What happens when researcher and researched speak different languages?

Editor’s note: How do researchers in anthropology and sociology deal with linguistic diversity? Do they learn the language(s) of the people they work with or do they hire interpreters? Turns out that they are quite naive about language and do neither systematically, as new research by Katarzyna Sepielak, Dawid Wladyka, and William Yaworsky shows. How to make good decisions about language choice and language mediation in fieldwork needs to become part of research training.

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Katarzyna Sepielak, Dawid Wladyka, and William Yaworsky

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We have surveyed field researchers in sociology and anthropology programs in the United States and found only limited proficiency in field languages, accompanied by a widespread reliance on translators and interpreters. The scholars, therefore, did not dispense with translators as early-twentieth century anthropologists called for (Mead, 1939); instead, they dispensed with the myth of linguistic fluency. At the same time, results indicate disparities in the use of vernacular and translation services in the post-colonial societies and haphazard ‘hiring’ patterns of interpreters that cause ethical and methodological concerns.

The imaginary anthropologist is a fluent polyglot; the real anthropologist is too time-poor to learn another language

When you think about an anthropologist, what stereotypes do you imagine?  Maybe a gaunt Englishman wearing a pith helmet with a copy of African Political Systems (Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, 1940) stuffed in his back pocket? Our imaginary anthropologist is, of course, fluent in a language at risk of extinction, learned during years of field research while living with an endangered community.

Perhaps your image of a sociologist is quite different. You might conjure a scholar working in an urban setting in their home country, which of course is in one of the complex industrial societies. They are studying social problems using their native language with locals who also speak the same tongue.

The shape of today’s societies however, as well as forms of field research challenge those effigies. Anthropologists cannot permit themselves the ‘luxury’ of spending years within a single community, being involved in many projects and teaching duties at home institutions. Sociologists, on the other hand, now work in culturally diverse settings and face the same issues as anthropologists a century ago.

Yet, the scholarly associations and method textbooks are virtually mum on the problem of language, translation and interpreting in field research. To the contrary, a blatant disregard for translation services is noticeable in some discussions, that – righteously – attempt to reclaim the status of research assistants: “Research assistants play a vital role in the research process, often acting as more than just [! – exclamation and bold added] translators or interpreters.” (Dean & Stevano 2016)

We surveyed US-based scholars about their language practices

That is why we surveyed US-based scholars from anthropology and sociology programs. We analyzed 913 answers that provided insights into our respondents’ linguistic capabilities and their experiences conducting research in over 180 countries and interacting with over 400 languages. A more extensive presentation of the results may be found in our article published by Multilingua (Sepielak, Wladyka & Yaworsky 2022).

We discovered that in only 24% of the field sites with languages other than English present did scholars assess that they had professional (or higher) fluency. In almost 60% of cases, our respondents interacted with languages in which they reported a proficiency at or below a limited working level.

It would seem it’s not all bad news with 75% of respondents reporting fluency in at least one fieldwork language. However, they were typically fluent in languages derived from the colonizers, such as French and Spanish, but rarely in languages from the colonized.

Social science researchers are “getting by”

It is then worth noting that most anthropologists and sociologists were getting by at times like everybody else, using interpreters and translators, or conducting research using the English language. ‘Only’ 54.1% of the sociologists in our sample ever collaborated with a translator compared to 68.9% of anthropologists.

Translation and interpreting are often rendered invisible

Example: #interpreter was literally erased from this photo of meeting between Iran's Rouhani and Malaysia' Mahathir in media coverage #xl8 https://t.co/RIcNpy38t2 pic.twitter.com/aNCCivzY0F

— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) April 30, 2020

It would, however, be spurious to claim that American sociologists had less need for translators due to their linguistic proficiency. It is rather due to the traditional research interests exposing anthropologists to an increased number of languages and geographies. In comparison, sociologists frequently work in the US and regions like Western Europe where one could claim to “get by” with English.

One could ask how can this reality diverge so significantly from the ideal of language fluency and dismissal of interpreters pushed by generations of authoritative field scholars?

