# Presentation: 220760

## Bilingual and Multilingual Outreach – lessons Learned from A Canadian Perspective

- Sharon Jeffers
- Environnement Canada/Environment Canada

## My four outreach questions...

- Did the public receive it?
- Did the public understand it?
- Did the public do anything differently because of it?
- If the answer to any or all of the above questions is no, what did we do about it?

## Linguistic profile of Canada

- 17.5 million anglophones (english is their mother tongue)
- 6.8 million francophones (french is their mother tongue)
- 5.3 million allophones
- The mother tongue of 1 in 6 Canadians is neither english nor french

## Toronto, the Tower of Babel Canadian style...

- Population of 4,682,897
- 2,684,195 anglophones
- 57,490 francophones
- 1,898,465 allophones
- The mother tongue of 4 in 10 Torontonians is neither english nor french

**Notes:**
Tower of babel is not derogative, 
on public transit and on the streets of Toronto hear many, many different languages
Also hear many languages by twirling the radio dial or turning on the television (telelatino and SATV for example)

## My four questions revisited...

- Did the public receive it?
- Did the public understand it?
- Did the public do anything differently because of it?
- If the answer to any or all of the above questions is no, what did we do about it?

**Notes:**
Now, knowing the linguistic profile, especially of Canada’s three largest cities, would you answer these questions any differently?

## Did the public receive it?

- Mother tongue neither english nor french?
- First choice for receiving information is usually our mother tongue
- Mass media not likely to help here
- 3rd language radio and TV stations
- Community or cultural organisations
- Through the schools, ie children learn it in school and bring the information home to their families

**Notes:**
That is, how do citizens receive information if their mother tongue is neither english nor french?

## Did the public understand it?

- TRANSLATION
- TRANSLATION
- TRANSLATION

**Notes:**
Refer to the three rules for buying a house or land....

## Translation, translation, translation

- Come share your experiences and learn about more effective ways to ensure the public has timely, accurate air quality information to make choices about how to protect their health.

- Venez la part vos expériences et apprenez environ des manières plus efficaces d'assurer le public a la qualité opportune et précise d'air l'information pour faire des choix au sujet de la façon protéger leur santé.

**Notes:**
The pitfalls of translation
Used an online translator, this is an exaggeration, but wanted to make a point

## Translation, translation, translation

- Come share your experiences and learn about more effective ways to ensure the public has timely, accurate air quality information to make choices about how to protect their health.

- Come share your experiments and learn butt more effective ways to public ensure the has timely, accurate air quality information to make choices butt how to protect to their health.

**Notes:**
If you can at all avoid it, do not ask your collegues to translate unless they are professional translators
Have and editor or a subject expert you speaks the relative language verify the translation
This gets difficult with out proper resources, but get the best translation you can within the limitations of the resources that you have available.

## Did the public understand it?

- A good translation is necessary but not sufficient because....
- It is not just about the language:
- Differences in survey results from Québec
- Does language define culture, or culture define language?
- No word for jay walking in french
- Advertising campaigns.

**Notes:**
For survey results, use the examples the surveys we do on weather
Results are always different in Québec, and the way the media treats the weather is different, but which is the cause and which the effect is difficult to say.

## Did the public understand it?

- From a risk communication viewpoint are allophones more at risk?

## Avertissements météo officiels d'Environnement Canada
Alertes/avertissements

    Îles-de-la-Madeleine15h55 HNA le mercredi 25 janvier 2006un avertissement de blizzard pour Îles-de-la-Madeleine est maintenuLe blizzard débutera cette nuit et persistera jeudi.Ceci est un avertissement indiquant que du blizzard avec une visibilité presque nulle est prévu sur ces régions. Veuillez surveiller les conditions météorologiques...Et les mises à jour de bulletin.

**Alertes/avertissements**
-     Îles-de-la-Madeleine15h55 HNA le mercredi 25 janvier 2006**un avertissement de blizzard ****pour**** **Îles-de-la-Madeleine est maintenuLe blizzard débutera cette nuit et persistera jeudi.Ceci est un avertissement indiquant que du blizzard avec une visibilité presque nulle est prévu sur ces régions. Veuillez surveiller les conditions météorologiques...Et les mises à jour de bulletin.

## Did the public do anything differently because of it...

- Already working at the community level just to address the language issue
- Social diffusion
- Use car less versus having a smaller car

## If answer to any of first three questions is no, what did we do about it?

- Need some form of measuring the effectiveness of what you are doing to be able to answer this question
- Need to identify if the problem is due to language
- This is not a simple thing to do, cut yourself some slack
- If effectiveness of actions are high due to multi-lingual format, usually need to demonstrate this to get future funding

## To have another language is to possess a second soul.							Charlemagne

- Dankie/ Shukran/ Grazias/ Merci/
- Meda wo ase/ Akeva/ Gràcies/
- Kinanâskomitinawaw/ tak/ Dank u/
- Ogiwadong/ Danke/ Efcharisto
- Arigato/ Asanteni/ nandri/
- Thank You.