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In:Dialogues of the Clinic: Encounters across medicine and beyond
Edited by Mariaelena Bartesaghi and Shelby Forbes
[Dialogue Studies 36] 2026
► pp. 67–93

Chapter 3
Dialogue and children’s agency in pediatric services

 | University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to analyze the conditions and obstacles of dialogic communication in pediatric services involving migrant children, with and without interpreting services. Dialogic communication is conceptualized as based on participants’ equal opportunities to exercise agency. First, the chapter focuses on the general meaning of dialogue and the application and limits of dialogic communication to monolingual interaction between children, parents and pediatricians, and interpreter-mediated interaction. Second, the chapter presents field research on pediatric consultations without and with interpreting services, analyzing several excerpts from these consultations to show if and how dialogic communication is coordinated by clinicians alone and by interpreters working with clinicians, and with which effects for children’s agency. The excerpts show effective dialogue with children and, in a few cases, what I consider to be its failure. Finally, I compare the two research settings in terms of dialogue and support of children’s agency.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Dialogic communication
    • 2.1Origins of the concept of dialogue
    • 2.2Dialogue as a form of communication
    • 2.3Dialogue in interaction
    • 2.4Coordination of dialogue and agency
    • 2.5Equity, agency and epistemic authority
  • 3.Studies on monologue and dialogue in pediatric settings
    and public service interpreting
  • 4.Data and method
  • 5.Medical coordination and children’s agency
    in a diabetic pediatric service
  • 6.Dialogue in interpreter-mediated interactions and children’s agency
  • 7.Conclusions from the comparative analysis
  • References
References (68)
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