CAIS Public Lecture Series | Healthcare Translation for a Diglossic Community: The Case of Arabic Speakers in Australia

Effective access to multilingual information is essential to health literacy among culturally and linguistically diverse communities. For healthcare information to be accessible and effective, there is a need not only for quality translations, but also for effective dissemination media. In this presentation, Mustapha will focus on the dissemination of healthcare translations in the diglossic context of Arabic speakers in Australia. He will report the findings of a research project comparing the effectiveness of different language varieties and dissemination media for the translation of health information from English into Arabic. Four groups of Arabic speakers with low English proficiency were exposed to one of the following options and asked to complete a questionnaire: 1) print translation in Modern Standard Arabic, 2) print translation in Lebanese Arabic, 3) video translation in Modern Standard Arabic, and 4) video translation in Lebanese Arabic. This was followed by discussions with three focus groups on the strengths and weaknesses of the four dissemination options. The findings show that most participants prefer to receive health messaging through audiovisual resources in Modern Standard Arabic, but content comprehension is higher when information is provided in print.

Mustapha Taibi is an associate professor in interpreting and translation at Western Sydney University, the leader of the International Community Translation Research Group and editor of Translation & Interpreting: The International Journal of Translation and Interpreting Research. Among the books he has published: Community Translation (2016), New Insights into Arabic Translation and Interpreting (2016), Translating for the Community (2018), Multicultural Health Translation, Interpreting and Communication (with Meng Ji and Ineke Crezee, 2019) and Translating Cultures: An Introduction for Translators, Interpreters and Mediators (with David Katan, 2021).

This is a hybrid event: CAIS Lecture Theatre and Zoom Meeting