Towards more positive environments: A fieldwork on the importance of pragmalinguistics in mental health interpreting

This paper is a fieldwork study framed in the community interpreting branch of Translation and Interpreting Studies, a current dealing with mediated interactions in Public Services. In accordance with the scope of this discipline, the following pages focus on highlighting the importance of pragmatic theories in an interlinguistic, triangular communication occurring within mental health consultations. The fundamental idea is to combine some of the most relevant pragmatic principles in order to establish an ideal communicative frame we can subsequently contrast with the reality of interlinguistic interactions in mental health settings. In consequence, the first part of the paper seeks to portray the importance of Pragmalinguistics in this context by providing a theoretical frame which is also used as the base for formulating certain questions that arise due to its implications for the interpreting process. These issues are the pillars for two brief questionnaires: the first one is addressed both to novice and experienced interpreters whereas the second set of questions was distributed among mental health professionals. The analysis of the survey results seeks to achieve three main objectives: i) to determine agreement and disagreement points between both parties; ii) to combine their opinions with the aforementioned theoretical bases in order to establish certain guidelines and solutions that may improve communication; iii) to define the interpreter’s role within our field of study.