Interpreter-mediated communication in cognitive assessments and psychotherapy
Societal needs, dialogic challenges, therapeutic potentials
Our paper investigates interpreter-mediated communication as intercultural dialogue in psychotherapy and
assessments of cognitive functioning. We rely on previously published data to demonstrate the characteristics of communication in
this setting and point to challenges relating to the validity of the assessments and to the efficacy of therapy. Using analytic
tools from Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis, we specifically investigate how interpretation affects the interactional
trajectory of communication, how interpreters manage both cultural and epistemic differences between the primary participants, how
they deal with potential threats to the patient’s face and how they overall facilitate intercultural dialogue. We discuss concerns
about the outcome of tests achieved in these circumstances and the challenges and potentials of interpretation in therapy.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Interpreter-mediated communication in health care as intercultural dialogue
- 3.Data and methods
- 4.A discursive-interactional approach to IMC: Placing multiple lenses on interaction
- 4.1Epistemic brokering
- 4.1.1Phonological differences
- 4.1.2Lexical differences
- 4.2Face management
- 4.3Cultural brokering
- 4.4Changes to the interactional trajectory
- 5.Summary and future directions
- Note
-
References
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