RECENT RESEARCH
Researchers: Miranda Lai, Erika Gonzalez Garcia and Jacqueline Skewes
Institution: RMIT University, funded by the City of Melbourne
From late 2021 to mid-2023, RMIT worked on a project to develop LGBTIQA+ terminology resources for translators, interpreters and other users and make them accessible online.
The goal was to facilitate use of respectful and inclusive language by T/Is when translating and interpreting for LGBTIQA+ members of culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
We were greatly supported in our endeavours, with funding provided by the City of Melbourne and knowledge by our project partner, Budi Sudarto from the Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council (AGMC). Budi provided training and facilitated the focus groups, and anyone who has met them knows what a pleasure it is to learn from them.
After much discussion, seven languages were chosen for resource development: Arabic, Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, Thai and Vietnamese. We also explored including Indonesian, Persian, Portuguese and Turkish, but were unable to find enough participants to proceed past the first stage.
The project involved:
- language-specific focus groups with LGBTIQA+ members of CALD communities (Mar–Nov 2022)
- language-specific workshops with T&I practitioners (Nov 2022–Mar 2023)
- 1:1 interviews with T&I practitioners (Mar–May 2023)
- user test of the final online repository of terminology (August 2023)
- launch of website (September).
You can access the brand spanking new multilingual LGBTIQA+ website here.
