Be the change you wish to seeGraham H. Turner

Who can we trust these days?

Who can we trust these days?

• Trust the market? But the economy is in a mess

Who can we trust these days?

• Trust the market? But the economy is in a mess

• Trust industry? But they are rushing to make money– BP cut corners in Florida

and caused chaos

Who can we trust these days?

• Trust the market? But the economy is in a mess

• Trust industry? But they are rushing to make money– BP cut corners in Florida

and caused chaos

• Trust business leaders? But they put their personal interests first– Sir Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin’s

bank failed but he was ready to take a £700,000-a-year pension

Who plays by the rules?

Who plays by the rules?

• Sporting role-models find more and more ways to cheat– Diving to win

penalties;

Who plays by the rules?

• Sporting role-models find more and more ways to cheat– Diving to win

penalties;– Feigning injury;

Who plays by the rules?

• Sporting role-models find more and more ways to cheat– Diving to win

penalties;– Feigning injury;– Anything if it puts the

ball into the back of the net.

Who can we believe?

Who can we believe?

• Scientists who massage the facts?– University of East Anglia kept

climate change statistics secret

Who can we believe?

• Scientists who massage the facts?– University of East Anglia kept

climate change statistics secret

• Ministers who spin the truth to win arguments?– The ‘dodgy dossier’ claimed

Iraq might attack Britain within 45 minutes

Who can we believe?

• Scientists who massage the facts?– University of East Anglia kept

climate change statistics secret

• Ministers who spin the truth to win arguments?– The ‘dodgy dossier’ claimed

Iraq might attack Britain within 45 minutes

• Public servants who have lost sight of who serves whom?– This MP claimed a duck-

house on expenses!

Crisis of trust, crisis of mistrust?

• Everyone spins• Everyone is

‘economical with the actualité’

• Everyone doubts everyone else

• Everyone takes advantage of others

• Everyone puts their own interests first

Crisis of trust, crisis of mistrust?

• Everyone spins?• Everyone is

‘economical with the actualité’?

• Everyone doubts everyone else?

• Everyone takes advantage of others?

• Everyone puts their own interests first?

• “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”

On trust

• Anthony Giddens The Consequences of Modernity (1991)

• Francis Fukuyama Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (1995)

• Piotr Sztompka Trust: A Sociological Theory (1999)• Onora O’Neill A Question of Trust (2002)• Robert C. Solomon & Fernando Flores Building

Trust in Business, Politics, Relationships and Life (2003)

• Russell Hardin Trust and Trustworthiness (2004)• Marek Kohn Trust (2008)• Anthony Seldon Trust (2009)

• Onora O’Neill’s BBC Reith Lectureshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2002/

Onora O’Neill (adapted)

• “The ‘crisis of trust’ that supposedly grips us is better described as an attitude, indeed a culture, of suspicion. Our new culture, which is promoted as the way to reduce untrustworthiness and to secure ever more perfect control of institutional and professional performance, is taking us in the wrong direction.

• Instead of working towards intelligent accountability, we are obsessed with blame and compensation. This is pretty miserable both for those who feel suspicious and for those who are suspected of untrustworthy action.

• We have placed formidable obstacles in our own path: it is time to start removing them!”

How was trust lost?

How was trust lost? (1)

1. Diffusion of moral codes2. Decline in the sense of belonging

(local, spontaneous norm-enforcement replaced by abstract principles and legal constraints)

3. Continued social exclusion (“the scale of inequality provides a powerful lever on the psychological well being of all”: Wilkinson & Pickett, The Spirit Level)

4. Corporate greed and corruption5. Rise of consumerism and rights culture

(responsibilities build more trustworthy people; rights build trust-demanding people)

6. The rise of violence and fear of violence

How was trust lost? (2)

7. Disappointment in politicians: scandals and over-inflated expectations

8. Media irresponsibility9. Disrespect of expertise

(the Wikipedia effect)

10. Increase in accountability and surveillance (on an average day in London, CCCTV cameras will capture one’s image 300 times)

11.Dehumanising scale and pace (no time to reflect, relate and build confidence in one another)

In the interpreting world…

Who needs to trust and be trusted?

Trust in practitioners …

Interpreter let illegal immigrant translate raid tapes Yorkshire Post 09 July 2010 www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Interpreter-let-illegal-immigrant-translate.6412536.jp

A registered interpreter received a suspended jail term after he committed a "serious breach of trust" in allowing an illegal immigrant to translate tapes seized in a counter-terror raid. Noor Mohammad, 30, from Bradford, was impersonated by an unqualified Pakistani national on the run from the authorities who had outstayed his student visa.

