Translation Methods

Historical Background

Translation methods grew out of the intercultural and cross-cultural communication needs that expanded toward the second half of the 20th century in the United States. The services of professional translators and interpreters became common in a variety of settings, including business, industry, health care, law, and education. In the clinical counseling field, translation and interpreting was incorporated as immigration from Asia, Latin America, and Eastern European countries increased the number of clients requesting help at counseling agencies. Increases in demand for non-English-speaking counseling in the United States, coupled with a shortage of non-English-speaking counselors, have forced organizations to become responsible for offering interpreters and translators as part of their intake, assessment interviewing, and short-term intervention services. The high expense of hiring professional interpreters has led to the need to incorporate the utilization of paraprofessional foreign language interpreters. The increased need of translators continues to pose challenges. Few counseling organizations hire certified interpreters, and many erroneously utilize the services of bilingual staff not trained in translation methods or mental health, or the relatives of the clients requesting services. The American Counseling Association's ethical guidelines of 2005 include the new recommendation of providing interpreters or translators for non-English-speaking clients.

The initial attention paid to the role of language and translation in long-term clinical counseling comes from the psychodynamic tradition. In the 1970s, authors argued that accessing certain material is more difficult for people who have had an early encoding in a different language and that bilingual clients have different experiences of self according to which language they use. Recent contributions to the psychodynamic literature posit that bilinguals may have two different language codes and that each language system may be related to different experiences of the self. Treatment proposals include analyzing the dual experience of language by utilizing a translation method called language switching.

...