ABSTRACT
Healthcare interpreting is an umbrella term encompassing the set of signed and spoken-language interpreting activities that take place in healthcare settings to support bilingual health communication. Healthcare interpreting is situated within a larger communicative event, namely patient- provider communication, which is generally understood as an exchange between a medical expert and a patient, but that may also involve other types of healthcare practitioners, such as nurses, physiotherapists and speech pathologists, and occasionally administrative staff. Healthcare interpreting is a unique communicative situation that is positioned at the crossroads of medicine, health and interpersonal communication, cross-cultural healthcare and medical sociology. An important line of research has examined the communicative process and dynamics of healthcare interpreting, mostly using qualitative methods such as interviews and analyses of transcribed recorded interaction. Healthcare interpreting is situated within a structured organizational context, where language assistance services are expected to be responsive to specific obligations and constraints.
