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Article published In:
Tangible translation: Migration and materiality
Edited by Andrea Ciribuco and Anne O’Connor
[Translation and Interpreting Studies 17:1] 2022
► pp. 42–65

Plurilingualism, multimodality and machine translation in medical consultations

A case study

ORCID logo | ICAR Lab (ENS de Lyon)
This contribution deals with the use of Google Translate as one among many resources that participants mobilize to overcome the language barrier in plurilingual medical consultations. It is grounded on a two-hour interaction involving a family of Albanian asylum seekers newly arrived in France and a French general practitioner. To reach mutual comprehension, participants rely on the mediation of a lay interpreter (one of the family’s children) who translates for the doctor and the other family members. In this interaction, English is used as a lingua franca, while machine translation is conducted between French and Albanian. The analysis will focus on the interactional work that participants accomplish in order to: (1) propose or solicit the use of Google Translate and make the computer accessible to all participants; (2) detect and repair misunderstandings caused by an unsuitable translation.
Keywords: healthcare interactions, machine translation, multimodality, plurilingualism, English lingua franca
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Doctor-patient interactions and digital tools
    • 2.1Research on translation devices in medical settings
  • 3.Methodology and context of the study
    • 3.1The case study
  • 4.Select excerpts
    • 4.1Rearranging the space
    • 4.2Trying to reach mutual comprehension
  • 5.Final discussion and perspectives
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 11 February 2022
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