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Covid-19

There’s linguistics in the science of immunisation

By May 20, 202162 Comments2 min read5,197 views

You can order free hard copies of the booklet

Have you received your COVID-19 jab yet? Are you thinking about getting vaccinated? Are you confused by all the conflicting information out there?

A new set of resources published by the Australian Academy of Science in collaboration with the Australian Government Department of Health provides clear and credible answers based on the best science.

The Science of Immunisation

The Science of Immunisation is a set of resources that explain what immunisation is and how vaccines work. The aim is to help people make good health decisions.

The resources cover the following topics:

  1. What is immunisation?
  2. What is in a vaccine?
  3. Who benefits from vaccines?
  4. Are vaccines safe?
  5. What does the future hold for vaccination?

Additionally, you can look up explanations of pesky terms such as “adjuvants,” “herd immunity,” “pathogen,” and many more. Furthermore, the website also features several short videos clips – informative to watch and easy to share.

There is also linguistics in the science of immunisation

The expert working group behind the The Science of Immunisation includes some of Australia’s most prominent medical experts, as you would expect. Additionally, there were also three language and communications experts, and I am honored to have been one of them.

The working group paid careful attention to targeting all audiences in our linguistically and culturally diverse society. Therefore, questions of linguistic inclusion and communicative accessibility played an important role in the development of the resources.

In terms of language and communication, The Science of Immunisation is a practical outcome of the research about language challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic that we’ve been publishing here on Language-on-the-Move.

To learn more about linguistic inclusion and communicative accessibility in healthcare communication:

Check out all Language on the Move resources about “Linguistic diversity in a time of crisis.”

Ingrid Piller

Author Ingrid Piller

Dr Ingrid Piller, FAHA, is Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her research expertise is in bilingual education, intercultural communication, language learning, and multilingualism in the context of migration and globalization.

More posts by Ingrid Piller

Join the discussion 62 Comments

  • Shiyi says:

    1. Many elderly people report that daily travel is very inconvenient because they do not have a smartphone or can not use it. The detector staff will generally provide check-in services for elderly people who do not have mobile phones. However, if there are many elderly people entering the venue at the same time, due to the unskilled process of checking on behalf of the staff, the elderly need to wait in line for a long time.

    2. The nucleic acid requirements for sites are inconsistent. Some sites require a negative certificate within 24 hours, and some require 48 hours. When the information is not completely transparent, it is very inconvenient for people to travel.

    Suggestion: The setting of normalized nucleic acid points should follow the principles of science and convenience. First, the establishment of normalized nucleic acid detection propagandas should consider the combination of communities, parks, business districts, construction sites, factories, etc., as well as other areas where people are concentrated, and fully consider the laws of personnel activities in the area, adjust measures to local conditions, and set up scientifically; secondly, consider the needs of personnel sampling, allocate and arrange testing forces, and combine the population distribution and the flow of people in each park at the same time , long-term sampling propagandas can be set up in places that cover a wide range of people, large numbers of people, and easy-to-reach places with a small number of nucleic acid testers during normal times , people can merge nearby when the number of people is low. However, when taking these measures, various channels should be taken in advance to notify residents, so that when residents need to do nucleic acid, they can know when to do it, how long to wait in line, etc.

  • Kelly says:

    Thank you for sharing this article!

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, many problems arising from poor public health communication have emerged. This demonstrates the importance of good public health communication during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Therefore, I suggest that the government can recruit students studying public health from foreign language universities across the country as community volunteer workers for multilingual epidemic prevention propaganda and provide in a 7-day 24 hours of external public health information service hotline for these community volunteer workers specifically for foreigners in the community to try to meet the needs of people of different ages. In addition, the government can invest in the production of various types of video and audio that are easy for the illiterate in the community to understand, so as to better spread public health knowledge.

    • Thanks, Kelly! I’m a huge fan of recruiting a volunteer communication task force. There are no foreign language universities in Australia but many international students …

  • Clara says:

    I firmly believe COVID-19 is a remarkable example that I will take the suggestion to improve public health communication. Back to the time when there was the first wave of this pandemic, the citizens were so confused as they read and listened to too much unofficial information about this disease. Some people did not know how severe the coronavirus could be and even took off their masks in crowded places. However, when the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic, the Vietnamese government took strict action to prevent it. By providing reliable information and enacting laws with penalties for people who violate them, they were almost successful in reducing the new cases. The current affairs updated the news about COVID-19 every day. The slogans and banners were seen everywhere to warn people.

