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Professor Ludmila Stern

Professor Ludmila Stern

Professor

BA (1st Class Honours), UNSW

PhD, UNSW

Arts, Design & Architecture (ADA)
School of Humanities & Languages

I am the founder of the MA in Interpreting and Translation Studies - a professional program endorsed by the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI). I was the Program Convenor (2005-2010, and (2014-15), the Deputy Head of School of Languages and Linguistics (2005-2010), and the Head of School of International Studies (2011-12). I was a Director on the NAATI Board (2010- 2016) and Chair of NAATI's Technical Reference Advisory Committee (TRAC) (2017-2020).

Research Summary
My main research area is currently in the field of interpreting studies. I examine interpreter-mediated communication in complex legal/courtroom settings, including those of war trials in national and international courts, and am particularly interested in the role of interpretation users - judicial officers and lawyers. This includes research on interpreting practices during the Australian War Crimes Prosecutions (1986-1993) and international courts and tribunals, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). I am the Lead investigator of the ARC Linkage project Communication between judicial officers and court interpreters: Implications for access to justice https://research.unsw.edu.au/projects/access-justice-interpreted-proceedings. I also work on the project Interpreting in War Crimes Trials. From the Nuremberg Trials to the International Criminal Court.

My historical inquiry raises the questions about Western intellectuals' involvement with the 1920s-30s Soviet Union, and closely looks at the Soviet cultural diplomacy and the attraction of eminent Western writers and artists (G.B Shaw, H.G.Wells, V. Gollancz, R. Rolland, L. Aragon, Jean-Richard Bloch, L.Feuchtwanger) to Stalin's USSR in the light of the developing Soviet cultural propaganda. I was among the first researchers who worked on the declassified documents of Soviet 'cultural' organisations in the former Soviet archives - research that led to the publication of her monograph Western intellectuals and the Soviet Union. From Red Square to the Left Bank, 1920-40, Routledge, 2007. I am the co-editor, with Rachel Mazuy, of the book Moscou-Caucase Été 1934. Lettres de voyage en URSS, Jean-Richard et Marguerite Bloch, CNRS Éditions, Paris, 2019. I am working on Soviet espionage in the 1920s-30s France and WWII-time relations between western intellectuals and the USSR.

