INTRODUCTION
Gabriella B. KLEIN Dipartimento di Scienze Umane e della Formazione Università degli Studi di Perugia / Italy Welcome speech
Alessandro Maria VESTRELLI Secretary General of the Social Affairs & Immigration Office Regione Umbria, Perugia / Italy Welcome speech
Gabriella B. KLEIN Transnational Coordinator of e-SPICES Presentation of e-SPICES Project & Partners
WRITTEN BUREAUCRATIC LANGUAGE AND TERMINOLOGY – THE PROBLEM OF FILLING IN FORMS Paola de ROSA (IT) Università degli Studi di Perugia / ITALY Simplification of bureaucratic language in Italy: legal aspects, outcomes, and intercultural perspective (after year 2000) The paper presents the following issues:
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Collection of Italian Government recommendations, laws, and policies aiming at the simplification of bureaucratic language.
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Publications & Projects aiming at the application of Government recommendation.
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Intercultural perspective: is it taken into account in the different laws, recommendations, publications, projects?
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Example of Bad & Good practices on the basis of identified criteria.
Poster: Simplification of bureaucratic language in Italy: legal aspects, outcomes, and intercultural perspective (after year 2000)
Katherine SAES (NL/IT) Hogeschool Zuyd, Sittard / The Netherlands - Key & Key Communications, Deruta (PG) / Italy Application for a permanent Permit of Stay in the Netherlands This analysis concentrates on the visual and verbal communicational aspects of the form for indefinite permit of stay for foreigners. Moreover there will be intercultural recommendations on how to change both of the aspects mentioned above, so that the form will be more user-friendly for its users. Poster: Aanvraag of wijziging van een verblijfsvergunning regulier voor onbepaalde tijd / Application for a permanent Permit of Stay in the Netherlands
Magdalena MOS (IT/PL) Dipartimento di Scienze Umane e della Formazione Università degli Studi di Perugia / Italy Application for registering the residence in Poland for EU members The present analysis, in the first place, concentrates on the social background and statistics that show the actual situation of EU citizens in Poland and their obligations. According to the Polish law, regulation established in 2006 that every EU citizen, after 3 months of stay in Poland, must submit “Application for Registering the Residence” at the local Provincial Office. The analysis of this form concentrates mainly on visual aspects and some verbal aspects particularly relevant from an intercultural point of view. Moreover, also language requirements are pointed out related to practical linguistic skills necessary to complete this form and obtain the legal document of registration. Poster: Wniosek o zarejestrowanie pobytu / Application for registering the residence in Poland for EU members
Koffi M. DOSSOU (IT) Key & Key Communications, Deruta (PG) / ITALY Poster: Re-design of the first page of the Polish form Wniosek o zarejestrowanie pobytu / “Application for registering the residence” in Poland for EU members
Nilifer SELVI (TR) Mehmet Begen Ilkögretim Okulu Okul Aile Birligi (Parents-teacher Association), Konya / TURKEY Some examples of Turkish forms Some examples of bureaucratic-institutional forms are presented here: · Declaration of Residence Permit from Konya Directorate of Police Forces(two pages) · Doctor’s visit Paper from the University of Selçuk, Konya · Information Sheet for Foreign Students in Selçuk University, Konya
Maria Teresa PARIS (IT) Provincia di Perugia / Presidenza / Vice Presidenza Servizio Informazione Comunicazione Decentramento Two communication projects of the Province of Perugia: A) Citizens and Public Administration - The new rights of active citizenship from an administrative perspective B) From Citizen’s Counter to multifunctional service - Project for decentralization of services within the province.
