Using interpretation to build: PhD candidate situates place of community interpreters in peace building.

The candidate recently defended a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD, in Interpreting Studies at the Advanced School of Translators and Interpreters, ASTI, of the University of Buea.

The thesis titled: "Interpreting Speech Acts from Aghem into English for Peacebuilding", was defended on May 4. The defence session was chaired by Professor Nol Alembong.

The panel members included Professors Ayonghe Lum Suzanne, Wega Simeu and Associate professor Ngoran Tardzenyuy. 

The project was supervised by Professor Emeritus Suh Joseph Che and Associate Professor Sakwe George Mbotake.

The candidate was praised by the panelists for his groundbreaking research on how interpretation can be used by community interpreters to build peace from the local, national and international.

The study, according to Associate Professor Sakwe George Mbotake, the Director of ASTI, who doubled as the co-supervisor of the project, was a novelty addressing a contemporary subject. 

“The topic addresses hate speech, a buzzword in the Cameroonian context that is one of the difficulties that Cameroonians are facing with regard to good neighbourliness, which entails communities living in harmony for us to build a peaceful society,” he said.

The work, Prof Sakwe said, was relevant because it situated the role interpreters can play in resolving conflict situations by toning down the interpretation and thus ensuring that the communicated effect is one of joy.

Speaking to the press, the researcher said the terse nature of speech acts and interpreting them from a language of limited diffusion to one of wider diffusion and vice versa was hardly without challenges to interpreters in light of the numerous conflicts facing the world.

In this light, he said his goal was to see how interpreters could use their skills to minimise the harm caused by words.

 “Wars begin with words, so my intention was to see what interpreters could do to ensure that anything offensive in a speech act is minimised, while the message is conveyed in the target language,” Akwa Ewi added.

The researcher has thus recommended that the Aghem Language Development Committee revisits some of the sayings and modify their connotations that are derogatory speech acts in order to avert the negative perlocutionary effect they can produce and the need for interpreters to respect Aghem specific cultural attributes especially when addressing royalty or the elderly.