What is Success to a Woman?

In 2016 the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) launched its Women in Business group. Lina Bourdon explained the background to its foundation. At No. 10 Downing Street she was asked what could be done to increase the 20% of women running their own businesses. The British Government was keen to increase their numbers. After the inspiring launch talks by 3 successful businesswomen, I wondered if what success means to a woman can be measured using the Government’s yardstick.

Having it all?

The male definition of success often involves billionaire status, stock exchange valuation, expensive homes and flashy cars. If success is assessed from the City’s get-rich quick perspective, then the achievements of many women will inevitably fall below the bar. The ideal of ‘having it all’ has proved an illusion for many women.

I believe that women can ‘have it all’, but not necessarily all elements at the same time. Even Cherie Blair admitted to dropping the occasional ball or two in the relentless juggling of activities that forms a woman’s life.

Wasted Talent

A lot of women’s talents go unnoticed and wasted. All too often a woman returning to work is expected to take a lowly position and is passed by for promotion opportunities. I noticed that a lot of the women at the FSB’s Women in Business were older, more experienced women. Women who take a career break do not abandon all hope of resuming a career. What they need is a different type of approach and support than the traditional start-up business.

Confidence and Information

According to Lina’s No.10 Downing Street contact, women complain that they lack:

 (a) the confidence and (b) the information to start a business. 

From the outward perspective, it may seem that:

 (a) is something to get over and (b) women need to do better research. 

However, from my own experiences I can illustrate that women’s complaints do have foundation and should not be the subject of out-of-hand dismissal. For theory and practice are two different things.

Personal Experiences

Mine was the classic case of a woman made redundant when she tried to return to work after maternity leave. A settlement, as close as you can possibly get to an industrial tribunal without actually stepping over the threshold, never compensated for the loss of responsibility and financial independence. I found myself in a temporary job with lovely colleagues, but without any use for all the skills I had spent years building up in higher education and professionally.

While at work I missed a couple of landmarks in my son’s development. There was no real financial benefit to the family either.  A second child and both children’s multiple food allergies made it difficult to find suitable childcare. I threw my previous work energies into coping with their restrictive diets. At this time, free-from ingredients and products were hard to come by or inaccurately labelled.

Meanwhile, my lawyer husband worked long hours in the macho M&A world. The atmosphere there made it difficult to even phone the ‘little woman’ at home to say he was working late again. Presumably, many of the other board members had their own ‘little women’ at home, but the City is not a friend to a balanced home life. No wonder the financial world is perceived as toxic to women. Such attitudes place an enormous strain on family life. I have noted that attitudes are changing as I regularly see fathers taking care of their children these days, but my generation were not as lucky.

Childcare

It is important for Government to recognise the need for more affordable childcare. Early nursery school for a couple of mornings per week for my younger son rescued me from a state of complete exhaustion and saved my sanity. However, I would question whether it is good for young children to spend 8am to 6pm+ in nursery school every day. That is a very long day for such children to go without access to their primary carer. The first seven years of a child’s life lay the foundations for their future development.

There is an incredible shortage of part-time work that offers family-friendly hours. I remember once being laughed out of a local recruitment agency. Another agency was slightly politer, but told me that they only got about 2 suitable, local part-time jobs per year. Agency gatekeepers wouldn’t even put my CV through for a local management job with language skills for which I was very well-qualified and experienced. While the law does not permit discrimination, recruitment agencies and companies will always find alternative ways to ask the questions they are not supposed to ask. Unconscious bias does the rest.

Working in London

Working in Central London only became possible once both my children started school. However, by this time my skills were out-of-date. I enrolled on an MSc course to gain vital skills in the latest technology. This led to a part-time temporary job and a chance to prove what I could do.

Women working in part-time jobs often find themselves doing a full-time role with part-time pay. Managing children makes us great multi-taskers. We work flat out during the time that we are in the office. We rarely have time for the social gatherings that would bring our achievements to the notice of senior management.

Real Life Experiences

When children first start nursery or school, they pick up every bug going as they develop their immunity. Nurseries, schools and childminders send sick children home. Elderly relatives may be too remote (even abroad today) or too susceptible to such bugs to act as an alternative carer. 

