The communication matrix: beating babel: coping with multilingual service encounters

Public service interpreting and translation (PSIT) provision can hardly catch up with demand. Simultaneously, the scarce availability of trained public service interpreters and translators is a fact. We need to conceive integrated solutions by coherently bringing together PSIT and other communication supporting ‘tools’. Then, clear usage of the national tongue, PSI, translation, pictograms, video images and language software would be part of one communication assistance concept. But merely ad hoc use of these tools creates more confusion than solutions for service providers and their clients. The Junction Migration-Integration and the University College of Ghent have analyzed over seventy real public service interactions. The objective was to build a methodology to develop a service access support tool: the Communication Matrix. Quantitative research was performed. And benchmarking sessions were organised with policy makers, service providers and language support professionals, as qualitative research. In the paper, we will discover through the research findings whether such a communication matrix -by means of which concrete service provision can be linked to adequate communication tools through a matrix - is attainable.