As a researcher and educator of interpreters and interpreter users (particularly legal and courtroom), I have been a consultant and an invited speaker in Australian legal and judiciary bodies (Judicial Commission of NSW, Bar Association of NSW, National Judicial College of Australia, Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration) and overseas (ICTY, ICC, STL). I was commissioned by AusAID to design and deliver a suite of interpreting workshops for the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lao PDR (2005-2011).
Phone
9385 2382
E-mail
l.stern@unsw.edu.au
Location
257 Morven Brown
  • Books | 2009
    2009, The Critical Link 5. Quality in interpreting - a shared responsibility, Hale S; Stern L; Ozolins U, (eds.), John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia
    Books | 2007
    Stern L, 2007, Western Intellectuals and the Soviet Union, 1920-1940, Routledge, Taylor Francis Group, United Kingdom
  • Book Chapters | 2020
    Stern L; Liu X, 2020, 'Interpreting Studies', in Laviosa S; González-Davies M (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Education, Taylor & Francis, Routledge, Oxfordshire, OX14 4RN, UK, pp. 226 - 244
    Book Chapters | 2020
    Stern L, 2020, 'Interpreting the 'Language of War' in war-crimes trials', in Laugesen A; Gehrmann R (ed.), Communication, Interpreting and Language in Wartime Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Palgrave Macmillan (Springer Nature), pp. 171 - 206,
    Book Chapters | 2019
    Stern L; Mazuy R, 2019, 'Introduction', in Mazuy R; Stern L (ed.), Moscou, Caucase, été 1934. Lettres de Jean Richard et Marguerite Bloch, CNRS Éditions, Paris, pp. 11 - 52
    Book Chapters | 2019
    Stern L, 2019, 'A Woman with a Camera: Soviet Espionage in Interwar France', in Catterjee C; Marks SG; Neuburger M; Sabol S (ed.), The Global Impacts of Russia’s Great War and Revolution, Book 2: The Wider Arc of Revolution, Part 1., Slavica Publishers, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, pp. 417 - 450
    Book Chapters | 2018
    Stern L, 2018, 'Legal interpreting in domestic and international courts: Responsiveness in action', in The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity, Routledge, pp. 396 - 410,
    Book Chapters | 2015
    Dolgopolov G; Stern L, 2015, ''Beware film star! Towards a performance and cultural analysis of Innokenty Smoktunovsky as Soviet film star'', in Bandhauer A; Royer M (ed.), Stars in World Cinema Screen Icons and Star Systems Across Culture, I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., London & New York, pp. 131 - 142,
    Book Chapters | 2011
    Stern L, 2011, 'Courtroom interpreting', in The Oxford Handbook of Translation Studies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 325 - 342,
    Book Chapters | 2011
    Stern L, 2011, 'Training interpreters', in The Oxford Handbook of Translation Studies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 490 - 511,
    Book Chapters | 2009
    Ozolins U; Hale S; Stern L, 2009, 'Quality in interpreting: A shared responsibility', in The Critical Link 5. Quality in interpreting - a shared responsibility, edn. Original, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, pp. 1 - 10
    Book Chapters | 2004
    Stern L, 2004, 'Men of influence: Stalin's ambassadors to Europe, 1930-39', in , pp. 429 - 435
  • Edited Books | 2019
    Stern L; Mazuy R, (ed.), 2019, Moscou-Caucase Été 1934. Lettres de voyage en URSS., CNRS Éditions, Paris
  • Journal articles | 2020
    Stern L, 2020, 'Eva N.S. Ng. Common law in an uncommon courtroom: Judicial interpreting in Hong Kong', Interpreting, 22, pp. 150 - 155,
    Journal articles | 2020
    Stern L, 2020, 'Owen Matthews, An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent', Australian Slavonic and East European Studies, 34, pp. 169 - 172,
    Journal articles | 2020
    Xu H; Hale S; Stern L, 2020, 'Telephone interpreting in lawyer-client interviews: An observational study', The International Journal for Translation and interpreting Research, 12, pp. 18 - 36,
    Journal articles | 2019
    Stern L; Liu X, 2019, 'Ensuring interpreting quality in legal and courtroom settings: Australian Language Service Providers’ perspectives on their role', JoSTrans : the Journal of Specialised Translation, pp. 90 - 120,
    Journal articles | 2019
    Stern L; Liu X, 2019, 'See you in court: How do Australian institutions train legal interpreters?', The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 13, pp. 361 - 389,
    Journal articles | 2017
    Hale SB; Martschuk N; Ozolins U; Stern L, 2017, 'The effect of interpreting modes on witness credibility assessments', Interpreting, 19, pp. 70 - 97,
    Journal articles | 2017
    Stern L, 2017, 'Moscou – Kazan – Oufa : Jean-Richard Bloch en 1941-1942', Revue Historique, 682, pp. 359 - 384,
    Journal articles | 2015
    Stern L; Hale S, 2015, 'Sharing the responsibility for interpreting quality in the context of a small conference’', Revista Ideas Lenguas Modernas, 1,
    Journal articles | 2015
    Stern L; Ozolins U; Hale SB, 2015, 'Inefficiencies of court administration despite participants' goodwill', Journal of Judicial Administration, 25, pp. 76 - 95,
    Journal articles | 2015
    Stern L, 2015, 'Carnet de voyage en URSS (1934) de Marguerite Bloch', Cahiers Jean-Richard Bloch, No. 21, pp. 185 - 203
    Journal articles | 2015
    Stern L, 2015, 'Community interpreting in the age of super-diversity: where to from here?', Australian Mosaic, Special issue, pp. 40 - 42,
    Journal articles | 2015
    Stern L, 2015, 'From Paris to Nuremberg. The birth of conference interpreting', TRANSLATION & INTERPRETING-THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETING, 7, pp. 91 - 94,