When a child first gets sick, a mother may find it easier to claim that she is sick. Invariably, a sibling goes down with the virus as the other child or children recover(s). Now, she needs a sick note… No sooner has the second child recovered than the exhausted mother succumbs to the virus herself. The first child goes back to school and brings another bug home… The cycle begins again. This is the reality of the early schooling years.

As children go through growth spurts, they become clumsier. If you have boys in particular, you will feel as if you have special reserved seating in your local hospital's accident and emergency department at times. The staff welcome you smiling with a ‘not you again’. Broken wrists x 2, cut eyes, severe sprains, suspected broken bones, concussion, playdough pushed into ear, raisin pushed up profusely bleeding nose and stuck fast, etc.

Boys and visits to the X-ray department - a fact of life!

Schools and Sickness

When I was at school, mobiles did not exist. We didn’t even have a landline when I was at primary school. If I fell ill during school time, I would have to go and wait in the medical room until my mother arrived to collect me at her usual time.

School attendance is closely monitored today. If you keep your child home when sick with recurrent bugs, you will get an officious letter that sometimes even warns you about prison. If your child is sick in school, staff are very wary of giving medicine. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

There are occasions when it is better to give your child an aspirin-based product than a paracetamol-based one. Attitudes and prescriptions have changed. The school medical room once asked me to go to the doctor with my child to get a medication note. What about my parental authority? My child was in pain with a broken wrist, but couldn’t keep missing school. He had had Nurofen on a number of occasions without incident. Luckily, I was working at home. I went and gave the necessary dose myself. This was a result of Local Government regulation changes. If I had still been working in Central London, the trip would have taken 3 hours out of my working day.

I once had to do the 1½ hour journey from Central London two days running because my elder son had been hit on the head with a tennis racquet. On the second day, he got hit on the head while sitting out of the PE lesson. You couldn’t make this stuff up. It is the sort of real life incident that makes it difficult for women to work and get promoted. Schools are now wary of litigation. They call a parent to cover themselves with the slightest knock on the head. It is hard to assess the situation at distance. Schools are understandably reluctant to take the responsibility - especially if the child’s father is a barrister/lawyer.

After school clubs are great. However, if you finish work at 5.30pm in Central London, you cannot get back for the closing time at your child’s school in Zone 3 in 15 minutes. Running over the time, delays staff and incurs extra costs. Arriving late for an anxious child can have clingy repercussions for days or weeks afterwards.

Attitudes of Other Women

Some colleagues have a tendency to regard you as unprofessional simply because you are not available all the time. They forget that many other colleagues may be away from their desks too. At the FSB event, Lina quoted:

 “Hell has a special place for women who do not help other women”. 

Women managers are often tougher on their female reports than a male manager in the same position. Maybe it is because they fear being criticised as too soft, so they actually over-compensate?

Law in Practice

The law has got tougher on discrimination towards pregnant women, but such changes are not always an improvement. Both company and employee tread on egg shells. This results in some bizarre, no-win interview situations with unstated conflicts of interest, if you seek to cover a maternity leave role.

Pregnant woman at work smiling sweetly c.VadimGuzhva 

Ageism is rife. Companies feel obliged to interview older candidates to comply with the law. However, as soon as you work through the door, you know that your potential future manager would prefer a younger candidate and is merely going through the motions. The well-meant law is simply a waste of everyone’s time in practice.

Redundancy and Unemployment

During a period of unemployment following redundancy, I had personal experience of the Government’s Universal Job Match and punitive measures. I found that the database kept sending unsuitable jobs which I had to decline. The system did not understand the basic difference between a translator and an interpreter. It kept sending me court interpreting jobs for which I am not suitably qualified and experienced.

I also kept receiving jobs for languages that I do not speak or in the wrong direction. I do not translate from English into Japanese. It takes years to learn a language to a sufficiently proficient level. I now understand how a Polish plumber came to present himself as a court interpreter as described in my article for Multilingual Magazine in April 2012.

Pushed into any job however unsuitable?

The system made it appear that I was constantly turning down jobs. A string of rejections looks like someone being difficult. The ethics of the professional bodies to which I belong oblige me to turn down jobs outside my skill set. At the end of the 6-month phase just before Christmas 2013, I was prevented from attending my appointment at the door. The man on the door claimed that I was late. I disbelieved him so checked my mobile. It was very odd that my mobile had suddenly lost all charge.

