Community-Sourced Translation Glossary for International Development Work

国际发展社会表达了促进被边缘化人民参与发展倡议的集体承诺，正如联合国可持续发展目标承诺“不让任何人掉队”所表明的那样。在宣传材料中，非政府组织通常声称在提供发展项目时与接受援助的社区进行了密切磋商。然而，非政府组织听力区(LZ)AHRC资助的研究项目发现，非政府组织的实地工作人员往往不会说当地语言。田野工作者抱怨说，缺乏关于如何准确翻译单词的指导，并以一种适合文化的方式讨论禁忌话题。他们声称，翻译困难往往会导致项目失败。当被问及需要什么来帮助提高沟通质量时，他们呼吁专门为开发工作设计翻译词汇表。商业词典帮助不大，因为它们通常不包含复杂开发术语的翻译。LZ项目最后建议，应开发词汇表，并将其作为共同资源共享。这项提案为执行这项建议提供了一种创新的方式，它包含了基层参与的精神。FOF项目将为马拉维发展部门的利益攸关方创建一个双向奇切瓦-英语词汇表，马拉维是世界上最贫穷的国家之一，也是LZ国家的案例研究。该项目的主要创新之处在于，将在马拉维的六个讲习班中使用参与式方法生成词汇表，共约40人。讲习班参与者将代表词汇表的潜在用户，包括当地人民、国家/国际非政府组织和笔译员/口译员。他们将创建对当地理解发展至关重要的奇切瓦术语的翻译，以及开发工作中常用的英语术语的翻译。词汇表的内容将由讲习班参与者确定，并通过对潜在用户的在线调查和对发展政策文件的内容分析来了解。在专门创建的网站上发布词汇表草稿之前，社区将对其进行反馈。为发展利益攸关方创造最大价值的项目产出是一本在线培训手册，介绍了为那些有兴趣用其他语言复制这一过程的人创建词汇表所使用的方法。该手册将有奇切瓦语、英语、西班牙语和俄语版本，以便向国际读者和LZ项目参与者的语言群体传播。该网站还将包括这些语言的培训视频。将创建一个Facebook小组，以便使用过术语表/手册的人可以交流知识并发展实践社区。将向发展行为者广泛宣传这些成果，这些行为者希望确保沟通不畅不会妨碍实现发展工作预期的社会和经济效益(例如，国际捐助者、第三部门)。将鼓励他们使用资源并采取类似的举措，从而确保该项目的影响是深远和长期的。在项目结束时，现场工作人员将拥有他们所说的与社区建立更好关系所需的实用工具。社区将有权分享与其文化相关的关于发展的想法，这将加强它们向非政府组织阐明其需求并参与有关发展倡议的决策的能力。此外，在线资源将分享将建设马拉维国内外发展利益攸关方语言能力的知识。这将促进项目在资助期结束后的较长期可持续性。

The international development community has expressed a collective commitment to promote the participation of marginalised peoples in development initiatives, as illustrated by the pledge of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to 'leave no one behind'. In their publicity materials, NGOs usually claim to deliver development projects with close consultation of communities that receive their aid. However, the Listening Zones of NGOs (LZ) AHRC-funded research project found that NGO fieldworkers often do not speak the local language. Fieldworkers complained about lack of guidance on how to translate words accurately, and discuss taboo topics in a culturally appropriate way. They claimed that translation difficulties often lead to project failure. When asked what is needed to help improve the quality of communication, they appealed for a translation glossary specifically designed for development work. Commercial dictionaries are of little assistance because they often do not contain translations for complex development jargon. The LZ project concluded with a recommendation that glossaries should be developed and shared as a common resource. This proposal offers an innovative way to implement that recommendation, which embraces the ethos of grassroots participation. The FoF project will create a two-way Chichewa-English glossary for the use of stakeholders in the Malawi development sector, one of the poorest countries in the world and a LZ country case study. The key innovation of this project is that the glossary will be generated using participatory methods in six workshops in Malawi of c.40 people total. Workshop participants will represent potential users of the glossary, including local people, national/international NGOs and translators/interpreters. They will create translations for Chichewa terms that are crucial to local understandings of development, and translations for English terms that are commonly used in development work. The content of the glossary will be determined by workshop participants, and informed by an online survey of potential users and content analysis of development policy documents. Communities will give feedback on the draft glossary before it is published on a specially created website. The project output that creates the most value for development stakeholders is an online training manual on the methods used to create the glossary for those interested in replicating the process in other languages. The manual will be available in Chichewa, English, Spanish and Russian, in order to reach an international audience and the language groups of the participants of the LZ project. The website will also include training videos in these languages. A Facebook group will be created so that people who have used the glossary/manual can exchange knowledge and develop a community of practice. The outputs will be widely promoted to development actors who have an interest in ensuring that poor communication does not obstruct the achievement of the intended social and economic benefits of development work (e.g. international donors, third sector). They will be encouraged to use the resources and pursue similar initiatives, thus ensuring that the impact of the project is far-reaching and long-term. At the end of the project, fieldworkers will have the practical tools that they have stated that they require to build better relationships with communities. Communities will be empowered to share ideas about development as relevant to their culture, which will strengthen their capacity to articulate their needs to NGOs and participate in decision-making about development initiatives. Moreover, the online resources will share knowledge that will build the language capacity of development stakeholders within and outside of Malawi. This will promote the longer-term sustainability of the project after the end of the funding period.