or surgical abortion, which are two completely different ways of experiencing an abortion.

So, there’s this emotional aspect to it. And it also goes beyond the choosing between the two treatment types. I’m also thinking about looking up information on the website, for instance, before they actually go to the abortion clinic.

Also, the website is available in Dutch, French and English of this abortion clinic. And so, you sort of have this difference in which linguistic capital you can, or how much your linguistic resources are worth in that setting. And Dutch, English and French are highly valued because they allow for you as a client to be cared for when you’re at home doing the medical abortion and the clinic is talking to you on the phone. So that’s what it’s about, actually.

Brynn: It’s really evident in the paper, and that’s something that I found really fascinating, was this idea of choice and how somebody who comes in with that linguistic capital of speaking or having, quote, high proficiency in French, Dutch or English, they are going to have a choice. They’re going to a certain extent, obviously. At a certain stage of the pregnancy, they’re going to have a choice if they want to do the medical abortion or the surgical abortion.

And you’re right. It can be an emotionally trying decision or time. And to give a person a choice in that type of situation does mean a lot.

And like you said, if someone is deemed to not have that proficiency, then that choice is kind of automatically taken away. And their treatment option is chosen for them. And in the paper, towards the end of the paper, you discuss a concept called exclusive inclusion, which was written about by Roberman in 2015.

What does exclusive inclusion mean? And how did you see it play out in the language policy at this clinic?

Dr van Hest: Yeah, so this concept, exclusive inclusion, refers to a kind of exclusion, but not the exclusion that we typically think of in terms of completely discriminating people or not allowing them access to crucial spaces in society or crucial services or means. So, what Roberman explains is that when we look at inclusion, exclusion dynamics, we should look beyond material sufficiency and sort of like her paper is also titled, not to be hungry is not enough. So, it’s like it’s not just about making sure that people can buy food and that they’re not living in poverty.

It’s also about making sure they can actually participate in spaces, practices that are socially relevant. Yeah, that are, as she describes it, it’s about access to social resources of real value and to participation in the arenas of social recognition and belonging. So, in terms of the abortion clinic and why I found the concept applicable in this case is because I thought, well, these women for sure also receive good abortion care.

They’re helped by this very engaged team of practitioners, which I also really want to emphasise. They were so engaged. They were so helpful. This whole policy was also thought of for their safety, right? So, it’s like out of genuine concern. And they receive good care.

They’re helped in a timely manner. You could actually even say that the surgical abortion is sort of, I mean, and there’s definitely discussions about that, but I mean, it’s sort of like, I talked about this unpredictability, right, of the medical abortion, whereas, you know, with surgical abortion, you know, like, okay, it’s that day. It’s going to be just 20 minutes, then it’s over. It’s immediately checked with an ultrasound and so on. It’s like sort of, I mean, it is a good abortion care. It is a good abortion treatment.

So, they’re not excluded, but they are exclusively included in the sense that they don’t have the same level of participation. They don’t have the same level of choice. When you compare them to other clients who did possess or do possess the right linguistic resources.

So that’s for me what the concept is about.

Brynn: Yeah, it’s all about that choice, right? It’s saying that, okay, well, this group of people can have a choice. This group of people is still going to get good treatment, but they can’t have the same level of choice as the other group of people.

And you do in the paper, you really do a great job, I think, of taking great care to mention that this abortion clinic really did create this language policy from a place of genuine precaution and medical care for its clients. And you mentioned that it’s been reconfiguring other policies to reflect its linguistically diverse clients. You do reflect that it could do more to make medical abortions accessible to clients of all linguistic backgrounds.

And maybe that circles us back to what you had sort of hinted at before, that you’re working with that particular clinic now and talking about what the clinic could do to facilitate that. Are you able to tell us anything that you’re working on in that space now with the clinic?

Dr van Hest: Yeah, sure. So, first of all, again, I cannot stress it enough that this clinic where I studied the language practices, I mean, I do adopt sort of a critical stance in the paper, of course. I mean, it’s a critical social linguistic endeavour, but they were so engaged as a team.