Any number of times I had arrived too early and been sent away. Job centres under the Coalition Government very obviously didn’t want anyone to visualise how many people were out of work. It was scary. Next thing I knew I starting receiving lots of post from Belfast. This post felt threatening to me. The system is cruel and soul-destroying. I wondered how many others had been treated the same way when the Government celebrated its reduced unemployment figures in the January.

Fruitless Government Schemes

Is it so surprising that women lose confidence now? While unemployed, I had asked the Job Centre for self-employment information. I was sent to a local, dilapidated-looking address to write a business plan. I was shown a pre-recorded video. I could have watched that same video at home without the Government incurring fruitless costs.

Many of the start-up schemes are not interested until you have been in business for around 3 years and/or are generating a high income. The British Library wants a turnover of £100k plus. Most freelance translation businesses cannot even hope to reach that threshold -  and yet we provide so much help for other businesses seeking to export.

Much local assistance was not appropriate for my type of business. It seemed more suited to sandwich shops, cupcake vendors and hairdressing. I was surprised that so many local businesses are allowed to set up in the same line of business, when the country is crying out for more digital skills. I do wonder every time I meet yet another career coach, how much great experience is being wasted by not being rechannelled immediately upon redundancy.

Export Assistance

Starting up a business with a European interest was probably not the best timing with Brexit looming. However, I was surprised at the extent to which UKTI pursue Chinese export opportunities and exports to other countries with vastly different time zones and cultures. Isn’t it easier for a business to make its first export a European one?

The obvious answer was to seek EU support. I enrolled on a seminar at the British Library. However, on arrival, I discovered that it had been cut short. The expected senior EU representative did not attend. I gained very little useful information. I did wonder if the sudden change of agenda had anything to do with the presence of a representative from the Greater London Authority? I started to feel that because of my language direction, my business efforts were being hampered. My child’s schooling prevented relocation abroad.

I had to go all the way to Manchester to attend a much more interesting session on how a freelancer might get involved in EU contracts. It was already apparent that the EU’s decision-making process was too slow for any chance of work before the looming Brexit referendum. I have since spoken to someone who completed the whole time-consuming process and won a contract. She never received any work afterwards.

Where do you go for advice?

So, yes there is information out there. You will have several abortive attempts getting to it. A working mother’s time is precious. She doesn’t want it wasted. I ended up picking and choosing my own courses according to my own training requirements and the needs of my business. Many of the translation industry’s training schemes were not available at the right time, or not with enough flexibility to allow for my existing experience and training. Some schemes are more about promoting the presenter’s business than about genuine new business assistance.

Translation as a Second Career

A lot of very intelligent professional women choose translation as a career precisely because it allows them to balance an intellectually challenging job with family concerns at home. Companies are now very reluctant to take on employees. The freelance lifestyle can be a very precarious one in the early days.

Hampered by Competition Law

Prices are under considerable downward pressure in the translation industry. However, competition law prevents institutes from discussing pricing for risk of being accused of a setting up a cartel. On a number of occasions, I have been offered contracts with extremely restrictive terms. A minimal amount of work could leave me unable to pursue business opportunities for up to 3-5 years with certain companies or in certain domains. To me this appears more anti-competitive than any attempt by a professional body to help its members establish fair rates.

What Future?

The working world appears to have changed irrevocably. The advent of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning suggests that some sections of the community may not be able to get employment despite their best efforts. Punitive unemployment measures are out of place. How can the economy adjust to support everyone? People need to have a sense of purpose in their lives if they are to remain mentally and physically healthy.

It strikes me that what women need is a different type of support. We also need the realisation that a business that keeps a woman and her family is a valid proposition. It may never make a fortune, but it may work well and keep a number of other women (and men) gainfully employed. If they are making a living, they will not be claiming unemployment benefit. All a modern business may need is a free and/or inexpensive, local co-working space, a computer, access to a printer/copier, business stationery and some training.

Assistance and advice for a digital future?

Flexible, Family-friendly Options

No. 10 needs to acknowledge that what women need are options and the ability to choose what is right for them and their families at any given moment. This will not be the same for any two women or any two children (even in the same family). If a woman chooses a career break, she still contributes to society in other ways.

