Professional Ethics:

issues and case studies

Sam Berner
Arabic Language Experts
on behalf of
 Some Definitions Before We
Take Off
 ETHICS - (via Latin ethica from
the Ancient Greek ἠθική
[φιλοσοφία] "moral philosophy",
from the adjective of ἤθος ēthos
"custom, habit"), a major branch
of philosophy, encompasses right
conduct and good life.
 ‘Systematizing, defending, and
recommending concepts of right
and wrong behavior’
 More than just than analyzing right and
wrong.
 Central issue = "the good life“ = the life
worth living
 A life worth living is one that has found
the “greatest good”.
 Main Mantra: “primum non nocere” –
firstly do no harm.
 ETHICS are relative to
- social circumstances
- cultures
- historical situations
- personal and religious moral beliefs
- personal circumstances
 Some acts can be ethical but illegal, and
others can be unethical but legal.
 Same applies to morality.
 So what guides us?
 TYPES OF ETHICS
Metaethics: where our ethical principles come
from, and what they mean. Are they merely
social inventions?
 Normative ethics: defining moral standards that
regulate right and wrong conduct. ‘This may
involve articulating the good habits that we
should acquire, the duties that we should follow,
or the consequences of our behavior on others.’
 Applied ethics: examines specific controversial
issues (e.g. abortion, animal rights,
environmental concerns, capital punishment)
Ethics or professional conduct?

 Ethics: Personal? Going further than

standards? Implicit? Open to
misunderstanding…

 Professional conduct: meeting defined

standards agreed by all parties in advance and
usually made public
 APPLIED ETHICS - a discipline of philosophy that attempts to
apply ethical theory to real-life situations.

 
 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS - concerns the moral issues that arise
because of the specialist knowledge that professionals attain, and
how the use of this knowledge should be governed when
providing a service to the public

 
 Codes of Conduct
 (like that of AUSIT)
 A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the
responsibilities of or proper practices for an individual
or organization.
 “Principles, values, standards, or rules of behavior
that guide the decisions, procedures and systems of
an organization in a way that
 contributes to the welfare of its key stakeholders, and
 (b) respects the rights of all constituents affected by
its operations.“
 IFA, 2007
 In the context of a code adopted by
a profession or by a governmental
or quasi-governmental organ to
regulate that profession, an ethical
code may be a
code of professional responsibility ,
which may dispense with difficult
issues of what behavior is "ethical".
 promulgated by quasi-governmental agency
responsible for licensing a profession, with
violations of these codes subject to administrative
(e.g. loss of license), civil or penal remedies (eg.
Law Society, MIA, AMA)
 enforced by the promulgating organization alone;
violations of these codes are usually limited to
loss of membership in the organization (eg.
AUSIT)
 merely advisory and there are no prescribed
remedies for violations or even procedures for
determining whether a violation even occurred
(eg.
 Professional Ethics…
 …and Us
 DEFINITION?

A set of principles to guide you to carry out

all of your professional duties fully and to
the best of your ability.
 LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE?

 Generally into A language

 Educated native speaker mastery of TL
(ATA)
 Advanced & idiomatic command of
languages concerned (IoL)
 Sound knowledge of SL, mastery of TL (FIT)
 DOING THE WORK?

 Translators shall not alter, make additions to,

or omit anything from their assigned work
(AUSIT)
 Translate the original message faithfully, to
satisfy the needs of the end user(s) (ATA)
 Render a faithful translation of the source text
(meaning & register) (IoL)
 DOING THE WORK?

 Refuse to give text an interpretation of which

he/she does not approve
 Translation to be faithful and render exactly the
idea and form of the original
 Faithful translation should not be confused with
a literal translation, cultural adaptation may be
needed
)FIT(
 WHICH MEANS WHAT?
 Faithful
 Meaning, register, and form
 but
 Not literal
 Culturally appropriate
 High quality
linguistically/stylistically
Because you need to
 Satisfy needs of end users
 But not to extent of reinterpreting
 And no alterations, additions, or
omissions
 It is logically impossible to be professional
in one’s work and unethical at the same
time.