    Journal articles | 2014
    Stern L, 2014, 'Language and the right to fair hearing in international criminal trials Catherine S. Namakula (2014) Springer 146pp', International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 21, pp. 389 - 395,
    Journal articles | 2014
    Stern L, 2014, 'Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941', EUROPEAN HISTORY QUARTERLY, 44, pp. 141 - 143,
    Journal articles | 2012
    Stern L, 2012, 'What Can Domestic Courts Learn from International Courts and Tribunals about Good Practice in Interpreting?: From the Australian War Crimes Prosecutions to the International Criminal Court', T & I Review, 2, pp. 7 - 30,
    Journal articles | 2011
    Hale S; Stern L, 2011, 'Interpreter quality and working conditions: comparing Australian and international courts of justice', Judicial Officers' Bulletin, 23, pp. 75 - 78,
    Journal articles | 2010
    Stern L, 2010, 'Translation Issues in Language and Law.', INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPEECH LANGUAGE AND THE LAW, 17, pp. 161 - 166,
    Journal articles | 2007
    Stern L, 2007, 'Moscow 1937: The Interpreter's Story', Australian Slavonic and East European Studies, 21, pp. 73 - 96
    Journal articles | 2004
    Stern L, 2004, 'Interpreting Legal Language at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: overcoming the lack of lexical equivalents', The Journal of Specialised Translation, 02, pp. 63 - 75
    Journal articles | 2001
    Stern L, 2001, 'At the Junction of Cultures - Interpreting at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Light of Other International Interpreting Practices.', Judicial Review Journal of Judicial Commission of New South Wales, pp. 255 - 274
    Journal articles | 2001
    Stern L, 2001, 'Consecutive Interpreting at the Sydney Olympics', Australian Language Matters, 9, pp. 9 - 11
    Journal articles | 2001
    Stern L, 2001, 'The Sydney Olympic interpreting experience through the eyes of consecutive interpreters', AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGE MATTERS, 2
    Journal articles | 1999
    Stern L, 1999, 'The All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries and French Intellectuals, 1925-29', Australian Journal of Politics and History, pp. 99 - 109
    Journal articles | 1998
    Stern L, 1998, 'The Creation of French-Soviet Cultural Relations. VOKS in the 1920s and the French Intelligentsia', AUMLA - Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association, pp. 43 - 67
    Journal articles | 1997
    Stern L, 1997, 'The background history of creation of the French rapproachement society The New Russia', Australian Slavonic and East European Studies, pp. 143 - 161
    Journal articles | 1995
    Stern L, 1995, 'Non-English Speaking Witnesses in the Australian Legal Context: The War Crimes Prosecution as a Case Study', Law/Text/Culture, pp. 6 - 31
  • Conference Presentations | 2019
    Hale S; Stern L, 2019, 'Interpreters and delegates working together in an international setting', presented at AUSIT National Conference, Hobart, Australia, 18 October 2019 - 19 October 2019,
    Conference Papers | 2007
    Stern L, 2007, ''"Prisonnier d’amitié": Jean-Richard Bloch et ses correspondants soviétiques’ ('Prisoner of friendship': Jean-Richard Bloch and his Soviet correspondents)', in Les intellectuels et le communisme en France (1944-1947), Cahiers Jean-Richard Bloch, Cahiers Jean-Richard Bloch, Paris (France), presented at Les intellectuels et le communisme en 1947 entre guerre et guerre froide, École normale supérieure - 45, rue d’Ulm- 75005 PARIS Salle des Actes (escalier A, premier étage), 23 November 2007 - 23 November 2007
    Conference Papers | 2004
    Stern L, 2004, 'Interpreting During the Australian War Crimes Prosecutions (1986-1993)', in Courtroom Legal, AIIC Commission for Interpreting (ed.), Interpreting at International Courts and Tribunals, Parkhotel, The Hague, Netherlands, pp. 75 - 79, presented at Interpreting in International Courts and Tribunals, Parkhotel, The Hague, Netherlands, -
    Conference Papers | 2002
    Stern L, 2002, 'Ensuring Interpreting Quality at the Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: a Blueprint for successful Practices in national Courts?', in de la Fuente E (ed.), ACTES du SIXIEME FORUM INTERNATIONAL SUR LA TRADUCTION CERTIFIEE ET LINTERPRETATION JUDICAIRE, Paris, France, pp. 497 - 515, presented at ACTES du SIXIEME FORUM INTERNATIONAL SUR LA TRADUCTION CERTIFIEE ET LINTERPRETATION JUDICAIRE, Paris, France, 12 June 2002 - 14 June 2002
    Conference Papers | 2001
    Stern L, 2001, 'Australian War Crimes Prosecutions (1986-1993)', in AIIC Commission for Legal and Courtroom Interpreting (ed.), Interpreting at International Courts and Tribunals, Parkhotel, The Hague, Netherlands, pp. 75 - 79, presented at Interpreting at International Courts and Tribunals, Parkhotel, The Hague, Netherlands, 04 July 2001 - 07 July 2001
    Theses / Dissertations | 2000
    Stern L, 2000, French Intellectuals and Soviet Cultural Organisations in the 1920s-1930s
    Recorded / Rendered Creative Works | 1998
    Stern L, 1998, Strategic Listening (For advanced students of tertiary institutions), UNSW, Kensington, Video, Published: 1998, Recorded / Rendered Creative Works
    Conference Papers | 1997
    Stern L, 1997, 'Journal du voyage en URSS de Marguerite et Jean-Richard Bloch', in Jean-Richard Bloch ou l'Ă©criture et l'action, Paris, France, presented at Jean-Richard Bloch ou l'Ă©criture et l'action, Paris, France, 27 November 1997 - 27 November 1997