    There is only one thing that should be taken into consideration is that for ethnic minorities that live in mountainous areas, I think the government needs to pay more attention to helping them. For example, they can support and connect to the village chief to help villagers if they encounter any problems during the pandemic. It is challenging for them to approach new technology and update the information continuously.

    • Thanks, Clara! Language access and communication plans need to be part of disaster preparation; and, as you do, reflecting on what worked and what didn’t after a disaster needs to feed into preparation for next time …

  • PurebearJo says:

    In Korea, with pride in K-quarantine and a limited budget, the vaccine was introduced later than in other countries. It has disrupted the supply and demand of vaccines in Korea. In the meantime, the number of confirmed has exploded. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were more reliable to Korean people than AstraZeneca and Janssen at that time but these were delayed to arrive.

    When side effects occurred after people were vaccinated, the initial government stance was “There is no cause and effect relationship.” In the meantime the second vaccinations were strongly recommended by government. The public began to complain about the irresponsible attitude of the government and the lack of insufficient communication and information. My husband and I were also vaccinated the second but not the third. Korea’s third vaccination rate is low at 38.3%. Even though there have been cases in which the government gradually acknowledged the relationship between side effects and vaccines, but the public did not feel they had enough trust in vaccination due to government’s early irresponsible stance and insufficient information.

    • Thanks PurebearJo! Sorry to hear that the vaccination campaign in S Korea did not go as well as I had assumed. You are absolutely right: botched communication can do so much harm!

  • Quynh says:

    Challenges in information delivery and limited health literacy of citizens are major hindrances to the efforts to cater for the healthcare needs of citizens.

    In Vietnam, information about Covid-19 can be found relatively everywhere in big cities, from visible billboards on roads to mass media, and especially on online platforms. However, in remote areas where many minority groups reside, there is poor access to the Internet and smartphones, so finding health information online is impractical. Moreover, people in these rural areas tend to have low levels of literacy or speak their own tongues that are not official languages.

    In order to ensure health information reach minority people, authorities have employed local communication officer on Covid-19 to communicate the key information about the transmissible disease. These officers would go through thorough training and be assigned the role of a health support worker in their communities. On the bumpy and narrow roads, these officers ride their motorbikes with a loudspeaker broadcasting recorded messages about vaccination and Covid-19 measures in both Vietnamese and some minority languages. They also come from house to house and talk with people about the severity of the disease.

    This approach has been effective in many areas as the authorities have taken into account the language barrier of minority people as well as their trust issues when talking to people other than their community. This is also being implemented along with promoting the importance of clinic visits and taking medications to ensure good health during and post the pandemic.

  • Ayesha Akber says:

    This time the article is very complex and related to several other important databases and write-ups. I am really impressed by the multiplicity of this article. I would say this is very informative and valuable in the way that it discusses all the discussable components vehemently. It is really mandatory to look into the fact of the readability of a context when there is a crisis going on in society, and at the same time, the subject (people of the society) is linguistically diverse. Interestingly, Flesch Reading Ease Scale is something to focus on to guarantee the understanding of the general public. However, I don’t think that would be possible in each case of propagation and so far, needs more attempts to decrease the difficulty. that is why linguists should work together to come up with a solution. But hopefully, I have seen during the pandemic that the public in general somewhat to some degree did not fail to grasp the knowledge of vaccination. In such conditions, I believe a medium level of language use is acceptable to increase the publicity of the information regarding covid-19. I reckon that local intel and broadcast through mass media would help grow awareness among people. Because a minority of people who have a variety of languages in use and do not understand formal and high-level English language, or the official language, can take help by asking more about their problems and getting answers via translation made by media page openers. This year, social media helped people acquire as much knowledge as possible for the covid-safety rules.

  • Abdulla Zubayr Nafea says:

    The intervention’s entire communication aims should be considered when developing health communication or social marketing strategies. To ensure that the information provided is pertinent to the target market, it is also vital to understand the target demographic. It’s crucial to customize messaging for the chosen communication medium. Additionally, employing various media and communication tactics will guarantee a wider reach. Making ensuring the intended audience can access the channels of communication being used. I would like to share a slogan used during the pick time of covid in my country. If I translate it, It’s like (use a mask, remember you have a family). It is straightforward and easy to understand and will knock the person’s mind and force him to think about it.

