[Linganth] Request for roundtable discussants: Interpreted Encounters.

[Nathan, Michael Thomas,M.D.]

Hi all,

We're planning to submit a roundtable discussion for those of us working on encounters in which a interlanguage interpreters play a role.  See our most current abstract proposal below.

Please respond to us directly if you are interested, with perhaps a word about how your work relates.

Thanks!

Michael Nathan
Lissie Wahl-Kleisser
Stephanie Feyne




INTERPRETER-MEDIATED ENCOUNTERS:
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ONE SPEAKS FOR "THE OTHER"?

Traditional work on communication has focused on the interaction of individuals who speak the same language. Monolingual dyadic discourse has assessed for implications on social relations, identity authentication, power, personal narrative, and style. However, not every interaction is monolingual.

In some bi- or multi-lingual interactions, interpreters are brought in to mediate communication, in the assumption that everyone will subsequently understand each other. Yet interpreter-mediated interactions are not necessarily transparent or always successful. Nor does interpretation always occur between languages and interactants of equal power or knowledge. Interpreters do not magically equalize the interactants or create mutual comprehension. Speaking turns are now mediated by a third party - the interpreter - who might augment or limit the turns, extents. and contents of speech among participants.  In interpreter-mediated interactions, the interpreter is a dynamic third party to the communicative event, and thus the traditionally dyadic notion of speaker and hearer becomes a triadic "pas de trois" (Wadensjö, 1998).

Interpreters encounter the same issues of language, interaction, and culture that are studied in anthropology. However, there is a paucity of investigative anthropological work on the factors involved in interpreter-mediated encounters, including the impact of interpretation choices on interaction and the ramifications of speaking in the name of "another."

In this roundtable panel, we hope to address the impact of communication through a third party who holds language ideologies, engages in professional decisions, and enters the setting with varying levels of bicultural knowledge and bi-linguistic expertise. We plan to explore the implications of talking to "another" through an interpreter and the impact this may have on communication in a field which has traditionally studied dyadic monolingual interactions. Our purspose is to advance within the field of anthropology key issues regarding the implications speaking for "the other" may have in medical, legal, professional, and personal interactions.

Possible topics include: language ideologies of interpreters and/or participants; participation and footing; extralinguistic tasks of interpreters; cultural mediation; turn-taking; gaze; power and privilege of dominant language speakers in interpreted encounters; power and privilege of interpreters in interpreted encounters; contextualization cues/conventions between languages; shaping and renewing context in two languages; co-constructing meaning in two languages; intersubjectivity; role delineation; institutional talk; gender and identity differences between interpreters and participants; community responses to interpreters; and agency, as delimited by interpreters, limited English proficient persons and professionals.




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