As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, language has never played a more critical role within global affairs. To maintain not only global peace, but also the global economy and international safety, effective multilingual communication is vital.
For the United States (US), successful international relations depend on accurate, high-quality, and professional language services. That’s where the US Department of State’s Office of Language Services (OLS) comes in.
Founded in 1789 by Thomas Jefferson, OLS functions under the Bureau of Administration and serves as the ears, voice, and words of the federal government in over 40 languages. With a mission to enable the country to carry out foreign affairs and diplomacy initiatives across the globe through the elimination of linguistic barriers, the office provides both interpreting and translation services for high-level diplomatic meetings, international summits, and official communications.
The OLS team consists of highly selective positions that require qualified candidates to undergo rigorous vetting processes. This includes career linguists who are experts in diplomacy, law, and international relations; project managers; approximately 10 to 20 direct-hire diplomatic interpreters and translators; and an additional roster of contractors for smaller languages and surge capacity. The direct-hire team works with staff project managers and hundreds of carefully tested and vetted independent-contract linguists. Services such as simultaneous and consecutive interpreting are generally provided for treaty negotiations, United Nations General Assembly sessions, and bilateral meetings with heads of state.
While OLS holds a prominent role within US government affairs, its inner workings are mostly kept private due to its work involving classified and sensitive content. However, private citizens may access a library of declassified OLS topics through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), allowing people to better understand things like interpreting assignments for bilateral summits, different types of translation protocols, and even budgetary and contractor usage reports. If there is specific information that a citizen or journalist may need that is not publicly available, the person has the right to send a FOIA request free of charge, which requires a response within 20 days. This process shows how OLS is able to balance integrity of its diplomatic services and its duty to serve the American public.
