ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on interpreted medical communication. It presents a more comprehensive approach to healthcare interpreting. This approach calls for a series of focus shifts: from terms to ways of speaking, from a decontextualized assignment to a situated practice and from the interpreter as an isolated player to a member of a team. After reflecting on the profession of healthcare interpreting and the setting in which this situated practice occurs (the previous two chapters), the chapter zooms in to the communicative events in which healthcare interpreters work. First discussed is the interaction between patients and providers sharing a language, the skills needed to communicate and the goals of communication, as well as the participants’ expectations of each other and of the encounter and the social factors that impact the interaction. With all of this in mind, the chapter also explores how communication occurs across languages and cultures, as a healthcare interpreter steps in to facilitate it.
