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Interpreting > Case Studies

Ministry of Defence 
 

Service:

Arrangement of cultural, language and interpreting services

Language:

Dari

Location:

Brunei

Sector:

Public, Military

Date:

Feburary 2005

Brief:

The aim of the project was to prepare soldiers before embarking on their peace trips to Afghanistan. The client's description was that they wanted us to "give deploying forces an understanding of the local culture and basic language skills in order that they can conduct missions and tasks with the support of the local community." The term culture was also to include knowledge of local customs and religion.

Prestige Network's cultural consultancy team was therefore asked to provide linguists (ideally native speakers) to travel with soldiers, teaching them what to say, and how to behave to make sure they could communicate a friendly objective to the Afghani civilians. This was all part of the MoD's operational policy of 'winning hearts and minds' in areas of insurgency, once the high-intensity phase of an operation is complete.

The Project:

A project such as this presented a challenge which required a vast amount of meticulous planning, regarding the overseas logistics to send a large number of interpreters to Brunei. Each of the Dari linguists we approached had to undergo strict security checks. Eventually, 38 linguists were asked to go on the trip, with 7 on standby, for emergencies. The team had to undergo some days of training before they departed for Brunei, to prepare them for the work they were to carry out, but also in basics such as how to live in the weather conditions, personal security, and some simple first aid. After 6 days training, they had to undergo a final test of all the skills they had learned, before they were accepted to go on the assignment.

Once in Brunei, the linguists had to hold lessons for the soldiers in colloquial Dari, using our pre-designed presentation. They were also asked to spend time with the soldiers, teaching them (among other things) how to meet and greet people, how to address people, who to talk to, who to avoid, and what they should or should not talk about.

They were also asked to perform in role-play situations, to help the soldiers learn how they should react in certain situations. Maryam, one of the linguists who went on the assignment, told us about one of these: "Some of us were instructed to play the part of the interpreters, but most of us played civilians, and we were asked to dress in Burkha. We were asked to imagine how we would react if one of the soldiers were to take away a member of our family. The soldiers then had to use the interpreter to calm us down, and explain what was happening. We had been informed that some of these sessions could be deemed disturbing, but the soldiers made it fun."


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