ARC LInkage grant for the research project Communication between judicial officers and court interpreters: Implications for access to justice

  • Recipient of the 2010 Dean's Award for teaching excellence
  • Recipient of the 2010 Vice Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence.
  • Recipient of the 2015 Dean’s Award for Programs that Enhance Learning for the unit Doctors Working with Interpreters in Healthcare Settings – Inter-professional training model for medical students (with Professor Sandra Hale and Mr Sean Cheng)

  • Chair, NAATI Technical Reference Advisory Committee (2017- ongoing)
  • Director, National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters LTD (NAATI) Board of Directors (2010-16)
  • Education of interpreter users - lawyers and judiciary (Workers Compensation Commitssion, Mental Health tribunal, National Judicial College of Australia, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Court, Judicial Commission of NSW, DPP of NSW, Bar Association of NSW, etc.)
  • Consultant and researcher at the International courts and tribunals (International criminal tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Speicial tribunal for Lebanon (STL)
  • Member of the editorial Board of Australian Slavonic and East European Studies (ASEES), member of the international advisory board of The International Journal for Translation and Interpreting Research, member of the InDialog Advisory Committee (Berlin 2013).
  • Australia and NZ Slavists Association (ANZSA)
  • Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (AUSIT)
  • Association d'Ă©tudes de Jean-Richard Bloch.
  • Reviewer and referee of submissions for the journals European History Quarterly, Journal of Jewish Identities, The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, ASEES, John Benjamins publishers.

Media coverage of research:

  • Invited speaker interviewed by the media, including ABC RN (24 April 2018), My grandmother the spy Tuesday 24 April 2018 at 11 am. The podcast is out on the ABC Radio National:
  • European Commission Directorate-General Interpretation, Interpreting in Domestic vs International Courts,Ěý and Interpretation in international courts
  • Phillip Adams Late Night Live (2007), Damien Carrick Interpreters in the Courtroom, Law Report (2007 and 2009); World View, SBS Radio: The Role of the Judge, Training DVD, Judicial Commission of NSW and Australian Institute of Judicial Administration
  • Interpreting assignments include interpreting at the Sydney Writers’ Festival for the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya (2006); annual conference interpreting for the UN Commission for the Conservation of the Marine Living Resources of Antarctica (CCAMLR, 1989-ongoing), Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties 50th meeting, the EU Commission for Standardisation of Food, Australian-Russian Business Forum, International Conference of Women Judges and other conferences