Experience and Maturity

When an experienced, mature woman returns to work she will be a different type of employee or business owner. No difficult colleague or customer can phase her after safely negotiating toddler tantrums or teenage truculence. No work crisis can hold a candle to the overnighters in an overworked A&E department with a very sick child or the health crisis of an elderly parent. What could the working world possibly throw at her after she has handled a child with sickness and diarrhoea and a raging temperature in the middle of the night? Or a loved one with dementia?

Redefining Success

When the time is right to return, a woman should have the right training and support to lift her confidence and help her progress. So what if for some women the only perceivable success may be her child at that point? Extremism is a concern today. If a mother’s child is a future engaged and law-abiding citizen, it’s a success. If all her disabled child can do is smile so that the local community smiles back, it’s a success. It may not be in a currency that City lawyers and accountants understand, but in my book that upward curve spells success.

Happy children spell success

Success to a woman is not about a big, flashy car. It involves balancing the conflicting demands of her loved ones and overcoming all the professional obstacles placed in her path. Success is resilience. Success is achieving something that a woman can be proud of, however modest that achievement may seem to others. 

Whatever future business success comes my way, my proudest and greatest achievement will always be my two sons. I know many other women feel the same way. And saying so shouldn’t be frowned upon professionally. Such prejudice already wastes far too much talent and potential in local communities and the Economy.

FSB 2016 report: Women in Enterprise: The Untapped Potential

Karen Andrews is a freelance French to English translator, transcreator, content writer and editor. She has a strong background in global marketing.

Email Karen for further information via karenanglicityen@gmail.com in French, German or English.

Is speech technology unstoppable?

Too many like-minded techies around the TAUS table?

What do you call a huge, powerful and overwhelming force? A juggernaut. This afternoon TAUS ran a webinar entitled: TAUS New Year’s Reception 2017. The TAUS tagline is Enabling Better Translation. The webinar carried out a self-congratulatory review of TAUS ‘achievements’. The TAUS website claims to support the whole translation industry. Does it?

Alarm Bells

TAUS CEO Jaap van der Meer is very pally with all the IT companies. IT Companies think TAUS is a wonderful organisation. Freelance translators don’t trust TAUS. Hardly surprising, judging by the flippant and dismissive tone adopted towards some of their key concerns. TAUS has become a juggernaut in hock* to the major, largely US IT companies. It’s another classic case of too many like-minded people continuing regardless of alarm bells. And the alarm bells were ringing very loudly. They just ignored them.

They were all so excited about the latest technological developments in speech technology, machine translation and machine learning. They touched on robots putting translators and project managers out of jobs. Oh, something else would come up for them. It was so exciting.

Dismissive of human aspects

Jaap van der Meer raised a major concern. Yet, he didn’t seem to fully appreciate its human significance and repercussions. He mentioned universities’ difficulties in obtaining software licences for students. He felt bad about it. Never mind, Mr van der Meer predicts that post-editing will be dead in the next 5 years. They need to move on to new challenges.

It’s all very well for the TAUS juggernaut and IT pals to move on, but it isn’t so simple for the universities - or past and present students trained in a soon-to-be obsolete technology. And of course, the fact that the technology will die means that he can dismiss trying to resolve post-editing pricing controversies. They will simply recur more urgently with the next technology. Wait and see.

A university curriculum cannot change at the drop of a hat. How do course leaders explain wasting so much time, money and effort on an obsolete technology? How do they explain to university administrators that the old stuff is useless? Will they trust TAUS and IT developers before making new purchases? Not one iota.

EU Linguistic Expertise v. US Isolationism

An EU Quality Manager made an interesting point. An EU survey revealed that quality is 6 times more important than cost efficiency. It seemed to fall on deaf ears. You can’t get more experienced than the EU in procuring multilingual translations. It's difficult for TAUS to listen because its advisors are largely American. They only really worry about English and Spanish. They dismiss valid European concerns as ‘scepticism’. We can’t hope for any enlightened leadership on linguistic matters from the US over the next 4 years. Hell, the President-elect wants to build a wall between the US and Mexico.