  • Librarising says:

    Thanks for sharing. It is definitely to important to make sure that public information are accessible and readable for everyone. Not only does it have to deliver the message, but it also needs to be understood by a diverse and non technical audience in order that the community function smoothly. In China, despite the lack of accuracy on the effectiveness and consideration of people who aren’t suitable for the vaccine, the government would usually come up with slogans that is very easy to understand and remember, such as 老人打完新冠疫苗,每天睡个安稳觉 (elders who get vaccinated can sleep soundly everyday). The brainwashing style promotion is everywhere reminding the public of the important message the government wants to promote, even if it can also be misleading

  • Minnie says:

    Vietnam has effectively ceased transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic since it started, with no fatalities for months. Nevertheless, the fourth wave of COVID-19, which struck Vietnam in late April 2021, had a devastating impact on the country and significantly altered the situation since then. During that time, thousands of pieces of information related to COVID-19 have been published on various mediums such as social media and news media platforms by not only unofficial networking sites but also by various press, either locally or internationally. However, because of the information overload, the situation of COVID-19 in Vietnam has become more severe, which caused misinformation and excessive panic and fear among the people. This resulted in chaotic supermarket crowds hustling for food and essentials, exploitative pricing in essential supplies because of the scarcity of goods, shoplifting at convenience stores, etc. The issue even consequently led to a massive increase in the number of COVID-19 cases. After that, the Vietnamese government and health department cooperated and decided to focus on enhancing public health communication and mitigating misinformation. They displayed COVID-19 mitigation messages using on-street signage together with other signage such as traffic signs and displaying public posters and public signs on commercial premises and outside government buildings. Hence, Vietnamese people were more knowledgeable about COVID-19 and how to tackle the problem. From my perspective, it is vital that official public health communication signage be placed for maximum visibility at places where there are busy pedestrians such as train/bus stations, public road signs, and advertising billboards. Besides, using printed, painted, or stuck-on-the-floor signage to instruct social and physical distancing is also essential. Therefore, the method of giving instructions using visual images and linguistic mechanisms to convey information is significantly necessary.

  • Tushar says:

    In times of crisis, there should be a solution that is “one size fits all”, but it’s a very big diverse world and it’s still divided in many ways. Although technology is playing its part in bringing the people closer but still there are many improvements to be made in this area. In times of emergency, the government must employ both technology and human force. The billboards for example are not simple printed texts, they are screens and important information can be displayed in all languages that are relevant to that region. And, verbal languages can be different but the language of facial expressions, gestures, pictures, etc. unites everyone all over the world. The government can install speakers in some public areas and these areas can be made accessible to multilingual audience to receive guidelines in their languages, especially people who don’t use technology like smartphones. But, looking at today’s world, I believe language problem can highly be solved with the use of technology, because it can be difficult for adults to learn a new language, but it will be easier for them to get connected to technology. So, the govt. can focus on teaching people how to use technology rather than simply expecting everyone to learn English faster.

    • Thanks, Tushar! Language technologies are gaining in importance day by day, no doubt about it; but, as you say, technology is not enough to address the complexity of the problem … just think of all the people who do not have access to computer or mobile devices …

  • Maya Zhang says:

    It is true that the one who delivers public health messages should be professional in the field of linguistics, to make sure that the information on national vaccination promotion can be understood by most of the people who are in AU.

    The vaccine was not an option for the person who lives in China, especially during the period COVID-19 was spreading rapidly. Everyone must get the 1st and 2nd dose of COVID-19 vaccinations according to China’s policy. Now each province in China has its own app that requires everyone who stays in the such province to download. Personal COVID info like recent COVID test results and vaccination status (with 3 statuses: Green-safe, Yellow-may in danger, Red-alert) will be live updated, and public COVID info such as local cases report, and the 3rd vaccination promotion information are also included, which keep people stay alert about how serious it is.
    Crisis communication also exists in China. As China is now conducting a dynamic zero-COVID policy. The government takes action when local cases was found, the buildings where the cases have ever been will be shut down and people in them will be isolated immediately. Volunteers who are multilingual (Chinese and local dialects) are highly needed as plenty of communication is going to happen in between. Both online and offline work is required.

  • Tu Nguyen says:

    One of the key measures to successful COVID-19 control depends on the effective communication of public health information in a manner that is both timely and understandable to the target communities. However, effective crisis communication is far more challenging in Australia- one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) countries in the world. To support the vulnerable CALD members who are at risk of misunderstanding public health messages due to limited English proficiency, citizens can volunteer their bilingual skills to work collaboratively in translating these messages from a source language to a target language. It is known as Citizen Translation. This type of translation requires that the original content and purpose in the source text are accurately transmitted in the translated text and voice by utilizing culturally appropriate language. In my opinion, a solution such as this type of translation that leverages the validation principle to deliver rapid and accurate translation, while sometimes lacking in professional quality, is much preferable than offering no translation at all.

