Introduction: Understanding coordination in interpreter-mediated interaction

This introduction is an extended reflection on the three key concepts that underlie the contributions collected here: coordination, mediation and participation. In Section 1, we revisit the notion of coordination (1.1) and look at the ways in which it is dealt with in the chapters in this volume (1.2). In Section 2, we discuss the notion of mediation as an activity, both on a professional level (2.1) and on an interactional level (2.2). In Section 3, we look at how the concept of participation relates to those of coordination and mediation and at the ways in which the various chapters in this volume address the issue. An overview of the organization of the book is provided in Section 4; a note on the transcription methods adopted to present the data concludes this introduction.