Not good enough

And what of all the translators working in the market who were trained to meet post-editing ‘good enough’ standards? How do they suddenly learn the creativity required by the increasing demand for transcreation? How do course leaders find enough trainers? The older generation learnt to translate literally. The younger generation were told that ‘good enough’ was ‘good enough’. You can change technology, but it isn’t easy to unlearn what will now be regarded as bad practices for transcreation.

Raw deal for the young

I feel for the younger generation. They endured successive, unpaid internships. Then, they got cheated out of 50% of their potential earnings. So how are they now supposed to finance their retraining and buy new software?

No answers to society’s challenges

To be fair to TAUS: Technology is transforming other industries too. Digital transformation threatens many jobs. No-one has the economic answers on how society supports a workforce for whom there are no jobs. People need to feel valued and productive to maintain good mental and physical health. Those who feel excluded can wreak havoc on society - as we have already seen with terrorist attacks. If a section of the population is left ill-informed and poorly educated, they can vote extremist political parties into power to exact vengeance.

Property prices in my London borough have increased 71% over 10 years. How do you deal with that, a reduction in earnings and a need to retrain? The UK population has the consequences of Brexit to deal with too.

Speech technology and cultural incompetents

How many other industries could start an apocalypse? TAUS says nothing on the importance of cultural competence to translation and interpreting. The lack of cultural understanding coming from the US, IT companies and the future President is alarming. Speech technology could start a nuclear war in their hands. The scientists who made atomic bombs no doubt found their technology oh so exciting too.

Implications for military applications in the field? 

It’s time to stop the TAUS juggernaut and take stock of the human implications. We need a powerful European organisation to consider the ethical, societal and human elements of current directions. TAUS is patently not representing the whole industry.

* in hock to - (meaning 3) if you are in hock to someone, you feel that you have to do things for them because they have given you money or support.
Usage example: It is almost impossible for the prime minster to stand above the factions. He always seems in hock to one or the other
Collins Cobuild Advanced English Learners' Dictionary

Karen Andrews is a freelance French to English translator, transcreator, content writer and editor. She has a strong background in global marketing.

Email Karen for further information via karenanglicityen@gmail.com in French, German or English.

Brexit Citizens and Communities

Today, Theresa May and Angela Merkel met for the first time. I have followed Brexit events closely. Oddly enough, I have been working on a translation on team-building. The respective terms citoyenneté and community in French and English have stood in sharp contrast. French and English are full of false and fickle friends. The words may look similar, but they often have different positive or negative connotations, emotive appeal or different usages. They only look like equivalents. This set me thinking…

I used community in my translation. My French client queried my word choice. Communauté does not have the same resonance for him as citoyenneté. Yet, for me, the word community has a much greater emotive appeal and greater resonance in a text about working together. The emotive effect of a word in a foreign language is different for us.

I wince when I read an EU text addressing citizens. My reaction is instinctive. I wrote it off as Eurospeak until today. Now, against the Brexit backdrop, I see a fundamental breakdown in communication. I remember how odd the EU’s citizens’ dialogue sounded. The wording seems wrong to engage Brits from the front cover or the first words of a speech.

Citizenship in English is closely tied to nationality – and that now infamous Brexit word sovereignty. Sovereignty is important to the British for strong historical reasons. Citizenship is a cold, legal term; we associate it with our passports and official form-filling. It doesn’t have the same sense of belonging as community.

Citoyen has a much stronger emotive appeal in French than citizen in English. Its usage dates back to the French Revolution with its sense that all are equal. It appears in La Marseillaise – can you get more emotive than a country’s national anthem?

Researching my subject, I found that citoyenneté appears to have much of the usage of the English community. In a highly topical usage, I found it applied to efforts to bring Muslims and Christians closer together. A similar UK local government text refers to community cohesion.

My research has left me wondering if the UK would have felt more emotionally connected, if we had been choosing to remain in the European Community rather than leave the European Union. I suppose Brexiters will merely say that I am crying over spilt milk. I’m splitting hairs over word choice. Yet, such nuances do matter. They speak to something deeply rooted within us.

EU Presidency

The UK was to take up the EU Presidency in 2017. I think it was wrong that UK voters were never told how close we were to holding the EU Presidency during the Referendum. This should have been the UK’s chance to influence the future direction of the EU. Very few Brits were aware of the UK’s forthcoming opportunity. Nor did they know that the Presidency would have meant working as a team or trio with Malta and Estonia. The EU Referendum should have followed the UK’s Presidency if Brits were still dissatisfied after this 18-month period of influence.