    • Thanks, Tu Nguyen! Do you know more about Citizen Translation projects in Australia? There are some studies in the Chinese context (see references in my response to Kat below) but I am not aware of anything much in Australia?

  • WAA says:

    it is very interesting to see the role of language in different fields of life. I always think about those people who are living in a community where they don’t speak the language, so they don’t know what is going on. I believe that those people are not the only ones impacted by their lack of linguistic knowledge but the whole community. Especially during the time of pandemics, as if they don’t follow the health measures, they would put their life and other people’s life at risk.
    therefore, I would recommend that the government provides information and updates in all possible languages and make them accessible to everyone. Brochures and pamphlets are good ideas, but it should be taken into consideration that there are many non-English speakers who are illiterate and are not able to read their own language. Thus, alternative videos and recordings should be provided.

    • Thanks, WAA! An early slogan during the pandemic was “no one is safe until everyone is safe” – I believe it expresses a deep truth. But, sadly, it was quickly set aside once the rich countries bought into the idea that they could vaccinate themselves out of the crisis, without attention to the world’s poor; and, in the many contexts, the disease was not an equalizer but that the poor were dying in disproportionate numbers …

  • Ziadah Ziad says:

    In Indonesia, hoax is the biggest challenge of Covid-19 vaccination. It flooded Indonesian digital platform during the pandemic almost every day. The hoaxes were not only about the conspiracy theories on how China deliberately mutated Corona virus and wanted to dictate world economy through vaccine trade, but also related to vaccination, medical and herbal treatment to cure or to prevent people from Covid 19 infection. Probably, the spread of hoaxes is the one that kill more people than the virus itself. Ministry of Communication and Technology would update and clarify the hoaxes through their official account very often, also assisted by Indonesian giant media such as Tempo, Kompas, Republika, etc. This year was the steppingstone of Indonesian government to rise the digital authorization which has led to the online surveillance. Then in 2021, Indonesia started to have virtual police for enforcing the electronic information and transaction law or Undang-Undang ITE. Many accounts that shared false news and hate speech addressed to the governments are tracked, get warned, and even arrested. It has limited the freedom of expression in Indonesia.

    Another challenge is the language barrier. New vocabulary including acronym and blend words (i.e., PSBB, PPKM, OTG, WFH, ODP, APD, Daring, Luring, Nakes etc) is overwhelming even for the Indonesian who speak Indonesian. I believe many Indonesian elders specifically the ones who live in the village do not really understand the meaning of those words. However, I found many successful stories about how people in the village are much more resilient in dealing with this pandemic than the people in the city. I found these stories, when I was doing my casual job as a note taker in a conference. The conference was administered by KOMPAK, an NGO under Indonesian-Australian Government partnership. In this conference, KOMPAK reported that the death rate in the village was lower than in the urban area due the cooperation and communication. In the village, any announcement related to Covid-19 was done via loudspeakers in the mosque. They also used their local tongues and simplified those terms. Further, villages are divided into sub-villages. The chair of the village monitored their own territory. Additionally, there was a team that volunteer to block and check people in every entrance of the village. Quarantine room is also provided in the Community Health Centre in the village. To note, social distancing in the villages is easier since many of them are working as a farmer. They are working in the wide green open space, not packed up in one room with the windows and door closed. Needless to say, the neighbors would send food in turn to those who were affected or in the quarantine.

    Prof. Piller, ocean thanks, I love how your article assists me to reflect on my own country.

    • Thanks, Ziadah! Have you read this blog post:
      Hidayat, Yudha. (2020). Why Indonesian villagers don’t know how to protect themselves against COVID-19. Language on the Move. https://www.languageonthemove.com/why-indonesian-villagers-dont-know-how-to-protect-themselves-against-covid-19/ – it makes many of the points you refer to but overlooks that rural environments can be safer during an epidemic than urban areas …
      The COVID-19 pandemic, of course, also was an “infodemic” and fake news became an ever greater problem … it seems we are caught between mis- and disinformation on the one hand, and surveillance on the other … between a rock and a hard place, indeed …

      • Ziadah Ziad says:

        Prof. Piller, thank you for sharing Yudha’s article and the new word “infodemic” :). I have just read it. Actually, Yudha is my friend’s friend, but I’ve never met him. Dr. Kamal, your Ph.D. student and his wife, Dr. Yuni are my lecturers when I was doing my undergraduate study.

