Language Services China 40 (hereinafter referred to as “LSC40”), a China-based think tank consisted of 40 scholars and entrepreneurs, has specially launched "Online Forum on Anti-epidemic" series against COVID-19, through which scholars and entrepreneurs are invited to discuss hot topics in relation to language services.

Dr. Meng Yongye (Chairman of Beijing Foryou Data Technology Co., Ltd.)

In the existing emergency management standard system, ISO/TC 292 has issued 8 international standards for emergency management, and another 2 are under development, covering guidelines for incident management, guidelines for public warning, guidelines for color-coded alerts, guidelines for competence assessment, guidelines for monitoring facilities with confirmed hazard levels, guidelines for implementation of efficient pre-warning system in community, information interaction structure, guidelines for exercises and guidelines for social media application. Taking ISO 22320:2018 as an example, it provides guidelines for emergency incident management which are fundamental however, such as the principles for conveying value and illuminating the purpose of incident management; it also introduces the basic components of incident management (such as process and structure), focusing on the roles and responsibilities, tasks and management of various resources to realize joint work through joint guidance and cooperation. As present, SAC/TC 351 has issued two standards for emergency management that are modified in relation to ISO standards, and another one is under development, covering requirements for emergency incident response, guidelines for color-coded alerts and information interaction structures. International and domestic standards for emergency management have not proposed any requirement for emergency language services. The lack of standards for emergency language services has affected the efficiency and quality of emergency rescue.

Therefore it is imperative to realize the standardization of emergency language services. The contents of emergency language services shall be added in the existing language services standard system. First, implement the standard for classification of emergency language services levels according to the characteristics of the urgency of emergency and define the application scope for each level. Second, establish a standard for organizational system of emergency language services (including leading agencies, working agencies, local agencies, expert groups, volunteers, cooperation and coordination mechanisms, etc.) and formulate the requirements for the operation mechanism (including remote cloud translation, machine translation, translating machine, live interpreting, remote simultaneous interpreting, etc.). Third, establish a standard for language services emergency support, including financial support, material support, living support, medical and health support, technical support, etc., and establish supervision and management mechanisms so as to have standards to follow in dealing with major emergencies.

In addition, a standard for emergency language education shall also be prepared to minimize communication time costs by standardizing language means so that emergencies can be communicated and reported in the shortest time. The standard for emergency language education shall cover language education management, language scientific research and language quality evaluation, so that the emergencies can be dealt with by cultivating emergency language talents, simplifying emergency language convention, and raising emergency solutions for language communication barriers, thus making the emergency language education a part of foreign language general education in colleges and universities, primary and secondary schools through standardization.