Sentencing him to four months in jail, Judge David Stockdale QC told him: "The work which interpreters carry out for the police and the courts and for other agencies is serious and important work. The public places its trust in interpreters and you breached that trust. This is a serious breach of trust. A clear message must go out that breach of trust placed in registered interpreters will be dealt with severely by the courts."

When later interviewed by police, Noor Mohammad said he did not tell them of the switch because self-employed interpreters regularly fill in for each other and claimed: "It happens all the time, it’s all right."

… but all need to trust all others

• As important as it is to be able to trust practitioners, trust should be 360º– Public authorities and policymakers– Regulators and representative bodies– Trainers– Employers and funders– Majority language service-users– Minority language service-users– Researchers/analysts– Public opinion formers

Who does this mean in the SLI field?

Who does this mean in the SLI field?

– Representative bodies for the profession– Government/statutory bodies, councils, local authorities– Qualification and accreditation agencies, and individual

evaluators/examiners– Universities, colleges, private and third sector training

providers – Interpreting agencies (state, private and third sector) – Hearing practitioners (at whatever career stage) and

Deaf practitioners– Spoken and signed language service-users, as

individuals and on behalf of institutions– Students, scholars, service managers and assessors – Journalists and commentators shaping public attitudes

Which translates into…

• Do Deaf people trust interpreters to represent them appropriately?

• Do Hearing service-users trust interpreters to abide by a formal code of good conduct?

• Do institutions trust specialist agencies to provide a cost-effective service (or turn to cheaper, less knowledgeable, non-specialist providers instead)?

• Do agencies trust interpreters to ask for fair fees?• Do students trust trainers to prepare them well for the

workplace?• Do interpreters trust technology-centred purchasers to enable

them to deliver personally-tailored services?• … and on it goes

Why is trust so hard for everyone?

Legitimacy: no-one holds the whole elephant

Why is trust so hard for everyone?

How is trust recovered?

How is trust recovered?

To be trusted, be trustworthy

To be trustworthy, be trusted

How is trust recovered?

1. Hold firmly to a single moral code

2. Enhance opportunities for belonging

3. Enhance social inclusion

4. Enhance corporate responsibility and transparency, reduce greed and corruption

5. Educate the young about duties and responsibilities

6. Recognise that everyone suffers by anti-social acts

7. Prize and honour integrity

8. A trusting state builds a trustworthy population

9. Building trust takes time: make time to reflect together

10. Share perspectives, respect expertises

How is trust recovered?

1. Hold firmly to a single moral code• “The interpreter who abides by, and respects the authority

of, the Code 'buys into' the relevant mode of regulation for workers in this field. SLIs do take their Codes of Ethics extremely seriously, seeing them as the primary codification of their role and responsibilities, and perceive their working practices to be closely delimited and controlled by the Codes. Their view seems to be that the Code they follow is the conveyor of professional status.” (Turner, 1996)

• “(In our survey) Interpreters were typically very ready to relate their actions to the Code – for better or worse. This in itself, we stress, is evidence of a real willingness to accept a fully regulated professional approach.” (Tate & Turner, 1997)

How is trust recovered?

2. Enhance opportunities for belonging- Belonging is a core factor that makes for a meaningful life

- Successful societies spread ownership and stakeholdership

- Belonging confers a sense of dignity and opens up opportunities to trust and be trusted

- Belonging builds pride in oneself and in fellow-members

- So, reach out and connect to surrounding communities

- ‘Let those who care, share’

3. Enhance social inclusion- It remains the case that interpreters’ wellbeing and general

Deaf wellbeing are inseparable (Pollitt, 1991)

- Develop the diversity of (all parts of) the workforce

How is trust recovered?

4. Enhance corporate responsibility– Introduce greater transparency in business practices (eg

where the money goes and why) in private, public and charitable sectors

– Deal severely with sharp practice and corruption– Challenge the ‘cover up culture’ to show the public that

justice is being done– “Sponsoring a school in Kenya is nothing if the whole

practice of the company is not ethical” – Anthony Seldon

5. Educate the young about duties and responsibilities

– ‘To feel good, do good’ (Tal Ben-Shahar)– It is government that sets moral boundaries and says that

there are responsibilities which have to be met

How is trust recovered?

6. Recognise that everyone suffers by anti-social acts

- Relationships in this stakeholder-world are fundamentally interdependent

- Where the circuit breaks for one, it breaks for all

7. Prize and honour integrity- We are working towards a world where (we hope) it may

be taken for granted: until then, acknowledge it

- Choose to be led by those who exemplify such integrity

- Though ‘indifference can be seductive’ (Elie Wiesel), do not look away from impropriety

How is trust recovered?