Gabriella B. KLEIN (IT) Dipartimento di Scienze Umane e della Formazione Università degli Studi di Perugia / Italy Dealing with bureaucratic terminology No language utterance (word, sentence, discourse) is fully understandable without its socio-cultural context and situation in which it is used (pronounced or written). Therefore neither pure linguistics/semantics nor pure pragmatics can account completely for the meaning of an utterance. An utterance per se is situated and context-bound, and its meaning is negotiable by its users (speaker/writer and listener/receiver). Although linguistics, semantics, pragmatics are necessary tools for the definition of a meaning in its static nature, Conversation Analysis offers tools for the understanding of a meaning in its dynamic nature which lastly determines the understanding among ‘language users’. Since the users of a language are not necessarily native speakers, the negotiation of meaning becomes even more relevant to be studied. Key concepts are ‘context’, ‘contextualisation cue’ and ‘contextualisation convention’, ‘repair’, ‘reformulation’, ‘categorisation device’. It is often taken for granted that terminological expressions - defined for specialised fields of our social life (such as e.g. bureaucracy) - are created and defined in order to avoid any semantic and pragmatic ambiguity. While on the one hand terminology of a special field is a practical tool to reach a common understanding, on the other hand terminology, being created and defined by specialists of the related field, is also a tool for establishing social boundaries: insiders and outsiders. Poster: Dealing with bureaucratic terminology: two case studies (a form to fill and a service interaction)
INTERACTIONS IN INSTITUTIONAL SETTINGS Rita TEMMERMAN & Lotte CLIJSTERS (BE) Centrum voor Vaktaal en Communicatie (Department of Applied Linguistics), Erasmushogeschool Brussel, Brussels / BELGIUM Intercultural Mediation and Communication in Hospitals in Brussels Brussels being a particularly multicultural and multilingual city, medical practitioners and hospital staff are frequently confronted with patients who have little or no knowledge of the two official languages (French and Dutch) and communication may turn out to be problematic. In order to successfully deal with intercultural communication, several initiatives were taken by Brussels hospitals and local governments, one of which was the implementation of the function of ‘intercultural mediator’. The intercultural mediator intervenes in situations in which communication between staff and patient is unsuccessful. He or she works proactively too, reaching out to those patients who do not speak one of the official languages of Belgium. Through interviews with medical staff, intercultural mediators, social interpreters and patients, we have attempted to find out how intercultural communication happens in practice. Analysis of written and spoken text materials gave insight into communicative strategies. Observations at several patients intake and reception desks allowed for a first tentative formulation of further research questions and strategies concerning intercultural multilingual practices in Brussels hospitals. In this presentation we will introduce an attempt at ‘action research’ in the field of intercultural communication in three hospitals in Brussels. Students of the Bachelor in Applied Linguistics and the Master in Translation of Erasmushogeschool Brussels took part in this project.
Sergio PASQUANDREA (IT) Dipartimento di Scienze del Linguaggio Università per Stranieri (University for Foreigners), Perugia / ITALY The use of technical language and its effect on doctor-patient communication in intercultural settings Doctor-patient interaction has been described as the encounter of two potentially conflicting voices: the “voice of medicine”, embodied by the doctors, and the “voice of lifeword”, represented by the patients. Research has shown that doctors tend to elide elements such as personal concerns, affectivity and “folk theories”, brought up by the patients, in order to encode all of the information in an objective, “technical” view. One of the means through wich the “voice of medicine” is conveyed is the use of the medical jargon, which the laypersons often perceive as abstruse and distancing. This contribution takes into account a corpus of interactions between Italian doctors and foreign patients, with different degrees of mastery of the Italian language. The communicative strategies of the doctors, particularly in regard of the treatment of technical terms, will be analyzed through the methodologies of conversational analysis and interactional sociolinguistics. The effects of such strategies on doctor-patient communication in intercultural settings will also be discussed. Poster: The use of technical language and its effects on doctor-patient communication in intercultural settings
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION Anna CILIBERTI (IT) Università per Stranieri (University for Foreigners), Perugia / ITALY The role of the cultural mediator in processes of women's integration in the sanitary sphere Territorial project: Fondo Europeo per l’integrazione di cittadini di paesi terzi. Ministero dell’Interno. Azione 4, annualità 2009: “Iniziative di mediazione culturale” The project aims at strengthening the cultural mediators’ role in a ‘specific’ integration process: that of women immigrants in the socio-sanitary sector; more specifically, in obstetrics and gynaecology. A pilot vocational training programme for cultural mediators will be implemented in order to mobilise an all-embracing support for women in the chosen sector. Mediators should not only be trained to act as translators and interpreters during women’s, or their children’s, medical visits but also to be able to help them solve problems in ‘real life’ situations: in external relations with institutions and services devoted to women and children, in dealing with regulations, codes, special services’ articulation, relation with the territorial bureaucracy, etc.
Katharina KUCHER (DE) Forschungsinstitut Betriebliche Bildung (f-bb) gGmbH, Nürnberg / Germany ICC Training for Public Servants – Experiences from Germany The paper deals with special needs regarding learning arrangements in institutional-bureaucratic contexts and experiences with blended learning courses.
Sonia ERCOLANI (IT) Scuola Umbra di Amministrazione Pubblica – Villa Umbra, Pila (PG) / ITALY ICC training courses at the Umbrian School of Public Administration - Villa Umbra Over the last decade the School of Public Administration Villa Umbra, has worked alongside the Umbrian Public Administration to support innovation and modernization processes, developing an important experience in the Inter Cultural Communication (ICC) field too. In the paper we present this experience.
