Dangers Posed by Lay Bilinguals/Multilinguals in Handling Academic Certificates and Transcripts in West Africa in Today’s World of Smart Technologies.
The unfortunate story is told of a technician who caused a fire outbreak when he was engaged as Electrical Engineer instead of Technician based on a translation of his Technician Certificate as Engineer’s Degree. In certain parts of West Africa, as is the case elsewhere, many people speak, at least, two international languages, especially English and French. Without any training, generally, such lay bilinguals/multilinguals tend to believe and claim that they are competent to translate documents, especially, academic certificates and transcripts, sometimes, because they have access to machine translation tools and online dictionaries. Our observation is that the ambitious claims of these lay bilinguals/multilinguals could be disastrous. This paper presents some of the dangers posed by the activities of such individuals in academic institutions and recruitment agencies. The paper also sheds light on the important roles played by professional translators in facilitating mobility of students and ensuring recruitment of qualified candidates, whether for academic or employment purposes. It emphasizes the need for proper recognition and engagement of professional translators by institutions in charge of accreditation in West Africa, to ensure harmonization of terms used by translators in the said region. Adoption of recommendations from this paper should help avoid future unfortunate events like the one mentioned above.
BIOGRAPHY
Luke Liebzie, a Ghanaian, is currently the Manager of the Transbureau of the University of Ghana where he also teaches courses at Undergraduate and Graduate levels (including History of Translation, Computer-Assisted Translation Tools and Terminology Management and Specialized Translation). Professionally, he has been working on projects for companies and individuals, locally and internationally, including the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights under the African Union. Luke is the first member of the International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) from Ghana and is the Head of the Association’s Ghana Chapter. Also, Luke serves on the Editorial Team of the Contemporary Journal of African Studies (CJAS) as Translator/Editor and served as Guest Editor for the Special Edition of the Journal for Translation Studies in Africa (JTSA) published in 2023 by the University of the Free State in South Africa. His areas of interest in the field of translation include translation technologies, academic translation, and legal translation.
He holds a Master of Arts in Translation and a Bachelor of Arts in French and Psychology from the University of Ghana.