And so, I remember their literal wording about their clients, also talking to them on the phone, such as, I’m worried because, you know, like they’re really, they really want to just make sure that they’re safe. And it’s also a matter of responsibility, obviously, like legal responsibility, you know, like as a clinic, they’re responsible for making sure these abortions happen in safe circumstances. And, you know, as soon as that cannot be fully guaranteed, they have to be very careful with that.

But then, yeah, again, you could say, OK, this is safety and these safety concerns are justified, but the safety structure or the sort of securitizing structure that’s now in place, fully relies on verbal communication. And I think that’s something that they, where they might rethink the possibility, like the role of communication, perhaps with the use of technology, perhaps making sure there are some visual aids with which clients could, I don’t know, indicate the levels of pain they’re experiencing or the amount of blood loss or something like that. I don’t know.

I mean, of course, it’s not a quick solution that’s available for us, but rethinking the need for verbal communication and thinking about alternatives, I think. And then perhaps I should also mention here that it’s not only telephone follow-up, like on the day where women are self-managing the miscarriage. There’s also an important aspect, communication aspect, to the counselling or to the, let’s say, when women come to the clinic to receive their first medications.

Remember, I explained, first they take medication that blocks the pregnancy hormone. So, when they come for that first medication, that’s done in the clinic because at that appointment, they also receive all the instructions for them managing the miscarriage two days later in their homes. And so those instructions are also really detailed.

You know, it’s like it’s two pages with written instructions, which are again available in Dutch, French and English. And that then usually nurse goes over and explains point by point, like you should be careful for this or when this happens, this is normal, when this happens, this is not normal. Then you should call us, then you should go to emergency care.

You know, like all this kind of, also the schedule, like when to take the medication, how many pills, which pain medication can you take and when and so on. So, they’re like quite complicated instructions. And also on that part, the staff is worried in terms of language, like that clients might not understand fully how they should then perform the abortion themselves.

But there, for instance, I think you could work with translated or multilingual video instructions or translated materials in any kind of way. And then to answer your question about sort of what I’m working on now or talking about now with the clinic is that they actually do have these videos explaining the different treatment types and again, available in Dutch, English and French, but they are considering to on the long term having those translated as well to, I would say minority languages, but I mean, languages that a considerable part of their clients speak. So that I think would be one step where you sort of have like the all the control over the process of explaining the instructions.

But then again, the telephone follow-up from a distance will remain an issue. Now, one of the ideas that I’m currently discussing with the person responsible for the clinic, like coordinator, is to understand how abortion practitioners abroad deal with language diversity when offering medical abortions. Because, I mean, generally, as we were mentioning, as we were discussing in the beginning, there hasn’t been that much attention for linguistic diversity in abortion care.

And I mean, abortion care generally, it’s like, as I said, the linguistic aspects of that are quite understudied. And so, I would love to set up a study to investigate how the medical abortion is dealt with abroad. Because I think, and as I mentioned in the beginning, there are some differences between different countries.

And whereas in Belgium, you still sort of have like very high, I mean, majority of the performed abortions are still surgical abortions. But there is an evolution towards more medical abortion that’s ongoing. Like, I think in like 10 years or so, the amount of medical abortions doubled.

And so, it’s really some more and more often chosen treatment type. And so, I think it would be very interesting to see, okay, in countries where this medical abortion is already more common. I mean, it’s impossible that they don’t face a linguistic diversity among their clients.

So how do they do it? And what could be learned from them? Which best practices are there that could be applied also here?

Brynn: That would be really interesting to be able to do that type of research with other people abroad. Because you’re right, it really does differ country to country. And I would be so fascinated to hear what you learn.

And I love that idea of the potential for video instructions. It reminds me of a paper that I read for research that I did that talked about translated discharge papers like from a hospital. They found that the patients that needed it translated into other languages sometimes also had low levels of literacy in general.

And they found that it was easier to actually audio record the discharge paper instructions. And they were able to put it into… Have you ever seen those greeting cards where you can open them and they’ll play a song?

Dr van Hest: Right, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. Like birthday cards?

