Interpreter‐Mediated Communication

Abstract

Interpreter‐mediated medical encounters represent an interdisciplinary area of research that highlights the intersection of languages, cultures, and medicine. Because of the interdependent nature of interpreter‐mediated interactions, clinicians' and patients' communicative behaviors and normative expectations can influence interpreters' behaviors and performances. On the other hand, as healthcare interpreters provide their linguistic services, they are also in a position to inform, educate, and empower other speakers for future interactions. By conceptualizing interpreter‐mediated communication as coordinated achievement between multiple parties, researchers have expanded investigations beyond the linguistic transformation in interpreter‐mediated interactions. When all parties are viewed as active participants in the medical encounter, a new world is opened to researchers of interpreter‐mediated communication. By recognizing the variety of interpreters available in healthcare settings, researchers have explored the impacts of different types of interpreters on patient satisfaction, clinician expectations, patient–interpreter relationships, institutional costs, discursive processes, and clinical consequences. Interpreters, along with their interpersonal relationships, diverse functions, emotions, and job‐related hazards, become legitimate issues to be explored.