  • Haein says:

    During the COVID-19 lockdown in Sydney, it was not that difficult for me to get up-to-date information through many Australian broadcasting TV channels, their websites, and YouTube channels. However, after speaking with my elderly neighbours from Korea and China, I became aware of their difficulties in obtaining accurate and up-to-date information during the COVID-19 pandemic. They got a number of fake news through chatting platforms, including Kakao-Talk and WeChat. The fake news was sent by their friends and colleagues, but even they did not know where the news came from. They distribute fake news to their friends with no malicious intent. On the other hand, some of the information from them was up-to-date and accurate. The information was from community newspapers such as The Korean Herald Newspaper or Sydney Chinese Daily. They usually read two different companies’ newspapers. Through this experience, my suggestion for improving public health communication for elderly people is to publicise community newspapers because they still read newspapers. Moreover, make it easy to read for elderly people by, for example, avoiding complex sentences and using bigger fonts than now in community newspapers. Furthermore, if the local government supports the community newspaper companies in publicising and releasing the newspaper, it will help to easily access accurate information in Sydney.

    • Thanks, Haein! Considering the needs of different age groups is really important – great suggestion to invest in community newspapers for the elderly. Another idea related to your example would be to invest in critical media literacy – fake news on WeChat (and WhatsApp and similar platforms) have been really powerful; as you say, many people who share fake news are not necessarily malicious but ignorant themselves …
      This is a really interesting article about the relationship between WeChat and legacy media in the Chinese diaspora in Australia:
      Sun, Wanning. (2021). Why apps are a game changer for Chinese-language media in Australia. Australia-China Research Institute Briefing and Working Papers. https://www.australiachinarelations.org/content/why-apps-are-game-changer-chinese-language-media-australia

  • Kat says:

    Thank you for sharing this. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the importance of public health communication. The truth is that it has not been given much attention or invested in health communication. As a result, many immigrants have difficulty accessing information in a timely and quick manner. The most affected can also be said to be the elderly, who are vulnerable during the pandemic.
    Medical information is sometimes packed with technical terms, making it difficult to understand for everyone. It will be impossible to reach the elderly or those who are not competent, let alone illiterate people. Furthermore, when documents or information are mechanically translated, the meaning is not always explicit. As a result, I believe it is possible to find a mediator to facilitate communication between the community and medical teams. Volunteers and international medical students can be recruited to practise their skills and serve as interpreters for others who speak the same language. Because not everyone can readily understand and translate specialised terms, specialised students are more suitable than anybody else. Furthermore, information should be distributed to organisations of each language group so that it can be provided in the most accurate and understandable way to those who share the same language.

    • Thanks, Kat! Good idea to recruit bilingual students in health fields for translation and interpreting. Managing a volunteer translation force during a crisis is actually a huge task in itself. These two articles offer relevant case studies:
      Zhang, Jie, & Wu, Yuqin. (2020). Providing multilingual logistics communication in COVID-19 disaster relief. Multilingua, 39(5), 517-528. doi:doi:10.1515/multi-2020-0110
      Zheng, Yongyan. (2020). Mobilizing foreign language students for multilingual crisis translation in Shanghai. Multilingua, 39(5), 587-595. doi:doi:10.1515/multi-2020-0095

  • Hai Trang Tran says:

    When Covid-19 epidemic struck in 2020, I came back to Vietnam and lived with my grandparents in a small village in 1 week in Lang Son which is not only a mountainous area but also the home of 7 different Vietnamese minority ethnic groups. At that time, I realized that racial and ethnic health inequities should have been magnified during the coronavirus disease. For ethnic minority populations whose requirements for health communication cannot be fully served in the dominant language, linguistic barriers are a well-known cause of health inequalities. To be specific, emergency situations present a higher risk of medical issues because of miscommunication, such as respiratory distress and end-of-life care. Not many people in these minority ethnic groups in Lang Son were able to describe clearly their sysptoms in official Vietnamese language, which made the treatment become a challenge. To solve the problem, the local authorities decided to use a lot of red banners with appropriate translations so that everybody can understand the level of seriousness of Covid -19. They also used symbolic deterrence such as sturdy fences to keep people staying at home. Besides, linguistically and culturally appropriate public health messaging, and health care workforce communication skills education were also encouraged.