 UNETHICAL = UNPROFESSIONAL
 AUSIT CODE OF ETHICS addresses 8 aspects of our
profession:
 Professional Conduct
 Confidentiality
 Competence
 Impartiality
 Accuracy
 Employment
 Professional Development
 Professional Solidarity
 Breaching any of these means you have
acted unethically..
 but only if you did that purposefully and
consciously..
 Acting ethically takes a lot of introspection
and truthfulness with oneself
 It is about making the RIGHT CHOICES –
RIGHT for all those involved
Behaving ethically can often
mean NOT DOING
SOMETHING.

Conscience is a maturing of
the mind, educated by
environment, by family, by
professional training and even
to a certain extent by intuition.

If by acting you are offending

your conscience, then ACT
NOT.
Professionalism is not just about doing
your utmost for the client to the very
best of your learning, experience and
training. Professionalism is also about
the ability to say ‘no’ for just ethical
cause. Such professionalism (…)
requires not just education and the
recognition of your peers in
professional association; it requires
courage born out of experience, and
trust and confidence in one’s own
ethical ability to perform or not to
perform, as the case may be, in
accordance with one’s own
conscience and principles.
Michael McCann, InfoMarex, Ireland
In the course of your work as an T/I you
must adhere to various professional
codes of conduct and practices or ethics:
• Your employer’s general code of
professional conduct and practices
• Your job’s code of professional conduct
(if you are a bilingual nurse, physician,
technician, support personnel, etc.).
When you are a bilingual staff member,
you are not an interpreter unless you are
in a triadic situation.
• Your personal code of ethics and morals
(religion, beliefs).
•The AUSIT code of professional conduct
“What makes sense for one cultural
group may not for another. Asking
interpreters what a particular rule means
for them individually and within their
culture will help to clarify the code,
support the interpreters in their efforts to
comply, and adapt the code when it
doesn't work. “
RCCHC
A number of interpreter Codes of Ethics
is available for comparison on
http://www.diversityrx.org/HTML/MOIPOV
.htm
 Codes of practise can regulate/protect but
many translation dilemmas faced regularly
in your career won’t be covered by these
narrow codes.
 WHAT IS MISSING FROM ALL THIS??
 The fact that we are small businesses, not
anyone’s employees.
 No part of the AUSIT Code of Ethics touches
on such issues as business practices,
advertising and marketing, information
management or risk management.
 Is it “ethical” for an “ethics promoting
organisation” to let its members run
businesses without guidance?
 WHATARE THE ETHICAL
QUESTIONS RELEVANT TO
US TODAY?
 BUSINESS PRACTICE

 Qualifications
 Confidentiality (consultation, use of information)
 Payment & references
 Nonsolicitation
 Continuing education
 Conflict of interest
 Subcontracting
 Deadlines
 Objectivity
 Responsibilities to other translators
 Encouraging & assisting beginners
 Refraining from unfair competition
 Respect & support fellow professionals
 Not working for substandard fees
 Disciplinary procedures
 So Why Should
 We, like, CARE??
 Acting ethically (therefore professionally)
pays in the long run – (read Efficient
Ethics handout.)
 Acting unethically can cause legal
problems that might not be immediately
clear.
 Ethical issues affect an interpreter’s
performance whether he or she is aware
of it or not.
 An interpreter’s ability to do their job
ethically can affect someone’s
 health and well-being,
 their exercise of rights and/or obligations, and
 their perception of the world around them.
 SKOPOS and translating

 Skopos theory
 Drop the idea of “fidelity”
 Intended purpose of the target text determines
translation methods/strategies
 Goal is functionally appropriate target text
 Gives the translator more freedom of action
 Provides framework for educating clients
 Continuum of Choices
 Literal Free
 Semantic Dynamic
 Documentary
Instrumental

 <————————————————>
 BUT!!!!!

