Theses abstracts

Against the background of the current literature on doctor-patient communication, this study investigates some gaps between the profession and training of healthcare dialogue interpreters. Combining notions from Interpreting Studies and Conversation Analysis, it considers the question of what interpreters are by observing what they do in real and simulated interpreter-mediated encounters. A qualitative approach is taken to the analysis of audio-recorded data, focusing on responses of professional and of trainee interpreters, and locating departures from the “ideal template” of dialogue interpreting (i.e. where interpreters translate the primary speakers’ utterances turn-by-turn). While in role-played doctor-patient interactions the student-interpreters mainly respond by translating the primary speakers’ original turns, thus following the template, in real encounters interpreters respond both by translating and mediating. When translating, they produce a recipient-designed version of one or more original turn(s); when mediating, they perform a wide range of other actions intended to enhance the primary speakers’ understanding of and participation in both the local activity and the wider healthcare process. The results suggest that any attempt to prescriptively specify the roles of dialogue interpreters in healthcare settings may be wrong-headed, as these roles are constantly changing in relation to specific actions. Rather than simply playing one or more role(s), professional interpreters appear to be assuming a communicative responsibility under which they constantly choose between translation and mediation to suit the purposes of the ongoing activity, the single interaction, and the “path of care” these are embedded in. Drawing on this analysis, the final chapter of the thesis offers some ideas for the use of simulations in interpreter training. It starts by outlining some of what works and what is missing in traditional role-play, and then describes an activity which may better prepare students to assume the responsibility of interpreter-mediated communication in actual healthcare.