In Dave Deck‘s Member Profile in our December 2022 issue, he told us that he graduated with a degree in Indonesian and Malayan studies in the late 1960s, spent 24 years in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF, including teaching Indonesian at what is now the Defence Force School of Languages and gaining NAATI accreditation while there), worked as a NAATI examiner and taught T&I at RMIT, and is now semi-retired but still takes on community translations. AUSIT’s current national treasurer, Han Xu, caught up with Dave via Zoom to ask more about his life in T&I.
‘… the languages you’ve done are all European, and Latin’s dead, why not do an Asian language?’
Han: Let’s start with your early life. What was the first language you learned, and when, and what led you to study Indonesian and Malay at university?
Dave: Well, in New South Wales high schools then, if you were in – I suppose you’d call it the academic stream, you did at least two languages, and I did three: French, Latin and German. At the end of high school one of my teachers said ‘What are you going to do at university?’ and I said ‘Well, I’ve enjoyed doing languages, I’ve found it fairly easy, so I’ll do them at university’, and he said, ‘Well, the languages you’ve done are all European, and Latin’s dead, why not do an Asian language?’
My parents were involved with a missionary association that was active in Sarawak, and a Malay speaker from there came to visit. Knowing I liked languages, he taught me a few words in Malay. I liked the sound of it, so when the teacher said ‘Why not do an Asian language?’ I chose Indonesian and Malay.
Han: So you could learn the two at the same time, at university?
Dave: Yes, well, linguistically they’re just dialects of the same language. If you can read Indonesian you can understand a lot of Malay, and vice versa. It’s a more pronounced difference than, say, between Australian English and American English, but they’re still mutually understandable, and at least 80 percent of the words mean exactly the same.
Han: And do the written forms use the same characters?
Dave: Yes, and back in 1972 the two countries agreed to standardise their spellings, which made life even easier.
Han: It sounds similar to Cantonese and Mandarin – both are Chinese, but they’re like different dialects.
Moving on, did you spend most of your time with the RAAF in Australia or overseas?
Dave: Mostly in Australia. I had brief visits to Indonesia when I was teaching at the School of Languages, taking students over there for in-country training – I spent three months there in 1985 – but I was mostly in Australia. But the School has a policy that 50 percent or more of the staff have to be native speakers, so in the staffroom we spoke Indonesian all the time, and it was like being in Indonesia! Native speakers are sometimes surprised that I speak their language so fluently, and I say, ‘Well, I’ve worked with you guys, I just copied what you do!’
Han: What did you enjoy most during your time with the RAAF?
Dave: Well, I spent eight years at the School of Languages and another 16 in non-language roles, mostly education related. And about 18 months after leaving the RAAF, I returned to the School of Languages as a civilian and worked there for another 14 years. During that time I was made responsible for developing a language proficiency assessment policy for the Defence Force: writing an assessment manual and defining the various levels of language proficiency, which was very interesting, and had a lot of carry-over to my later role, teaching at RMIT.
Han: You’ve certainly played very diverse roles in the language industry. Which did you find the most interesting?
Dave: Well, being a T&I practitioner is interesting, but I found teaching other people how to become practitioners, as a trainer and assessor, more interesting. For instance, when I was a NAATI examiner in Melbourne I used to help run candidate preparation workshops too. I looked at the materials we had when I first started doing it and said ‘It’s all very theoretical’, so I made them much more practical.
Later I taught at RMIT, the foundations of T&I and also advanced theories. I really enjoyed that because again, while still teaching the theory, I was able to bring a lot of practical experience into it. If you just teach it as theory, the students [here Dave mimes falling asleep and snoring] – they have to see the practical value of it. Every lecture I gave was full of practical examples, which I think they appreciated.
Han: Yes, I teach interpreting at Hong Kong Poly U, and when I talk about theory, the students turn to their phones and laptops, but when I bring in one of my own T&I experiences, their attention returns to me … without a practical story or interesting examples, students don’t engage. They like teachers who have lots of experience, and share stories of what they’re likely to encounter when they become practitioners.