Theresa May today suggested that she would let the EU Presidency go. I believe that this is a mistake. Even without Brexit, the EU will have to redefine its mission and remit. All the indications suggest that the UK will remain one of Europe’s staunchest allies and a strong trading partner. Our pragmatic approach could prove useful in the tricky times ahead.

Cultural differences in communications

I can only hope that the EU PR machine reconsiders its homogenised communications as a result of Brexit. It needs to take greater account of cultural differences. I wonder how many other miscommunications like citizen and community are lurking in other translations. I can’t help thinking about Khrushchev’s “we will bury you”. What we understood and what he meant weren’t the same thing. The influence of those words was far-reaching, as Brexit is proving now. 

What will Brexit mean for democracy and union in the United Kingdom?

Ah, but Theresa May and Angela Merkel seem to agree that ‘Brexit is Brexit’. Did they mean it? What do they each understand by Brexit? Undoubtedly, not the same thing at this early stage.

What did the UK public understand by Brexit? Not how it is turning out… Will the Referendum withstand legal challenge in the courts? Where does any course of action leave democracy?

Is the subject really so dead and buried?

Brexit and the European Dream

Friday came as a shock to me as many in the UK. On Thursday night, I thought ‘Bremain’ had narrowly won the EU Referendum. There was a niggling feeling in my gut. I woke up on Friday morning to the profound shock of Brexit. No, it’s more than that. My heart is torn in two.

Children of Brexit Divorce

As a linguist, I have one foot in Britain and the other in Europe. I belong to both. I understand both. I agree and disagree with both on different issues. Unfortunately, I have experienced two very bitter divorces; that of my parents and my own. It is always the children who suffer most in a divorce. So, I would like to appeal on behalf of the children of the UK and Europe.

Cornered

It is never a good idea to back people into a corner. A ‘take it or leave it’ approach is like red rag to a bull. As a pro-European, even my instant reaction to some rhetoric has been “I’ll leave it, thanks”.

It is easy for the side that does not budge to blame the other side for all repercussions. European leaders knew that our Prime Minister was in a difficult situation. I wonder if they would have conceded more if they could have foreseen the fallout?

Lawyers

The trouble with lawyers is that they will not deal with ‘what ifs’. They will only advise after the event.

Generation gap

I woke up on Friday morning to a map of the UK that looked like a civil war. Britain divided between regions and generations.

Angela Merkel said that she does not want Brexit to be ‘nasty’. The European Union should note that the UK’s young people voted to remain in Europe. A nasty divorce will alienate them.

My 19-year-old son was disappointed. He went to Denmark last week. He was planning to go to Berlin, Stockholm and Barcelona this summer. It’s great to travel while young. It broadens the mind. My elder son is part of a generation that is open to Europe. He will remain so if the ‘divorce’ is handled with equanimity and an eye to future ‘rapprochement’. Will Europe restrict his travelling in future?

My 16-year-old son (who did not have a right to vote) was even more scathing about the election result. It is wrong to assume that his age group is not politically aware. The younger generation get their information from different sources to their parents and grandparents.

Founders’ dream

We are all different. After the Referendum results the EU’s founder members went into a huddle. Come again? Younger family members hate being excluded from discussions in a divorce. It can sow the seeds of future issues - often without foundation.

The founder members had a dream. I understand that they feel that Britain has slapped them in the face and spat on their dream. It hurts.

When a family grows in size you have to amend your dreams. That doesn’t mean that you can’t develop new dreams. A new reality can turn out better than your original dream - if only you give it a chance…

A new dream

The European dream grew out of the chaos of two world wars. Today’s political chaos is an opportunity to create a new European dream for generations to come.

St Patrick's Day Parade

Luck o' the Irish. London's St Patrick Day Parade took place in sunshine and blue skies. Thousands turned out to line the streets four days ahead of the official day of 17th March. There was a sea of green everywhere. You could join in whether you were Irish or not. The more the merrier as far as the Irish are concerned.