Andrew McGUIRE (PL) EST Lifelong Learning Centre, Wadowice / Poland Articulate Courses for DOKEOS EST Lifelong Learning Centre has always been focused on the tools and knowledge required by individuals to enable their interaction and integration into Europe, the world, or any other sphere. An important aspect of this work is language, and as a part of our research into the transfer of SPICES methodology to an e-learning platform, we have developed a small collection of English courses based on texts taken from the UK government's Directgov website. We present some conclusions resulting from our attempts to develop a methodology for transferring existing information into systematic learning, and the insights this work has provided regarding institutional texts, the dokeos e-learning platform, addon software for dokeos, and e-learning in general.
Maria MALAPETSA (GR) e-ISOTIS - Information Society Open to Impairments, Athens / GREECE Cultural awareness as a crucial contributor in working effectively with people from different cultural background One of the basic competences for lifelong learning is cultural awareness. It is a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are particularly necessary for personal fulfillment and development, but a the same time vital and indispensable for people working with minority groups, adult in mobility, people of different cultural background. Being able to rate yourself in terms of understanding how your cultural background has influenced the way you think and act can alter the way you work, interact, think and behave. Especially in educational settings and within organizations that work with minorities, the grasp of the concepts and implications of difference and power can significantly reform the relationship and services offered to people of different cultures.
Hilde van SCHAEREN (NL) Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Social Work faculty, Sittard / The Netherlands Together to get there Together to get there PPT Zuyd University of Applied Sciences offers students a Cultural Diversity minor which takes place in the ten last 10 weeks of the second semester. The minor enables students to look from different perspectives to possible problems in contact with “the other”. This is especially relevant if this other has a different cultural background. Successful passing the exams gives students right to 15 European Credits. The minor consists of three parts, each part has a different didactical approach. The main objective of the project is to activate (with a focus on excluded) people in order to improve their possibilities to participate in the society and to create an awareness (within the dominant group/ or within minorities) about the possible negative impact of prejudices on behaviour and attitude towards people with differing cultural backgrounds. Students will try to discover together with their network a key issue or problem/a hidden barrier (related to an intercultural problem). Together they will try to discover hidden barriers, which can also be found in institutional bureaucratic levels.
Michele CAPURSO (IT) Dipartimento di Scienze Umane e della Formazione Università degli Studi di Perugia / Italy Telling about my hospital. ‘Intercultural’ communication child / adult in hospitals In this presentation the term “intercultural” is to be seen in a vertical sense (child-adult) rather than as a kind of horizontal movement across cultural and physical borders; that is, as a way of comparing adults beliefs and thinking with children’s ways of understanding and communicating. Whenever an adult sees a worried child, he may smile comparing the child’s problem to his own “real” life troubles. With this attitudes grown ups neglect the real core of the child’s crisis, which is not represented by the objective situation per se, but is actually due to the sense of helplessness and loneliness that child is actually feeling in that moment. To tell the truth, it is likeable that the very amiable smile, instead of helping the child, it actually contributes to increase the child’s loneliness and sense of vulnerability which represent the real obstacle to face at the time. Young people worries are frequently amplified by the incapability of the adults to recognise children emotional experiences at a deeper level and therefore to address their needs for protection accordingly. Such lack of understanding is often increased by a communication glitch. Adults expect children to express themselves via the spoken language, but such anticipation takes for granted the ability to use and master a more abstract form of thought that children can reach only when thy grow older and become more mature. Sure enough, in order to be able to explain a problem to an adult, a child should master at a high level the verbal-linguistic code and he should also be able to use it not only for the everyday life and task, but also to express a deeper discomfort. Such discomfort is seldom characterized by clear profiles and it could emerge to his consciousness only in a partial and limited way. While it’s true that children posses the same feelings array and range of the adults, it is also true that they face a great deal of difficulties when we ask them to verbalise the reason for their discomfort and their own feelings.
Nevin PECORELLI (IT) Cooperativa Sociale PERUSIA S.C.S. Onlus - Center for Refugees and Asylum Seekers, Perugia / ITALY Does ‘inter’ really matter? The Italian government’s redefining of the cultural mediator as an intercultural mediator Increases in immigration highlight the need for increases in cross-cultural communicators. In Italy cross-cultural communicators were known as cultural mediators and have been officially recognized since 1998. Recently the Italian government redefined this field and it is now called an intercultural mediator. In this paper we explain the role of the intercultural mediator in cross-cultural communication and what changed since its redefinition. Poster: Does ‘Inter’ Really Matter? |
