Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the important and emerging trends in conceptualizing bilingual health communication. It provides background information about the different types of data and analysis. The data will include one-year ethnographic data, participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and survey data that the author has collected over the last 15 years. The book presents a revision of the earlier typology of healthcare interpreters. It examines how the meaning of Quality and Equality of Care (QEC) is understood and enacted through individual's management of communicative goals in interpreter-mediated encounters. The book discusses how patient empowerment and patient autonomy are constructed and understood by interpreters and providers. It finally shows how normative attitudes may create tensions and challenges to the theories and practices of cross-cultural care.