Two leprechauns at the London's St Patrick Day Parade

St Patrick
St Patrick is the Patron Saint of Ireland. The Feast of St Patrick has both religious and cultural significance. Its official date coincides with the day the saint died. Patrick was a Christian missionary and bishop in the 5th Century. According to legend he used the 3-leaved shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to Irish Pagans.

St Patrick at the start of the London parade

Large crowds
If Dublin was a little quiet on Sunday, it must have been because a fair number of the Irish started the celebrations in London. A bit like the Tour de France starts outside France maybe? As one of the parade commentators said, St Patrick's Day party starts early and continues into Easter.

Great Spirit of Inclusion

There was a wide age range. A baby fast asleep in his pram, but dressed for the occasion in the colours of the Irish flag. A grandmother walked behind her young granddaughter as she showed off her Irish dance skills.

A special needs group appeared walking and in wheelchairs among the throng. There were also people in wheelchairs within other groups. 

Participants made a special effort to come across and talk to the young girl in a wheelchair nearby me with her parents and sister.

Various protest groups also walked within the parade to promote their cause. There was even a group handing out leaflets for the British to vote to stay in the EU with the Irish.

Dublin Women seeking equal pay

The main part of the day was for merriment. There were music, dancing and green costumes galore. 

There were some great marching bands from Ireland, the UK and the USA. The very smart Texan marching band were brilliant. 

Coppell High School Marching Band from Texas in London

Their accompanying American majorettes put on a great display twirling their large green flags.

Texan Majorettes in the St Patrick's Day Parade

And of course there were flutes, pipes, drums and fiddles and bagpipes too.

Irish bagpipe marching band in St Patrick's Day Parade

It was great to see so many young Irish dancers included in the parade both on floats and in the parade.












Ooh! I musn't forget to mention the rugby float announcing the St Patrick's Day match...

Irish Rugby Float in London's St Patrick's Day Parade

The fire brigade and the police were represented in the parade too. The South London Irish Club even brought along an old fire engine from West Sussex.

The fire engine was one of a wide range of vehicles in the parade - from articulated trucks to roller skates. There were scooters, bikes, a mobile home, an old panda car and a JCB.

Roller skating behind an old police car 

JCB in London's St Patrick Day Parade

South American culture was represented too with dancers in very colourful costumes. The Irish welcome all.

Bolivian Dancers in St Patrick's Day Parade

South American dancers on London street

At the end of the parade the festivities continued in Trafalgar Square.

The queue at the bar in Trafalgar Square after the parade

Deaf ears at the EU?

Media Translation and Accessibility in the EU were discussed at UCL on 25th June. The presentations, documentary, videos and discussions highlighted weaknesses in the EU's current fulfilment of its accessibility obligations towards EU citizens.

The discussion arose from the research of three UCL PhD students: Silvia Kadiu, Aysun Kiran and Renata Mliczak. Their findings and report will be published later in 2015. This blog will focus on the round table at the end of the seminar.

Non-discrimination and capacity
The Demand Management Unit manages the European Commission's communication needs against Directorate General capacity. Translated web content forms an important part of the European Union's drive to bring itself closer to EU citizens. Non-discrimination is regarded as a primary factor in deciding on coverage.

EU and UN Convention
The European Union has signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It was stated that some 8% of Europe's population has some sort of accessibility requirement - e.g. sight impairment, hearing impairment or old-age-related. Increasing life expectancy and an ageing population are likely to increase these figures and future demand.

Article 7 of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) states that:

Member States shall encourage media service providers under their jurisdiction to ensure that their services are gradually made accessible to people with a visual or hearing disability.

Text should be available in alternative formats - e.g. braille, automated subtitles, etc. Today's communication requirements are not just confined to the translation of legal reports, legislation and press articles. Today the EU has to consider video, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Translators
During the session, one-off videos were played of in-house translators who kindly assisted the PhD students in their research at the Directorate-General for Translation. These were not official interviews on behalf of the EU, rather they reflected personal opinions. The interviews gave a revealing insight into the translators' personal experiences and opinions on the current status and approach to audiovisual translation within the EU.

The viewpoints expressed often seemed at odds with the official stance. The translators seemed to have limited audiovisual project experience during their time with DGT. They seemed to feel that DGT did not have a subtitling strategy. Such projects seemed to relate more to personal preference and audiovisual requirements were only considered at the end of the translation process. One translator rightly pointed out that European citizens do not read legal web content. They need more digestible and accessible content.