Dave: Yes, I’ve enjoyed most of the roles I’ve had, but I found that one particularly valuable.
Han: What kind of T&I work did you take on when you returned to civilian life?
Dave: A wide variety, mostly via LSPs – I was accredited in both directions, English into Indonesian and vice versa, so for example if a school wanted to make its parent information brochure available to Indonesian parents, an agency would ask me to translate it. It could be almost anything – legal stuff, medical … and it was the same with interpreting, mainly legal – police work and courts – plus work with social workers and doctors and in hospitals, and a little work in schools …
Han: You’ve worked in T&I in Australia for many years. What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry over this time?
Dave: Well, community T&I has now been recognised for what it is, whereas some people used to take the attitude that you’re just dabbling, you’re not a serious interpreter; and if you’re not translating two hundred thousand words a year, you’re not a serious translator. In fact, I think Australia has been something of a world leader in community T&I, in that a lot of other countries are only now starting to appreciate that this is a very necessary part of the political scene, whereas in Australia it’s been recognised for much longer. And with all the good work that Erika [Gonzalez, AUSIT’s most recent past president] did during COVID, and the clinical guidelines that were put out a few years ago, we’re at last reaching a stage where other professionals are recognising that we’re an essential part of the system, just as much as they are.
Han: Yes, in an email this morning we were described as frontline workers. I like that! I’ve worked as a T&I practitioner in both China and Australia. The situation is very, very different there, and I agree that in Australia the professional status of practitioners has improved significantly over the past 20 or 30 years, not simply within ourselves in terms of professional competence, but also recognition from outside of T&I, as you said, from service users. I think that’s a wonderful achievement.
Dave: Yes, and a lot of those changes have only occurred in the last five years.
Han: I agree. COVID actually provided an opportunity for T&I, maybe also for AUSIT, to make its voice heard, because people realised that quality community T&I is really important, with the vaccine rollout plan and so on.
Dave: Yes, and I think the community translation protocols that we’ve developed are very important. In the past if, for example, a government agency wanted a factsheet translated into 40, 50, 60 languages, they’d give it to an LSP to send out to translators, who would just translate it and send it back. There was never any, sort of ‘Is it working? Are the community members understanding it?’ It was confusions that occurred during COVID that suddenly alerted everybody to the fact that you can’t just hand something to a translator and say ‘Here, do that.’ Even if they are a member of the target community, they have to consult with that community to work out the best way of getting the message across.
At RMIT we often got into that discussion. I’d give students texts to translate in tutorials, and some would say, ‘For my community, this is the wrong way to present it, you need a different approach’ … which is, effectively, why we’ve now developed the community translation protocols. I think that’s a major change.
Han: Now, can you briefly describe the character of the younger generation of T&I practitioners in Australia, as you’ve worked in education and have lots of experience nurturing them. Do you think they’re different from your generation?
Dave: Well, I came into T&I through a completely different channel. Look, a lot of the people I taught at RMIT were younger, they were very keen, they wanted to learn. If presented with the theory in a practical way they engaged with it. I can’t say I’ve been able to observe a lot of them outside that training environment, but I know most of them have gone on to work in T&I.
Han: When I was collecting data for my PhD, interviewing interpreters, one older practitioner said ‘I do interpreting as a hobby.’ The word ‘hobby’ makes it feel as if T&I isn’t a proper profession, it’s something you can do casually.
Dave: Well, I’ve never seen it that way, and I don’t think most of the younger ones do either.
Han: Yes, I think that’s a difference. Australia leads the world, in many ways, in T&I, but what challenges do you think the industry here faces?