    • Thanks, Hai Trang Tran! Important example why linguistic inequality matters: because it translates into health inequalities – along with many other kinds of material inequalities. Banners, slogans, language use are symbolic, btw, but fences are material …

  • Tviq says:

    The COVID-19 is still spreading around the world, despite all the measures we have taken. Relevant and timely information can help us prevent the virus and protect ourselves, and this information has a strong connection to language(communication). By creating an official account and a website with information on how to prevent outbreaks and vaccinations, the information is updated on a daily basis to ensure that it is effective. The language is clear and concise and provides people with the information they need.

    I think it might be possible to develop a worldwide shared platform where medical experts and linguists can process the information correctly to provide more options for people. The aggregation of information from all over the world makes more sense than a country’s own information.

    • Thanks, Tviq! The World Health Organization (WHO) is the international body tasked with collating all this information; but it still needs to be disseminated; member states are tasked with doing that, but different states have different capacities, politics, linguistic situations …

  • Dung says:

    Thank you for sharing a fascinating article! I think that there is a connection between language and public health, especially during COVID-19 pandemic. One year ago, Vietnam was also one of the countries affected negatively by the uncontrolled spread of coronavirus. The government could not control all information on the Internet. As a result, fake news could threaten the general health of the society. In Vietnam, there was a time when using earthworms was rumored to be an effective medicine to treat coronavirus. Some Vietnamese people completely believed in such fake news and tried to buy earthworms even at an expensive price. Then the Vietnamese government was aware of the seriousness of this problem, so they decided to use an official webpage on Facebook named “Thông tin Chính Phủ” to provide verified information about COVID-19. Besides, people posting fake news about COVID-19 are also detected and fined by police officers in Cybercrime Operations. The special thing about this webpage is that there is a 24/7 translation team to provide translation scripts in different languages to support non-native speakers. To get a translation script, we just need to leave a message in English to them and it will come in the next few minutes. The translation versions are carefully translated beforehand by the team and stored. When being requested, the on-duty administrator of the webpage will send it. Most of my foreign friends highly appreciate the quality of the translation. I think the reason why they do not upload all of the translation scripts in different languages is that it is difficult to navigate the webpage with the density of the attached files. Therefore, I believe that an official webpage of the government on some popular social networking sites is a good suggestion to prevent fake news and improve public health communication. Besides, it is great to have a professional translation team and on-duty administrators to support non-native speakers.

    • Thanks, Dung! That is such a great service! One of the problems with fake news is that it derives from information overload, and putting all the info on the internet, of course, leads to information overload … the service you describe is a great way to mitigate that problem. Do you know of any English-language article about the service where I could learn more?

      • Dung says:

        Unfortunately, till now, there have not been any English-language articles about this service. However, in future, if there are some, I am sure that I will update you soon by replying this comment 🙂

  • Ian P says:

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was clear (at the peak) just how important global, linguistic communication was in order to reach out to people. I remember NSW Government having posts on social media in languages that I didn’t even recognise myself eg. Assyrian language in order to help break the barriers down of communication and to help protect people. I found this to be extremely helpful to linguistically diverse members in the NSW community, and the amount of languages it covered was quite amazing.

    Unfortunately, the simple copy+paste in Google Translate isn’t the most effective strategy to translate serious pieces of information, similar to what we talked about last week with the school. However from reading what other people have said on this page, it seems that the NSW Government did a great job to accurately translate this. I did feel like maybe it was a bit hard to have this everywhere eg. some elderly people don’t have access to a modern iPhone to obtain information which was a problem in trying to spread this communication elsewhere.

  • Hakunamatata says:

    The passage has mentioned how linguists are also invited to participate in a national vaccination promotion, showing an eager intention to maximize the spreading of important public health messages for common social goals and well-being. This suggests how considerations of the participants in the planning stage are critical and influential, as it can greatly affect the success of the transmission of public health messages to the targeted audiences.

    Considering such importance in foreplanning, I suggest that an inclusive approach should be taken for future pandemic preparation, where representatives of minority groups are included in planning. This way, the content’s quality and accuracy could be ensured to avoid an erosion in trustworthiness. Furthermore, with socioeconomic differences and distinctive dependence in different sectors, minority groups are likely to face different difficulties during pandemics. As the representatives of their groups, these planners will be able to address the actual needs of their groups, thus, the marginalization and the lack of specified support of the minority population can possibly be minimized.