 This depends on the translator receiving

translation instructions with clear statement of
purpose
 Assumes that translator is viewed as an
independent expert
 May lead to ethically problematic situations
(WHY??)
 DIFFERENTLY?

 Always work to create trust

 Bad translation is unethical translation
 Keep your source language grammar to yourself
 Know the linguistic resources available in your
languages
 Be aware of various translation strategies
 Case Studies
 HOW?

 All based on practising translators’ scenarios

 Not ‘giving the answers’ but raising ethical
questions
 How might you respond?
 How would you justify your decision (to a client, to
other translators, to a jury, to a friend, to yourself)?
 Suggest further options
 As a translator you are offered a manual to
translate. The client is a well-know international
agency, they pay well and the deadlines are
reasonable. The brief says the manual is related
to military matters, in which you are a specialist.
You agree. The manual arrives and you discover
that it has to do with the building of a nuclear
weapons plant in a country currently showing all
signs of aggression towards its neighbours..
What would you do?
 How Do I Charge?

 Why is this an “ethics” question?

 Can billing be unethical?
• Same rate for every job
• Client-dependent
• Experience-dependent
• ST-dependent
• Time-dependent
• Colleague/Industry-dependent
• As much as you think you can get away with
 When Do I refuse work?

• Only when you’re too busy to take on

more
• Experience-dependent
• ST-dependent
• Client-dependent
 Who owns translation?

a) Whoever pays for it

b) Whoever manages the translation job
c) The translator(s)
d) The ST author(s)
 Limits of confidentiality

a) As defined in the client’s contract/job spec

b) ST-dependent
c) Follow codes of professional
conduct/agency rules
d) None
 Translation choices during the
translation task?

• Maintain sense or style?

• Sacrifice content/change emphasis where
unavoidable
• ST-dependent
• Client-dependent
• End-user/Audience-dependent
 COMMON SCENARIOS?
 How to respond when a client treats you
badly?
 Responsibilities to translator colleagues
 when revising?
 duty to profession?
 duty to colleagues?
 duty to client/end-user?
 How to respond to poor translations?
 You are interpreting at a news conference
for a high ranking politician from country
X, who is visiting country Y. During the
conference the politician says that
particular minority in his country is full of
scum and should be all deported back
home. What do you do?
A translator is hired by a man
who suspected that his wife
was unfaithful and married him
only to get an Australian Visa.
He had with him photocopied
pages from her diary. The
reading of the diary incidentally
confirmed the devastated
man's suspicions. Should the
translator accept this job?
You are interpreting in a court
setting for the defendant in a
criminal case. During the
recess, the defendant confides
that he did commit the crime
and intends to take the stand
and lie about it. What do you
do?
You are interpreting in a
hospital. The patient tells the
doctor everything is hanky
dory, but after you both come
out of the clinic, he confides in
you that he is seriously thinking
of taking his life. What do you
do?
Your association for the Hearing Impaired decides on the
following Code of Conduct. See if you can help set it
right:

• At the start of all meetings, workshops, or conferences,

always start the ball rolling by telling a funny joke or
story.
• If the deaf person takes a long time to answer a
question, or seems unsure of what to say, don't let
them flounder -- help the deaf people out by providing
any information you may have related to the topic. If
you are unfamiliar with the topic, make up an answer.
Remember, awkward and halting conversation can't
lead to successful communication.
• Always offer (or interject) your personal opinion.
• Make sure that you're always the center of attention. If
the audience is focusing on the hearing speaker, stand
up, dance around, or make wierd facial expressions.
• Always wear the current fashion styles (bright colors
and checkerboard prints are best.)
• Before, after, and during breaks give brief lectures on
deafness, how you became involved in interpreting, and
highlights of your childhood.
• If you become drowsy during an interpreting
assignment, take a nap for 15-20 minutes.
 THANK YOU!

HOLD ON, DON’T FALL OFF.

IT IS UNETHICAL FOR OTHERS TO PRESENT

THIS WORKSHOP AS IF IT WAS THEIRS 