Forms of Participation in a Mental Health Care Consultation with a Nonpresent Interpreter

Abstract

ABSTRACT Interpreter-mediated interactions via phone are becoming increasingly frequent, especially in medical settings. I examine one case of a mental care consultation with a nonpresent interpreter. My aim is to explore how the three participants—mental health practitioner, client, and nonpresent interpreter—use multimodal resources to manage the possible interactional relations among themselves. I will show how, at certain points, they use gaze and body orientation to integrate into the overall triadic interaction a series of exchanges between practitioner and client. The data are in Arabic and French with an English translation.