Cecilia Wadensjö

The double role of a dialogue interpreter

This is a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of interpreting studies and the new directions the subject is taking in the twenty-first century

Perspectives on role-play: analysis, training and assessments

This article focuses on the use of simulated interpreter-mediated interaction for the purpose of training interpreter trainers to assess candidate interpreters’ performances. It is based on documentation from a project initiated in 2011, which was designed to use audio recordings combined with conversation analytical principles and practices, for the training of examination panel members. The objective of the project was to make examiners reflect on the function and the functionality of role play as an assessment instrument by looking at the turn-by-turn unfolding of talk in high-stake role play examination sessions. The project, which can be described as ‘interventionist conversation analysis’, modelled upon the ‘conversation-analytic role play method’, will eventually develop into a recurrent training feature in the training of interpreter teachers and assessors.

Language brokering in multilingual caregiving settings

Using the methodology of conversation analysis to examine audio-recorded multi-party conversations between a Swedish-/Farsi-speaking resident and multilingual staff in a Swedish residential home, this article describes a practice for establishing shared understanding by one caregiver enacting the role of language broker. The focus is on caregiving settings where caregivers assist an elderly person with her personal hygiene. We demonstrate how brokering is used to (1) maintain the conversational flow in a small talk sequence and (2) address the contents in the residents complaints. The article thus advances our understanding of language brokering as an activity that multilingual staff in a linguistically asymmetrical workplace setting take on to assist a colleague in performing client-oriented activities.

Modelling the field of community interpreting: questions of methodology in research and training

Modelling the field of community interpreting: questions of methodology in research and training