    • Thanks, Hakunamata! Couldn’t agree more that communication needs to be included in disaster preparation – if communication challenges only come to the fore during a disaster, it’s inevitably too late.
      Prof Yuming Li has done some really important work on linguistic disaster preparedness:
      Li, Yuming. (2020). Language lessons of COVID-19 and linguistic disaster preparedness. Language on the Move Retrieved from https://www.languageonthemove.com/language-lessons-of-covid-19-and-linguistic-disaster-preparedness/
      Li, Yuming. (2020, 2020-03-09). 战疫语言服务团的故事 [The emergency service language corps]. CPPCC Newspaper.
      Li, Yuming, & Rao, Gaoqi. (2020). 应急语言能力建设刍议 [State emergency language competence]. 天津外国语’学学报 [Journal of Tianjin Foreign Studies University], 27(3), 2-13.
      Li, Yuming, Rao, Gaoqi, Zhang, Jie, & Li, Jia. (2020). Conceptualizing national emergency language competence. Multilingua, 39(5), 617-623. doi:https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0111
      Li, Yuming, Zhang, Jie, & Chen, Lixiang (Eds.). (2020). 应急语言问题研究 [Research on emergency language]. Beijing: 商务出版社 [Commercial Press].

  • Emily says:

    One thing that I found while examining the COVID-19 vaccination information in Japan was the need for more translations, and more readable resources. There is a government website with information about the vaccines, but it only has three language options: English, Japanese, and Easy Japanese. The Easy Japanese translation had simple expressions, and included the phonetic reading of kanji*… or so I thought before I opened it. The Easy Japanese translation was verbatim for the original Japanese text, and used the same formal, complex expressions and vocabulary. Phonetic pronunciations were included, but not unobtrusively above the kanji characters. Instead, they were included after the kanji in brackets. Here is an example.

    Japanese: お住まいの市町村から公表された接種券発行時期になっても、3回目接種用の接種券が届かない場合は、接種券発行申請を行ってください。

    Easy Japanese: お住(す)まいの市(し)町(まち)村(むら)から公表(こうひょう)された接種券(せっしゅけん)発行時期(はっこうじき)になっても、3回目(かいめ)接種用(せっしゅよう)の接種券(せっしゅけん)が届(とど)かない場合(ばあい)は、接種券(せっしゅけん)発行申請(はっこうしんせい)をしてください。

    The results of this were that the text doubled in length, making it more daunting for someone who speaks Japanese as a second language, and that the constant interruptions of the brackets disjointed the sentences. I consulted with another Japanese speaking friend, and both of us found the Easy Japanese page considerably harder to read. My recommendations based on this would be, of course to supply more translations than the above three, but to make the Easy Japanese translation (a useful idea for people whose languages aren’t translated) actually easy.

    *Note: This is a very common practice in texts for Japanese language learners and Japanese children. The pronunciations are written in the Japanese hiragana syllabary, in a small unobtrusive font above the kanji logograms.

    • Thanks, Emily! The idea behind “Easy Japanese” sounds similar to “Plain English”; really great in theory but, as you say, to be truly useful much work remains to be done around the practical implementation. I also think the focus on written language only is problematic – it’s so divorced from communities and interactions, and impossible to know what people actually “get” (or not) …

  • Tram says:

    In such moment like the Covid-19 pandemic, I believe that each individual holds the responsibility to their community, not just the government. Therefore, here is my suggestion, taking Australia as the case, on how to improve the communication in a multilingual landscape:

    The government could think of making their website like Wikipedia where they use community contribution. It means that on the homepage of the website, people could choose the language that they need, then it will lead them to another page in that language. On this page, people are allowed to participate in translating the English information from the main website to another language.

    By doing this, first, we can reduce the pressure on the government in such unexpected and emergent time like Covid-19. Second, unlike Google translate, the translation script will be translated by the people of that language, so most likely the language use will be more authentic.

    • A volunteer translation force!!! 🤩 My idea exactly – and great idea how to use a participatory technology. With some inbuilt review system this could also be a great way to ensure quality control …

  • brownies says:

    People can easily find a wide range of COVID-19 information on the Health NSW Government website in different languages. To examine the readability, I clicked on the Vietnamese translation and found that the information is translated well with direct headings. However, the language names are written in the Latin alphabet only, which makes it difficult for people with a low level of English to find languages that are pictograms, such as Chinese.