Is English proficiency really the superpower of today’s social scientists?

English is the language superpower of the world (Piller, 2022). And our thematic analysis indicates that researchers turn to this ‘superpower’ quite often. This is due to a variety of circumstances hampering the acquisition of fluency in another language, such as short-term studies, multi-sited fieldwork, international collaborative research, or studies of communities with multiple co-existing languages. While the global popularity of English appears as one of the deterrents to mastering field languages among scholars, one should also note that Indigenous languages such as Nahuatl, Tlapanec and thousands of others are virtually extinct from academic curricula in the US.

Anthropologists, in particular, may be wary about revealing these linguistic deficiencies due to the fear it might undermine their ethnographic authority. They will be mindful of Margaret Mead’s fieldwork being criticized as ‘superficial’ in part due to her linguistics deficiencies (see Freeman 1983) or Napoleon Chagnon wasting months analyzing the fictitious and scatological “names” of Yanomamo villagers presented to him by amused tribesmen (see Chagnon 1992), mold current beliefs of scholars?

Paying lip-service to the importance of linguistic proficiency does make fluent researchers

Well, it would seem so, with 81% of our respondents perceiving knowledge of local language as important and 95% agreeing that knowing the vernacular enriches the understanding of “local knowledge”.  They also agreed that researchers who don’t speak the vernacular miss important data and have less control over the study. A clear example of detachment between the persisting ethos and contemporary practice reported in previous paragraphs.

The invisible translators and interpreters of social science

In this context, the question about what this heavy reliance on translators means for Western representations of post-colonial societies, persists as well. How do scholars perceive its effect on the research process? For one, most respondents agreed that translators help in gaining access to data and that scholars with foreign-language deficiencies should collaborate with them. Nevertheless, concerning was a trend of haphazardly “hiring” persons that interpret (including research assistants, spouses, colleagues, representatives of local institutions) driven by cost and convenience. This widespread practice carries a series of ethical, methodological, and even security risks rarely considered during methods training.

To that end, field researchers did not dispense with translators as early 20^th century anthropologists called for, instead, they dispensed with the sleight of hand of linguistic fluency. This state of affairs should at the very minimum deserve greater attention in current methodological and ethical discussions regarding fieldwork and collaboration with interpreters.

To read the full article

Sepielak, K., Wladyka, D. & Yaworsky, W. (2022). Language proficiency and use of interpreters/translators in fieldwork: a survey of US-based anthropologists and sociologists. Multilingua. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2022-0071

Related content

Laihonen, Petteri. (2020). Do concepts and methods have ethics? Language on the Move. https://www.languageonthemove.com/do-concepts-and-methods-have-ethics/
Piller, Ingrid. (2016). Herder – an explainer for linguists. Language on the Move. https://www.languageonthemove.com/herder-an-explainer-for-linguists/
Piller, Ingrid. (2021). The interpreting profession in ancient Egypt. Language on the Move. https://www.languageonthemove.com/the-interpreting-profession-in-ancient-egypt/
Piller, Ingrid. (2022). How to challenge Anglocentricity in academic publishing. Language on the Move. https://www.languageonthemove.com/how-to-challenge-anglocentricity-in-academic-publishing/

References

Chagnon, Napoleon. 1992. Yanomamo: The last days of Eden. New York: Harvest Books.
Deane, K. & Stevano, S. 2016. Towards a political economy of the use of research assistants: reflections from fieldwork in Tanzania and Mozambique. Qualitative Research, 16(2). 213-228.
Fortes, Meyer, and E.E. Evans-Pritchard (eds.). 1940. African Political Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Freeman, Derek. 1983. Margaret Mead and Samoa: The making and unmaking of an anthropological myth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Mead, Margaret. 1939. Native languages as fieldwork tools. American Anthropologist 41(2): 189–205.
Piller, Ingrid. (2022). “Women, life, freedom” – the slogan swimming against the global tide. Language on the Move. https://www.languageonthemove.com/women-life-freedom-the-slogan-swimming-against-the-global-tide/