8. A trusting state builds a trustworthy population

- The state’s increasing culture of suspicion – of professionals, businesses and individuals – is part of the problem over the long term, not part of the solution

- Government needs to find intrinsic methods of ensuring civilised behaviour and professional conduct

- Some will be dishonest: all need not be dragged down

- A presumption of trust, rather than of mistrust

9. Building trust takes time- Make time to reflect together: allow trust to develop

- Re-connect stakeholder communities at the local level

How is trust recovered?

10.Share perspectives, respect expertises

- Does the digimodern world suggest how community perspectives might be signalled? Yes: we trust us.

- But recognise that it is part of the nature of interpreting itself that the participants in interaction have limited awareness of the situation

- Dispassionate enquiry and insight can contribute

££££££££££££££££££££££££

• Mistrust and suspicion are unsustainably expensive

• Paying for defensive ‘junk interpreting’ is inefficient

• Pointless battles for resources generate nothing but waste

• Vacuous consultation with the ill-informed produces unconstructive outcomes

• Enforced competition is divisive and leads to fragmentation

• In 2010, we cannot afford to be spending money unproductively

• Can we please stop all of this nonsense?

Does T&I theory talk about trust?

• Not a lot, as such. But it does help us to bring this discussion finally back to centre upon SLIs.

• Anthony Pym Pour une éthique du traducteur (1997)

• Pym stresses that translators are primarily responsible not to the original author, nor to the commissioner, nor to the readers, but mostly to the profession and thus to fellow translators.

• This is a call to action. The translator’s ethics, it argues, concern primarily the way in which she establishes the social relationships that determine how she will practice her profession.

• May I close with a Scottish call to action?

Jimmy Reid (1932-2010)

• Born in Govan, Reid was a shipyard worker and trade union official and was elected as a city councillor

Jimmy Reid (1932-2010)

• Born in Govan, Reid was a shipyard worker and trade union official and was elected as a city councillor

• Alienation, his speech when he became Rector of Glasgow University in 1972, was 40 years ahead of its time

• The New York Times printed it in full, describing it as “the greatest speech since Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address”

• http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_167194_en.pdf

Alienation (1)

• “People feel alienated by society. Today [this] is more widespread, more pervasive than ever before… It is the cry of men who feel themselves the victims of blind economic forces beyond their control. It is the frustration of ordinary people excluded from the processes of decision making. The feeling of despair and hopelessness that pervades people who feel with justification that they have no real say in shaping or determining their own destinies.

• Society and its prevailing sense of values leads to another form of alienation. It alienates some from humanity. It partially de-humanises some people, makes them insensitive, ruthless in their handling of fellow human beings, self-centred and grasping.”

Alienation (2)

• “It is easy and tempting to hate such people. However, it is wrong. They are as much products of society and a consequence of that society, human alienation, as the poor drop out. They are losers. They have lost essential elements of our common humanity. Man is a social being. Real fulfilment for any person lies in service to his fellow men and women.

• The challenge we face is that of rooting out anything and everything that distorts and devalues human relations.

• [I note] the widespread, implicit acceptance of the term ‘the rat race’. We are scurrying around, scrambling for position, trampling on others, back-stabbing, all in pursuit of personal success…”

Alienation (3)

• “Reject these attitudes. Reject the values and false morality that underlie these attitudes.

• A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings.

• Reject the insidious pressures in society… that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts and before you know where you are, you’re a fully paid up member of the ratpack.

• The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit.”

Onora O’Neill (again, adapted)

• “Far from suggesting that we should trust blindly, I argue that we should place trust with care and discrimination. Placing trust well can never guarantee immunity from breaches of trust: life does not provide guarantees. Many changes will be needed.

We will need to give up childish fantasies that we can have total guarantees of others’ performance.

We will need to free professionals and the public service to serve the public.

We will need to work towards more intelligent forms of accountability.

We will need to rethink a culture in which spreading suspicion has become a routine activity.

Onora O’Neill (again, adapted)

• “Far from suggesting that we should trust blindly, I argue that we should place trust with care and discrimination. Placing trust well can never guarantee immunity from breaches of trust: life does not provide guarantees. Many changes will be needed.

We will need to give up childish fantasies that we can have total guarantees of others’ performance.

We will need to free professionals and the public service to serve the public.

We will need to work towards more intelligent forms of accountability.

We will need to rethink a culture in which spreading suspicion has become a routine activity.

There is no way of eliminating all risk of disappointment. Nevertheless, “it is better to be sometimes cheated than never to have trusted” (Samuel Johnson).

• “And time shall surely prove the truth that man is good by nature” – Robert Burns

Be the change you wish to see

Professor Graham H. TurnerCentre for Translation &

Interpreting in ScotlandDepartment of Languages &

Intercultural StudiesHeriot-Watt UniversityEdinburgh EH9 1HHUnited Kingdom

g.h.turner@hw.ac.uk