The Interpreters' Newsletter n. 29 - 2024

Difficulties encountered in medical interaction during communication due to language discordance may pose risks that can affect patient’s care, and their outcomes. This may necessitate the need for translation or interpretation to provide appropriate medical care. This study aims to assess the impact of an intervention and on how to achieve common ground in a simulated medical interaction when communication occurs through lingua franca and non-verbal support. In this pilot study, participants were shown both a simulation video and an intervention video. The simulation video depicted the first consultation between a patient and a doctor. The intervention video, of a practicing healthcare professional who provides participants with relevant information applicable to such interactions, was subsequently explored in the survey through participant responses. The changes in survey responses before and after the intervention were analyzed using the chi-square test. 37 participants participated in the survey. For the question on provisional diagnosis, the calculated test statistic was less than the observed crucial value (6.9<7.815), thereby signifying impact of the intervention. From this study, it can be seen that the communication trainer’s intervention, which focused on building the conversation, recognizing non-verbal cues, and identifying common language, would be beneficial for the study participants (medical students) in their future clinical practice. This creates awareness that simulated interactions similar to the one used in this study can be used as a training and educational tool for achieving common ground.

This paper focuses on interpreter reports regarding behaviour of family and their relatives in the healthcare interpreting setting in Australia and how this impacted on them and their ability to carry out their role. These reports were part of a broader study in which professional community interpreters participated in a nationwide survey about the expectations of the health interpreter role. Three main themes emerged in this respect. Firstly, interpreters reported on the difficulty of dealing with situations where patients or relatives declined the need for an interpreter. Secondly, they reported experiencing issues where patients or relatives did not want the interpreter to behave impartially. Lastly, interpreters reported the impact of working in situations where emotions were running high for a range of reasons and described how this impacted on their ability to carry out the assignment. This paper will discuss examples of all three, before concluding with some suggestions of ways interpreters, interpreter educators, professional bodies, health organisations and the government could address this lack of understanding of the interpreter role.

This article presents findings of a snowball survey of the language provision offered by churches and how these churches view themselves in terms of cultural and linguistic diversity. Within this, the characteristics of churches with interpreting are compared to those of churches offering weekend services in only one language. While definitive findings are not possible due to small sample sizes, the survey found a complex relationship between churches’ views of their diversity and the language provision they offer, as well as a strong link between the use of interpreting and satisfaction with language provision. A high proportion of churches also reported using professionals, in direct contradiction to much of the available literature. Yet an even higher proportion report they favoured the use of interpreters from within the church, in line with prior research. The importance of these results for research on church interpreting and multilingual church is discussed, especially regarding the need to contextualise research within the churches in which language provision is offered.

Drawing inspiration from the long experience and the fruitful collaboration with the Language Center at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, in March 2020 the Department of Interpreting and Translation of the University of Bologna started a pilot project called “Educational Interpreting and Multilingualism: Simultaneous interpretation during university lessons”. The project was aimed at providing an Italian-English simultaneous interpretation service during lectures across the University of Bologna. This paper describes the outcomes of the first two years of the project provided by a team of professional interpreters/tutors specifically trained in Conference and Liaison Interpreting. The first part of this paper looks into the genesis of the project and the experience of Stellenbosch University which served as a basis for the initial stage of the Educational Interpreting Project launched by the Department of Interpreting and Translation of the University of Bologna. The second part describes the organization of the simultaneous interpreting service in an academic setting and the transition from physical attendance to remote teaching and remote simultaneous interpreting. This part also includes the full list of the courses involved in the project. Finally, the last part sums up the experience acquired by the Department and the interpreting staff over the academic years 2019/2020, 2020/2021 and 2021/2022.

Interpreting didactics is currently marked by unprecedented changes, emerging needs and new technology-driven challenges. That is why the MA Program in Interpreting of the University of Bologna (Forlì) launched an e-learning platform for conference interpreting trainees’ continuous self-practice with a strong emphasis on peer learning, self-assessment and new technologies for collaborative training in interpreting. The project is designed to feature language-independent cross-functional skills for conference interpreting but, at the same time, some interesting language-specific needs emerged, since it was first piloted by a group of Spanish-Italian interpreting students. This chapter investigates the origin of the project, its aims and objectives, the materials and methods used for didactic design, as well as the preliminary results of the pilot testing phase with the Spanish-Italian students’ cohort.