EU "Not leading by example"
After the videos, the invited panel drew out the issues. The chief concern was that the EU is "not leading by example".

Expert panel
The panel of experts included:
Dr Robert Adam, Research Associate, UCL (deaf native signer)
Dr Jorge Díaz-Cintas, Director of Centre for Translation Studies (CenTraS), UCL
Angeliki Petrits, Language Officer, European Commission Representation in the United Kingdom
Mrs Lidia Smolarek-Best, European Federation of Hard of Hearing People
Prof. Bencie Woll, Chair in Sign Language and Deaf Studies and Director of DCAL, UCL

Software issues
Dr Jorge Díaz-Cintas underlined that the European Commission's in-house Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) does not always understand all the issues. Jorge expressed particular sympathy for the translator who mentioned the difficulties of using subtitling software available within DGT. Lines are limited to 60 characters and the end-result looks ugly. There is far better freeware available for download online. However, for security reasons DGT translators are not permitted to download or install such software on their own.

Lack of drive
It was felt that there was an effort to reach out on accessibility issues, but there is a lack of drive to support such efforts from the top. Availability very much depends on the language concerned. For example, it was stated that many Greeks were unable to access information. As a result they often have to make do with US rather European audiovisual material.

Theory v. Practice
The panel stressed that there are clear descriptions on what is necessary for people with disabilities. The EU has signed up to the policy. However, there is a severe failure to understand the obligations related to this commitment. A voice-over is seen as an aesthetic choice rather than as a matter of access. The panel considered that there is a passing of responsibility. As the matter is not addressed properly at the top, those lower down the line do not have the necessary information or instructions to implement the audiovisual policy. It is seen as difficult for countries like Greece and Poland to argue for greater accessibility, if EU communications do not lead by example. By contrast, the BBC has set some standards to follow.

Web content progress
Angeliki Petrits defended the EU. She contrasted the subject of accessibility with web content from her perspective as an EU employee with 25 years' experience (no direct accessibility involvement). Angeliki stressed that ten years ago the EU did not have any web content. She considered that the EU was "100 years ahead of that now" having made a huge amount of progress.

Budget and political will
In order to address the accessibility issue, there has to be a top-down decision. There is immense pressure on resources with a 5% cut in budgets at the same time as an increase in translation volume into 24 official languages. The panel felt that the budget would be forthcoming if there was sufficient political will at the top.

Deaf MEPs and accessibility
Dr Robert Adam revealed that there are two deaf MEPs - one from Hungary and the other from Belgium. They have equality of access. The UN Convention makes reference to a sign language requirement and the two deaf MEPs have access to sign interpreters in the European Parliament Chamber.

The current situation was likened to the well-known British sitcom "Yes, Minister" with everyone working from a different hymn sheet. There needs to be equality in the treatment of spoken and sign languages.

Notable "absentees"
The panel also noted that not all Member States have agreed to the 2011 requirements. Many countries are behind Britain in its approach to accessibility. For example, I was surprised to hear that a country like the Netherlands, normally considered to be so forward-thinking, has not signed up (even more surprising given the high visibility of Dutch speakers in the European Commission's leadership today). Norway and the United States were also notable "absentees".

It was felt that the EU is not being proactive enough about accessibility. Greater efforts need to be made to automate the process. Dr Jorge Díaz-Cintas commented that in the United States they are making advances in machine translation for audiovisual translation. Only English and Spanish versions are produced there. The EU is struggling to meet requirements for a far greater number of official languages with an outdated and inadequate software.  There is a big disconnect between requirements and staff knowledge, experience and expertise with film and technology.

In conclusion, the panel stressed three points:

1. Draw attention to the legal basis for accessibility in the UN Convention
2. Strategy - Is there one? How can it be targeted to increase accessible services?
3. Positive note - 10 years ago there was no web content, today DGT is trying to make greater use of video.

The EU needs to offer a "best example" approach to accessibility and spread the word to Member States and globally.

Karen Andrews runs
Anglicity Ltd. She is
an entrepreneurial
French to English
translator, editor,
content writer and
marketing consultant. 

Contact karen@anglicity.com 
for further information 
on Anglicity's services.