It has been noted that economics is an ‘imperialist beast, claiming the relevance of its general approach … to a very wide range of human activities’.¹ Thus economic models and language have come to predominate in institutions previously organised in different ways. The current policy of introducing market forces into the health service is an example of this. Changing the ethos of an organisation like the health service by the imposition of economic models raises concerns that something will be lost. Yet economics often wins out, simply because it has been seen to be effective in so many different contexts. (more…)

What makes a good interpreter? Someone with a mastery of the languages (and cultures) she is working with. Someone who goes behind the speaker’s words to grasp their meaning and who is able to faithfully convey that meaning, not betraying the speaker. Someone who ‘gets the message across’, a message transformed into the idiom of the listener. Here in the heart of Europe we like to talk of an interpreter in the French sense of a ‘performer’, giving expression to the original text, making it come alive for the listener. That is how successful communication occurs. The interpreter ‘becomes the speaker’. It’s not just about reproducing words. (more…)