Brynn: Yeah, like birthday cards. So they were able to record the discharge instructions onto these cards where you would open it and it would play the instructions for you. And so obviously something like that wouldn’t necessarily work in this type of a medical situation, but kind of what you said, just sort of thinking outside the box, reconfiguring things, making things different than they have been potentially could be a solution.

Other than this really, really interesting postdoctoral work that you’re doing, is there anything else that’s coming up for you? Any other projects that you’re working on or anything that your research group is doing that you find interesting that you’d like to talk to us about?

Dr van Hest: Yeah, so as you mentioned in the beginning, when introducing me, I’m now a postdoctoral research associate here at the department. So, I’m not really working currently, I’m not really working on the abortion topic, but I do hope to sort of find ways in the near future to develop the ideas I have now and sort of collect more data. But what I am working on now is on something completely different.

Nothing to do, it has nothing to do with abortion, but it is still about language and migration and linguistic diversity in institutional settings. But I’m currently working on a project which is very applied, very practice oriented and which is called MATIAS, which stands for Machine Translation to Inform Asylum Seekers. And the idea is that we develop a prototype of a notification tool, a multilingual notification tool that can be used in asylum centres, in asylum reception centres.

So, we also work together very closely with the federal agency, the Belgian federal agency for the reception of asylum seekers. And so, I’ve been visiting various reception centres for data collection in the past year, because what we want to do with this tool is it’s going to be a tool that will allow staff working at reception centres to sort of to update and inform residents about activities and practical stuff, things that are going on in the centre. Like, oh, apologies, the water will be shut off between four and five tomorrow because they’re going to come and do some works.

Or don’t forget, tomorrow we have this activity at 8 p.m. Please join us, something like that, because that’s often very rapid communication or it’s not always feasible to translate that in so many different languages. And obviously in asylum perceptions facilities, there’s a lot of linguistic diversity. And the idea is that the tool would then allow staff to just write that message in Dutch, English or French.

Again, we have those three dominant languages there. And that then the system will translate and send out the messages in the right language to the residents who would then receive the message on their smartphone. And then, you know, one resident would receive that same message in Arabic and the other one in Turkish, for instance, and another one in Pashto.

And so that’s the idea. So, something completely different, very, very practice oriented, very practical, very applied. But it’s really, it’s a lot of fun and it’s my first steps in the field of machine translation as well and language technology.

So that’s fascinating. And then on the sides, I am obviously still developing my ideas on the data I collected for my doctoral research. And also, this whole phenomenon of nonprofessional interpreting really caught my attention when I was doing my PhD.

So, they have like these clients bringing in relatives or their partner or a friend, someone close to them for language interpreting. And what we see in interpreting studies is, I mean, there’s already a lot of research going on that takes this very interactional and institutional point of view. Sort of like, OK, in this particular setting, you have these people coming and going.

And I’m very fascinated to see how those interpreters, those nonprofessional interpreters, so to speak, how they sort of make sense of that and also of their own role and how does that differ when they go from one setting to the other and so on. So, I’m working on something to hopefully in the near future research that. And yeah, I’m also working together with my colleagues on collecting work that deals with nonprofessional interpreting and sort of trying to really get this contextualised perspective.

Like, who are these people? What are the institutional, interactional expectations to sort of shed light on all these different kinds of nonprofessional interpreting practices and different kinds of nonprofessional interpreters? So yeah, that’s sort of something that really became a topic of interest for me research wise.

So yeah, and then we’ll see what the future brings and what I can get funding for and so on. It will also depend a little bit on that. The connecting thread for sure is always language and migration, linguistic diversity in institutional settings.

So, I will continue to be working on that, yes.

Brynn: Ella, your work sounds so cool. Massive congratulations to you for finishing your PhD last year. As someone who has just started on her PhD, I’m looking at you and thinking, okay, I can do this. She did it. We can do it.

Dr van Hest: It’s so exciting for you. You still have the whole trajectory ahead of you. So yeah, enjoy it, I would say as well. It’s so fascinating.

Brynn: Exciting and scary, but also very awesome. So, all of the things. Ella, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today, to talk about your work. And I can’t wait to hear where your work goes from here.

Dr van Hest: Thank you so much again for having invited me here today. It was amazing to talk to you.

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