Improving immigrants' access to public services in the United States: language access policy and policy implementation1

The author recognizes that the use of the terms LEP, which defines individuals only in terms of their lack of English and not as competent users of other languages, and the term LOTE, which defines all non-English languages solely as ‘others’ relative to English, could be viewed as disparaging to speakers of languages other than English. However, the use of these terms is in no way intended to belittle any individual, language group, or language. This article utilizes these terms because these acronyms are commonly used in US language access practitioner jargon and/or by governmental language access policies, and because the precise fact that these languages are ‘others’ when services are provided only in English makes the English/non-English distinction central. Moreover, English is the reference language in these terms solely because this study is based on data collection in the USA, where English is the dominant language in public services; however, the content of this article can also be applied to regions with other dominant languages.

Abstract

Language access mandates in the USA, which require that governmental services be provided in any needed language, have been largely ignored since their first enacting. However, the past decade has seen an increase in the number of national, state, and local efforts to accommodate limited English-proficient individuals. This article provides an overview of methods used to provide oral communication in multiple languages and reviews technologies used in interpreting practices. More broadly, this article calls attention to language access in the USA as an increasingly noticed area of minority rights and shows how technologies have become a vital component in implementing language access policies.

Keywords:

• immigration
• language policy
• language access
• interpretation
• inequality
• government

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge the Migration Policy Institute for providing the impetus to investigate the use of language access technology, which serves as a clear empirical example of language planning and builds upon the authors' previous academic work on language access, and for funding the technology portion of this research. Findings from interviews on language access technologies will be utilized in a forthcoming Migration Policy Institute report on that topic.

Notes

The author recognizes that the use of the terms LEP, which defines individuals only in terms of their lack of English and not as competent users of other languages, and the term LOTE, which defines all non-English languages solely as ‘others’ relative to English, could be viewed as disparaging to speakers of languages other than English. However, the use of these terms is in no way intended to belittle any individual, language group, or language. This article utilizes these terms because these acronyms are commonly used in US language access practitioner jargon and/or by governmental language access policies, and because the precise fact that these languages are ‘others’ when services are provided only in English makes the English/non-English distinction central. Moreover, English is the reference language in these terms solely because this study is based on data collection in the USA, where English is the dominant language in public services; however, the content of this article can also be applied to regions with other dominant languages.

In certain cases, monetary-based economic considerations may also lead to the conclusion that language access measures should be instated. For instance, Ozolins (2003) describes a study that compares expenditure data from a hospital from before language access was available and after language access became available. This study finds that the use of interpreters reduced the time LEP patients spend in the hospital and reduces the number of superfluous tests ordered, among other such reductions. Ultimately, this study concludes that the introduction of interpreters reduces hospital spending on LEP patients and ultimately proves fiscally preferable. While economic considerations have not generally served as the impetus for governmental language access mandates, studies showing the economic value of language access can bolster support for such programmes.

In consecutive interpreting, one party completes an utterance and pauses while the interpreter relays that information to the second party.

The use of bilingual employees as interpreters or the hiring of staff interpreters are therefore also forms of on-site interpreting