Dave: Well, we’ve already touched on the fact that some people still seem to see T&I as an optional extra. I often get desperate calls, ‘I’ve got to submit a visa application’ (or whatever) ‘tomorrow, and I’ve just realised I need my birth certificate translated.’ Or someone emails me about a translation, I tell them what I charge, and I never hear from them again. I feel like saying, ‘If your washing machine breaks down, a mechanic can charge $120 just to walk in the door, and you’re complaining about paying $50? My skills are on a much higher level than washing machine repair.’ And many lawyers and doctors say ‘Why do you need an interpreter? I can talk to you, you seem to understand English!’ Yes, but not legal English, not medical terminology. So this is still a challenge.
The Minister responsible for multicultural affairs in the previous federal government once spoke at RMIT, and made a point of saying how good it is that we provide X number of hours of English language teaching for migrants – in other words, if only they would learn English, we wouldn’t have to spend money on interpreters – completely ignoring the fact that some people don’t have a high level of language aptitude. Especially if they’re older – older people can’t learn languages as well, so they need interpreters.
Han: Yes, and apart from language aptitude, everyone has the right to speak the languages they feel comfortable with.
What are your thoughts on translation technology? Recently everyone’s talking about ChatGPT. We gave ChatGPT two documents, one translated by machine translation [MT] and the other by a human translator, and Chat GPT said it couldn’t tell which was which, and both were equally good.
Dave: Well, even though T&I technologies are getting better all the time, and heaps of money is being poured into improving them, I still think there’s some truth in the statement, ‘Computers won’t replace translators, but translators who can use computers will replace translators who can’t use computers.’ I don’t think there are going to be major job losses in the short term. There may be eventually, but machines don’t have life experience while T/Is do, and that’s the crucial difference. I can use context to know how to translate something. It’s very difficult to teach context to a machine, because it hasn’t experienced life. That would be my short answer.
Han: Yes. My husband teaches computer science, including machine learning. When ChatGPT first came out, we had a huge argument about whether machines would replace humans in the future. From his perspective machines are so good, once you give them enough data they’ll know how to do anything, whereas my point of view is similar to yours: we need context, so the result of MT can’t be used directly, it always needs postediting.
Dave: Let’s take an example. I was interpreting for someone who had a noticeably low level of education, so I knew I had to lower the level of my Indonesian a bit to keep it simple enough for him to understand (even though theoretically I’m not supposed to do this). Only I, as a person, can assess the level of his language and gauge the level at which I should pitch my Indonesian.
Han: So I guess, as human T/Is, we’re able to take into consideration a lot of factors which machines cannot.
Let’s move on to AUSIT. When did you join?
Dave: In 1995. I was a loyal member and used to go along to annual general meetings, but I wasn’t particularly active until about eight years ago, as I had too much else going on. Of course, a lot of that was before AUSIT was running PD on a large scale. It’s changed a lot recently because people have to do PD for recertification. After I finished teaching at RMIT I thought ‘What can I usefully spend my time on now?’ I joined the Victorian Branch Committee, and was almost immediately asked to become the branch delegate, so suddenly I was on the National Council as well, which I hadn’t planned on – but I threw myself into it.
Han: Yes, I guess the first step in becoming more active is to join your state branch committee. My experience was similar, I’d been a member for many years but hadn’t been that active – I simply participated in PD and sometimes delivered it, but hadn’t really engaged in AUSIT matters – until I joined the Queensland Branch Committee. I agree with the National Council that we should encourage more people to do so, as we need new blood.
Dave: Yes, when I was chair of the Victorian Branch Committee I was constantly inviting new people onto it.
Han: I guess it’s sometimes hard to get people to join the committees, because attending the meetings is a commitment, but I hope more people will join in the future. Lots of older committee members have left this year in Queensland, but we do have a few new ones.
What do you think is the most interesting part of volunteering in AUSIT?
Dave: I think it’s different for different people. From my point of view, I wouldn’t say it was the most interesting part, but the motivation was giving back to the profession. I’d been doing that by teaching at RMIT, being a NAATI examiner, and running NAATI candidate preparation. Basically, by joining an AUSIT committee you’re giving back to the profession, rather than just taking.
Han: I agree. And you’ve contributed greatly to improving AUSIT’s Constitution in recent years.