My Research Supervision

I am currently supervising

With Prof Sandra Hale:

  • Sophia Ra: Cross-cultural communication: A qualitative study of interpreter-mediated medical encounters between Korean patients and Australian doctors (PhD)

With Dr Stephen Doherty:

  • Xiaoyu Zhao: A multidimensional goal-oriented investigation of cognitive load and performance over time during simultaneous interpreting between English and Mandarin Chinese (PhD)
  • Hang Cui: An investigation of Mandarin-speaking interpreters' interactions with English-speaking legal participants in judicial and quasi-judicial settings (PhD)

Completed Research students:

  • Wong Wan Kei: The Role of Preparation using Case-related Materials in Court Interpreting (PhD)
  • Xu Han: Lawyers working with interpreters in Australia. Inter-professional relations, role boundaries and professionalism (PhD 2019)
  • Xin Liu: Fidelity in Consecutive Interpreting - A Contrastive Study between Expert and Novice Interpreters (PhD 2017)
  • Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya: The Formal Literary experiments in Contemporary Russian Poetry in the Context of European Literature techne (PhD 2011)

Recent PhD examination:

  • Adolpho Gentile A policy-focused examination of the establishment of the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters in Australia, PhD thesis, Monash University, January 2018.
  • ClĂ©ment Extier La mĂ©moire Ă  l’œuvre. Drieu La Rochelle et la construction du sens : l’homme et la Grande Guerre, PhD thesis, co-tutelle University of Sydney- University Lyon, December 2017. Report and viva examination (in French).
  • Mansour Amini, Conference interpreting in Malaysia: A Study of Users’, Interpreters’ and Clients’ Quality Expectation, PhD thesis, Universiti SainsMalaysia, August 2015.

My Teaching

Having taught Russian Studies (1989-2004), Ludmila made a transition to teaching interpreting and translation. She currently teaches advanced interpreting courses in the Masters in Interpreting and Translation. She is a guest lecturer in European Studies.

Ludmila is a UNSW teaching summative peer reviewer (2017 - ongoing)

Postgraduate courses:

  • MODL5105 Conference Interpreting
  • MODL5117 Interpreting in International settings

Undergraduate course:
Blended learning multilingual multimedia course ARTS3330: Language Capstone: Introduction to Translation and Interpreting.

Postgraduate supervision (with Prof Sandra Hale):

  • Sophia Ra: Cross-cultural commuincation: A qualitative study of interpreter-mediated medical encounters between Korean patients and Australian doctors (PhD)
  • Wong Wan Kei: The Role of Preparation using Case-related Materials in Court Interpreting (PhD)

Completed Research students:

  • Xu Han: Lawyers working with interpreters in Australia. Inter-professional relations, role boundaries and professionalism (PhD 2019)
  • Xin Liu: Fidelity in Consecutive Interpreting - A Contrastive Study between Expert and Novice Interpreters (PhD 2017)
  • Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya: The Formal Literary experiments in Contemporary Russian Poetry in the Context of European Literature techne (PhD 2011)

Recent PhD examination:

  • Adolpho Gentile A policy-focused examination of the establishment of the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters in Australia, PhD thesis, Monash University, January 2018.
  • ClĂ©ment Extier La mĂ©moire Ă  l’œuvre. Drieu La Rochelle et la construction du sens : l’homme et la Grande Guerre, PhD thesis, co-tutelle University of Sydney- University Lyon, December 2017. Report and viva examination (in French).
  • Mansour Amini, Conference interpreting in Malaysia: A Study of Users’, Interpreters’ and Clients’ Quality Expectation, PhD thesis, Universiti Sains Malaysia, August 2015.