Language access and the prevention of medical errors
By Louis Provenzano, President, Language Line Services

The case of Francisco Torres, a Spanish-speaking patient in Riverside, Cali., who had the wrong kidney removed during surgery, once again gives the medical community reason to pause and consider the absolute necessity clear communication plays in avoiding catastrophic medical errors. While wrong-site surgery can happen without a language barrier, the fact that Mr. Torres was not provided a medical interpreter prior to major surgery is deeply concerning.

Statistics show that language is a major factor in cases of misdiagnosis and instances of poor treatment at hospitals, and delays in service or access to preventive care. Medical error in general is a troubling issue, but patients with limited English proficiency are almost twice as likely to suffer adverse events in U.S. hospitals, resulting in temporary harm or death, according to a pilot study by The Joint Commission - an independent, not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits more than 15,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States.

Full story...

This city’s musical theater prefers its own local flavor
By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop, The New York Times

Over the last decade, Singaporean audiences have been treated to regular revivals of Broadway or West End musicals, like “Phantom of the Opera” and “Mamma Mia,” and as their appetite for the Western art form grew, it encouraged a few local theater troupes to produce their own versions.

These local productions tended to be performed in English, such as Singapore Repertory Theatre’s “Forbidden City: Portrait of an Empress” (2002), based on the life of the Empress Dowager Cixi; or “Sleepless Town” (2009) from Toy Factory Productions, about a 12-year-old living in a make-believe world as an antidote to her troubled life.

But this year, the staging of several homegrown musicals in Mandarin with definite Asian twists is attesting to the local audience’s growing interest for musicals with themes closer to home.

Full story...

Muslims and media images: where things went wrong
By Vinod Mehta, TwoCircles.net
 
Before I come to the subject matter of this essay, I must make a disclaimer, namely, that I do not bring to the issue an academic’s or a specialist’s perspective. All I can say is that I have been an English language editor for more than twenty-five years, and in that period I certainly have a working experience and knowledge of some of the problems and some of the complaints of Muslims in this country in terms of their media representation, especially in the English-language section of the press.

We need to spend more time debating from the Muslim point of view the reasons why things have gone wrong for the Muslims with regard to the Indian media, particularly the relationship between the north Indian media and north Indian Muslims. I refer to north India and north Indian Muslims because in the arena of Indian politics this area and this community are thought to be representative of the entire Indian Muslim community.

Full story...

The Arabic language needs a Webster and a Picasso
By Mahmoud Habboush, The National.ae

If there is one thing that I learnt from studying Arabic language and literature during my secondary school years, it was that there is a direct link between political strength and linguistic prowess. Centuries of political and economic frailty and a lack of interest in Arabic language by the ruling elite during Ottoman rule rendered Arabic literature into a tacky and dull baroque. Great efforts were made to ensure that every line of prose or poetry amounted to stylistic perfection. Almost no effort was exerted on meaning.

Language was a perfect but tedious painting that was brushed over and over only to remain the same. There was no Picasso to turn the language on its head, to redraw it in a primitive but innovative form.

Arabic newspapers today retain some unmistakable traces of the Ottoman era. Now, a lot of energy is placed on filling the pages with meaningless quotes, badly translated articles from the wire services and reproductions of poorly written press releases. Once again, there is more focus on style than on substance and meaning.

Full story...

Clear access
By Richard Lim, TheStar.com.my

Teresa Sennyah had seen many classroom gaffes as an ELS English instructor, but even she was left wide-eyed when her student found a new way to describe animals.

“The parrot passed away,” went an enthusiastic student.

Getting over the initial shock, Teresa explained that the term “passed away” was only used for human beings and “died” was appropriate to describe dead parrots—or any other animal for that matter.

Snickering, the other students had a good laugh at their friend’s blunder. And in a case of poetic justice, the boy who laughed the loudest made a gaffe shortly after when Teresa wanted to know the heaviest object he had ever lifted.

“I lifted a gym?” was the answer that sounded more like a question.

“Did you lift the whole gym or just a dumb bell?” replied Sennyah.

Full story...