    Furthermore, there is a problem with clustered information on the general NSW website covering information across the state. To address this issue, the NSW website can include links that lead people to their LGA websites where information is more tailored to residents in specific areas. Cumberland council, for example, includes all necessary COVID-19 information on its pages with good translations into multiple languages.

    However, not all residents can access information on the Internet. Therefore, I also suggest that LGAs put up multilingual posters (or include QR codes for residents to scan to access different languages); send their residents hard copies of the summarised key information in the top languages of the LGAs; and include in such newsletters a link to the websites and phone numbers if residents want to read in full details or to inquire someone directly. Regarding the translating quality, LGAs can recruit graduated translating and interpreting students from various universities!

    • Thanks, brownies, for doing this research. Good to know that you’ve found the Vietnamese version accessible. Can you give us the link to the page? How would you rate the readability of the Vietnamese page?

      • brownies says:

        Hi Ingrid, this is the website that I used to check the COVID-19 informaton: https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19 (the language names now have translated versions, which I think they have been updated since the last time I checked). You can see that on the top banner there is a globe icon with the heading “language”. I think for people who do not know English, accessing the translations would be difficult, and I wonder if the globe icon is enough to indicate that they can find the translated version of the website here.

        As a Vietnamese, I rate the translation to be very comprehensible, which is really different from Google automatic translation. The language is appropriate, concise, and easy to understand, and it looks like the information was carefully translated by professionals in order to reach this level of coherence. Overall, they did a good job at translating the information into Vietnamese, so I hope that it would be the same for other languages!

        • Thanks, Brownies! I’ve just had a look and am pretty sure that this is an automated translation (it certainly is for some of the other languages I can actually assess). Have you followed some of the links? It might become more apparent on sub-pages … anyways, good to know that the Vietnamese translation has been well done! 🙂

          • Brynn says:

            I’m wondering the same about the Spanish translation (if it is automatic). It goes back and forth between the formal and informal use of “you” which makes me wonder if an actual person did the translation or not.

            • One of the telltale signs of automated translation – you get the informal you in translation when there is a “you” in the text (e.g. “You must wear a mask”) and formal when there is no “you” in the original (e.g., “Always wear a mask”) …

  • Brynn says:

    I really like Sharkie’s comment about how oftentimes low-quality translations of medical advice can lead a language group to feel distrustful of the information. I think that is a really salient point, and I haven’t seen it written about much (which certainly doesn’t mean that the relevant information isn’t out there somewhere!). Now that the “initial” phase of the pandemic is over, it will be really interesting to see how medical information is related multilingually going forward. I wonder if more attention will be paid to the need to communicate multilingually or if, in some places at least, a more monolingual mindset will take back over.

    • Thanks, Brynn! I think the pandemic provided a significant opportunity to think about more effective and more equitable emergency communications but I’m not sure we are taking it …

  • Sharkie says:

    As the COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing, health professionals must deliver accurate and trustworthy information to audiences.

    I think planning the communication is the main part that should be taken into consideration, I would suggest the following actions:
    1. Identifying the correlation between the health problem and social operation in order to determine what kind of actions must be done by the public.
    2. Looking at target audience (age, race, class, socio-economic status) and consider different types of communication (written, spoken or media format) that they can easily access to. As language challenges may arise, it is important to make the messages or materials readable, the main problem is low-quality translations and it can easily affect trust. To prevent this, I suggest that health professionals should at least understand the basic structure of a specific language (e.g. Arabic is a right to left language) in order to avoid cultural conflict.
    3. Reassuring the public that the health professionals are always there, such as providing a 24-hour hotline service or a contingency plan for direct translating service.

  • Alexandra Grey says:

    Wonderful! So reassuring to hear that linguistic expertise was recognised and included in this project. Can you tell us a bit more (perhaps in another post) about what the working group did or which principles it followed to produce this text in “clear and easy-to-understand [English] language”? There are other contexts in which clear and easy to understand (English) language is sought for government communications, and it’s sometimes even required by legislation, but the people doing the communicating don’t necessarily have knowledge of what principles/rules/steps to apply. (As you know, this is a topic of partiuclar interest to me re a project I’m wrapping up!)

  • Pia Tenedero says:

    Thanks for this update and congratulations, Ingrid, on being part of this highly relevant work! The committee is wise to get one of the best global language and communications experts in the team. All the best in this effort to get a clear and correct message about COVID-19 immunization out. I wish I could get mine, too, soon.

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