Dave: Well, I’m not legally trained, but I understand legal concepts and how to express something in a legally sound way.
I recall … people saying ‘AUSIT should only be for the top 10 percent of the profession’ …
Han: We’ve already touched on my last question: how has AUSIT changed since you became a member?
Dave: Yes, and there’s more I can say about that. For years many members – especially those with influence, on the National Council or whatever – saw AUSIT as being like the AIIC [International Association of Conference Interpreters]: to become a member other members had to sponsor you, and I recall, soon after I joined the National Council, people saying ‘AUSIT should only be for the top 10 percent of the profession’, but some of us disagreed. I used to encourage my students to join, and I recall one ringing me and saying ‘I need an AUSIT member to vouch for me. Can you do it?’ I said yes, but then thought, ‘Why do you need to be vouched for? If you’re happy to pay the money, why can’t you just become a member?’ There was that implication, again, that if you’re doing community T&I you’re just dabbling, you’re only a real practitioner if you’re working at conferences all year. I think we’ve moved away from that attitude.
Also, over the last few years there have been two major thrusts. One is professionalising practitioners, which is why we’ve been running PD and so forth, and why it’s important to get as many people inside the tent as possible, because once they are inside they’re more likely to professionalise themselves.
The other thrust is professionalising AUSIT itself, by engaging others to carry out admin and paying people to take on the roles of Communications Officer, Education Officer and so on. In the past we had to do everything on a shoestring budget. When we joined Zoom, for example, we bought the cheapest possible subscription, and it was really only COVID that made us realise it didn’t do half the things we needed. We were always going ‘Buy the cheapest one!’ No, buy the one that’s going to give us the services we need.
Han: Yes, we definitely need some professional services. Hiring experts in areas like admin and finance lets us focus on what we’re good at.
What changes do you think we’re likely to see in AUSIT in the future?
Dave: Well, the main change I foresee has already started: five, six years ago we were one of the few organisations offering PD, and of course charging for it – that was a third or more of our income. Now the LSPs are offering PD too, as they should have years ago, and of course they don’t always charge for it because they can write it off as a tax deduction, so suddenly AUSIT has competition, which we’ll have to adjust to.
I’m not sure how realistic it is to think we’ll ever have 90 percent of the profession as AUSIT members. A few years ago, the liaison guy with the company we were using for admin said that for a professional organisation, AUSIT was actually doing really well in terms of the percentage of the profession that were members. Our membership was only a thousand or eleven hundred then, and now we’re over two thousand. I’d like to see more people becoming members, but I think many take the view of ‘What do I get out of it?’
Han: Yes, if people think we’re selling something, they naturally ask ‘What do I get?’, but it’s not about services or products you can buy, it’s more about getting this community together to meet each other and also contribute.
Dave: Yes, I’ll hold up this graphic that we were using a few years ago [see below]. The fish that was in the glass has jumped out and into the bowl, to join its community.
Dave: As a profession we’re more isolated than most. Lawyers, for example, tend to get to see what other lawyers are doing, teachers to see what other teachers are doing, and so on. In T&I, we don’t usually see what our colleagues are doing. At social events, when T/Is are chatting to each other, someone will often say, ‘I didn’t realise we weren’t supposed to do that! I thought we were allowed to’, or ‘Gosh, we can do that? Oh, that’s good!’ It’s often by talking to colleagues that we learn more about our roles, and I see that as one of the most useful things that AUSIT can provide.
Han: I agree. That’s also why AUSIT’s Community Translation Protocols and similar documents for members in other areas are important and useful.
Well, we’ve gone through all my questions. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?
Dave: I think we’ve done enough damage for one day!
Han: I really appreciate your time, Dave.
Dave: I’m happy to give it!
If you know a longstanding AUSIT member and would like to interview them for this series, get ‘in touch’ with our editors or an Editorial Committee member (in the In Touch Autumn 2024 flipbook, page 2) and we’ll take it from there.
