Comments on: The quality of COVID-19 communication is a test of social cohesion https://languageonthemove.com/the-quality-of-covid-19-communication-is-a-test-of-social-cohesion/ Multilingualism, Intercultural communication, Consumerism, Globalization, Gender & Identity, Migration & Social Justice, Language & Tourism Sat, 12 Dec 2020 14:29:39 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 By: Peter OKeefe https://languageonthemove.com/the-quality-of-covid-19-communication-is-a-test-of-social-cohesion/#comment-76048 Sat, 12 Dec 2020 14:29:39 +0000 https://www.languageonthemove.com/?p=23238#comment-76048 In reply to Laura.

Hi Laura,

Thanks for commenting! I think machine translation is doubly insulting as we can all run our own translations through Google translate. It’s ridiculing isn’t it? We expect more from a government website offering language choices. How much would it cost to hire some professional translators? I hope too, that some lessons have been learned about communicating more effectively in minority languages in emergency situations. Also with regard to tolerance of people speaking languages other than English in Australia. 🙂

Cheers,

Peter

]]> By: Laura https://languageonthemove.com/the-quality-of-covid-19-communication-is-a-test-of-social-cohesion/#comment-75988 Thu, 10 Dec 2020 23:46:55 +0000 https://www.languageonthemove.com/?p=23238#comment-75988 Thanks, Peter, for sharing your case study. I think you’ve hit on some really important points: even where a bad translation can be understood, when it comes across as a poorly put-together machine translation, the indexical effects of the communication can be really negative: why would someone trust a message or messenger who cannot be bothered to invest in providing information clearly? What does this type of communication mean for how its recipients view themselves within a given community?

When you mentioned the door-knocking campaign, at first I was pleasantly surprised! With proper training, and recruiting people who can communicate in the community’s various languages, that could have been a super-effective strategy. Hopefully local, state and federal governments are learning important lessons out of the failures coming out of Covid-19 public health communication strategies.

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