Interpreting - Volume 7, Issue 2, 2005

This paper is an attempt at defining more clearly the various roles of community interpreters and the processes implicitly connected with each of them. While the role of the interpreter is a subject that has been widely discussed in the social science literature, it is less present in the biomedical one, which tends to emphasize the importance of interpreting in overcoming language barriers, rather than as a means of building bridges between patients and physicians. Hence, studies looking at interpreted medical interactions suggest that the presence of an interpreter is more beneficial to the healthcare providers than to the patient. This statement is illustrated by the results of a recent study in a pediatric outpatient clinic in Switzerland. It is suggested that, in the consultations, interpreters act mainly as linguistic agents and health system agents and rarely as community agents. This is consistent with the pediatricians’ view of the interpreter as mainly a translating machine. A new typology of the varying roles of the interpreter is proposed, outlining the relation to cultural differences maintained therein. Some recommendations for the training of interpreters and healthcare providers are suggested.

This article presents the results of a study on doctor–patient interaction in dyadic and triadic exchanges. The analysis is based on transcripts of recordings done at healthcare centres in northern Madrid, Spain, and Minneapolis, USA. The methodological approach is that of institutional discourse analysis as developed by Drew and Heritage (Drew & Heritage 1992; Heritage 1995, 1997; Drew & Sorjonen 1997). Three different types of doctor–patient interaction are examined: (1) doctor/foreign-language patient; (2) doctor/ foreign-language patient/ad hoc interpreter; (3) doctor/ foreign-language patient/trained interpreter. Topics such as the assignment of participant roles, changes in the general structure, turn-taking, and asymmetrical relationships will be explored. The study is mainly descriptive and qualitative, but also includes some comparative quantitative analyses.

This study examines the interrelations between the use of direct vs. indirect speech by primary participants and by dialogue interpreters by focusing on pronoun shifts and their interactional functions. The data consist of four simulated interpreter-mediated medical interviews based on the same scripted role play. The subjects were untrained Arabic interpreters working for a Danish agency. Two of the four interpreters favoured the direct style of interpreting. The other two favoured the indirect style. The findings show that all four interpreters tended to identify with the patient by personalizing the indefinite pronoun one when relaying from doctor to patient. All other pronoun shifts occurred in connection with interactional problems caused almost exclusively by the interpreters’ lack of knowledge about medical terminology — even though the terms used were in fact non-specialized ones. The study also indicates that primary parties’ shifts from direct to indirect address are closely related either to the form or to the content of the interpreter’s prior utterance. Finally, it emerges that repeated one-language talk, triggered by the interpreter’s problems with medical terminology, can override the quasi-directness of communication between primary participants, which is connected with interpreting in the first person.

This paper reports on what is often referred to as “translating in the first person” or retaining the perspective of person as an aspect of consecutive interpreting that generates attention whenever the quality of interpreting is being considered. The study draws on six videotaped interpreter-mediated psychotherapy sessions and constitutes part of a PhD research project (described in Bot forthcoming) on the communication processes in interpreter-mediated psychotherapeutic dialogue. The study shows it is possible to distinguish between two types of changes in the perspective of person: the addition of a reporting verb (e.g. “he says”), generally at the beginning of a rendition, and a change in personal pronoun (usually from “I” into “he” or “she”) in what follows. All three of the interpreters in the data sample introduce these two types of changes, at different frequencies and for various reasons. The findings show that the addition of a reporting verb not only serves to indicate who is speaking, but also plays a role in the organization of turn-transfer. They also suggest that changes in the perspective of person are less of a problem than generally assumed. Although such shifts do serve to indicate the specific position of the interpreter as intermediary between therapist and patient, this does not seem to alienate therapist and patient, but merely recognizes the interactive reality of this type of talk.

This paper investigates professional interpreting practice in the setting of speech pathology through a multifaceted analysis of the transcripts of three recorded sessions involving first-generation Italian-speaking immigrants to Australia and English-speaking healthcare professionals working in Melbourne. Applying Mishler’s notion of “voice” to the context of interpreter-mediated communication and focusing on a selection of linguistic features — ranging from turn-taking and topic development to the interpreter’s choice of footing, departures from the primary speakers’ utterances, and use of prosodic resources — the discussion identifies the voice that interpreters, as third participants in the interaction, choose to adopt between the “voice of medicine” and the “voice of the lifeworld”. The study is of a qualitative nature, although a general indication of the frequency of certain features is supplied, and interpreting conduct is described rather than prescribed. The reporting and interpretation of findings are, however, informed by and reflect issues of value revolving around the concept of “humane medical care”.