Pragmatics and agency in healthcare interpreting

The concept of agency became first important in sociological theory as availability of different choices for action that can enhance social change in the interaction and/or in society. Since the late nineties, a variety of studies on interpreting have stressed that interpreters’ availability of choices for action can change interpreter-mediated interactions. These studies have highlighted the pragmatic effects of interpreters’ choices on interactions and participants. This chapter deals with these issues, focusing on healthcare interpreting. It aims to clarify the ways in which interpreters’ agency affects and is affected by interpreter-mediated interactions involving healthcare professionals and patients. On the one hand, it analyses the ways in which interpreters’ utterances are relevant in these interactions. On the other hand, it analyses the ways in which the recipients treat interpreters’ utterances, thus showing their contextual effects in the interaction. The chapter includes several extracts from interpreter-mediated interactions showing the pragmatic aspects of interpreters’ agency, focusing on interpreters’ ways of exercising agency. The analysis of these extracts allows reflection on the meanings that can be assigned to interpreters’ agency in healthcare settings.