A Review of Emergency Language Service from an Intercultural Perspective

Abstract

Emergency language service plays an indispensable role in effective emergency management when dealing with public health crisis like COVID-19. As an emerging research focus in the field of applied linguistics and emergency management, emergency language service has received great attention of scholars from across the world. Drawing on the studies of emergency language service in the existent literature and practices in different contexts, this article firstly reviews a variety of definitions, research subject and range of emergency language service. Then, a comparative analysis of emergency language services in the US, Japan and China is carried out. Finally, the article points out the limitations of studies of emergency language service in the existing literature and puts forward some suggestions for future research.

Sino-Japanese Contrast and Translation of Emergency Language—Take COVID-19 for Example

“…To clarify the current situation of the emergency language service in Japan during the outbreak and master its characteristics and countermeasures can also be used as a reference for the establishment of China's emergency multilingual service system. Studies show that individual's language ability tends to decline when he or she is under stress (Yao, 2022). Therefore, the translation process is also a process of changing vocabulary from professional to popular.…”