Claudio Baraldi

Forms of mediation: the case of interpreter-mediated interactions in medical systems

Abstract This paper analyses the forms of mediation in interlinguistic interactions performed in Italian healthcare services and in contexts of migration. The literature encourages dialogic transformative mediation, empowering participants’ voices and changing cultural presuppositions in social systems. It may be doubtful, however, whether mediation can actually be effective in changing the status quo of social systems. My research analyses video-taped interpreter-mediated interactions, focussing on the mediators’ translation activity, and on its relationship with the cultural presuppositions in the medical system. While occasionally a dialogic transformative mediation is achieved, mediation mainly supports a doctor-centred communication, preventing the empowerment of linguistic and cultural minorities. Il saggio analizza le forme di mediazione delle interazioni interlinguistiche in servizi sociosanitari italiani in contesti migratori. In letteratura, si incoraggia una mediazione dialogica trasformativa che dia voce ai partecipanti e modifichi i presupposti culturali dei sistemi sociali, ma si dubita anche che la mediazione sia efficace nel cambiare i sistemi sociali. Il saggio analizza alcune interazioni interlinguistiche audioregistrate, mettendo a fuoco la traduzione nel suo rapporto con i presupposti culturali del sistema della medicina. Sebbene possa anche realizzarsi in forma dialogica trasformativa, la mediazione promuove prevalentemente una comunicazione centrata sul medico, ostacolando la promozione delle minoranze linguistiche e culturali.

New Forms of Intercultural Communication in a Globalized World

Communication is the basic concept in explaining globalization. Globalization can be observed as the worldwide expansion of a functionally differentiated European society through intercultural communication. In this society, since the 17th century, intercultural communication has assumed the form of a modernist ethnocentrism based on values such as knowledge, pluralism and individualism. During the 20th century, historical changes created the necessity for new forms of intercultural communication. In the last decade of that century, a transcultural form of communication based on dialogue was proposed as a basis for cross-cultural adaptation, a creation of multicultural identities and a construction of a hybrid multicultural society. However, this transcultural form creates paradoxes and difficulties in intercultural communication, mixing the preservation of cultural difference with the search for synthesis. Consequently, a new form of intercultural dialogue, dealing with incommensurable differences and managing conflicts, is needed to create coordination among different cultural perspectives.

Ways of overcoming linguistic barriers in healthcare intercultural communication

This paper focuses on communication between Italian midwives and migrant patients, in which the midwives deal with the patients’ limited proficiency in Italian language. The paper presents a study conducted in two womens health assistance centres in an Italian province, and is based on seven hours of audiotaped and transcribed interactions between midwives and migrant patients during prenatal check-ups. The analysis concerns those actions in which the midwives (1) formulate patients’ previous utterances in order to check their own understanding and then provide explanations or continue their inquiry, and (2) reformulate their own utterances in order to solve explicit or expected problems of understanding on the part of patients. The paper illustrates how formulations and reformulations are used by midwives to try to overcome language barriers in healthcare interactions and give meanings to medical terms and patients’ health problems. The analysis shows that formulations and reformulations can enhance both a patient-centred form of communication and a form of midwives’ authority, discussing how these forms establish conditions and meanings of intercultural communication. An analysis of this kind can be useful to raise awareness and promote training among healthcare providers, particularly regarding situations and conditions of effective communication with migrant patients.

Promoting Self-Expression in Classroom Interactions

Self-expression is a key concept for sociological studies on childhood since it is the cue for childrens self-socialization and agency. Hence promoting childrens agency and social participation requires their self-expression to be facilitated in their interaction with adults. The analysis in this article of a set of interactions in Italian schools sheds light on how promotion of childrens self-expression succeeded or failed through specific adult intervention and forms of communication. This analysis may be interesting for a reflection on how to promote childrens participation and self-expression in education systems.

Forms of Decision Making: Gatekeeping and Dialogic Coordination in CISV Organizational Meetings

The present article deals with decision making as a communicative process taking place in organizations as social systems. We will investigate the process whereby decisions are produced, before being announced, by looking at turn design and sequence organization in the interaction, and by considering cultural presuppositions, which are specific patterns of expectations about interlocutors’ expectations. In so doing, we will try to combine theories and methodologies deriving from Conversation Analysis and Social Systems Theory. The article deals with interactionally achieved patterns of expectations concerning participants’ positioning in decision making and analyzes two different forms of decision making, namely, gatekeeping and coordination of participative decision making. These are analyzed within the framework of organizational meetings in which educational activities for children’s camps are planned. The analysis of videotaped and transcribed interactions taking place during these meetings highlights the ways in which different forms of decision making are socially constructed.

Are close renditions the golden standard? Some thoughts on translating accurately in healthcare interpreter-mediated interaction

‘Close renditions’ – renditions that are very close, if not identical, in form and meaning, to the original utterances – are often considered fundamental in dialogue interpreting. It has been suggested that interpreters should address exhaustively and accurately all pieces of information, including those conveyed with minimal responses. This perspective seems to reflect the ‘golden standard’ that normatively guides interpreters’ training. Drawing from research over a long period, we look here at the work of ‘intercultural mediators’ providing interpreting service in healthcare. The analysis described in this article shows that closeness in the meaning and function of single utterances does not necessarily coincide with closeness in their function in the interaction. In order for renditions to be ‘close’, in their interactional function, to those in the other language, interpreting mediators need to achieve ‘accurate’ coordination work. So ‘accuracy’ in coordination should be looked at as a fundamental activity in dialogue interpreting to achieve translational closeness. Expanded dyadic sequences addressing what is going on and pursued in the interaction, for instance, are often necessary to achieve ‘close’ rendition, but their accurate management can be a very complex accomplishment. It is suggested that learning accurate coordination may be a major achievement in healthcare interpreter training.

Children’s Participation in Communication Systems: A Theoretical Perspective to Shape Research

Abstract This paper aims to clarify the meaning of children’s participation in the relationship between children’s individual action and the social treatment and consequences of this action. For this purpose, the paper explores the integration of different theoretical approaches that can shape research on children’s participation, looking at interactions, complex social systems that include interactions, and narratives that are produced in these complex social systems. This integration allows the understanding of the ways in which children actively participate in communication processes, social structures condition children’s active participation, and children’s active participation can enhance structural change in social systems, through the implementation of promotional communication systems. The paper highlights the following paradox: the relevance of children’s action for social change depends on the relevance of adults’ action in promoting children’s actions. This theoretical perspective is exemplified in the case of promotion of children’s active participation in the education system through the empirical analysis of cases of videotaped and transcribed interactions, highlighting facilitation systems of classroom communication. The analyzed data are based on a field research in Italian classrooms regarding a specific methodology of facilitation of communication. The analysis of these data shows the ways in which the facilitation system creates the paradoxical relationship between structures that condition children’s active participation and children’s active participation that enhances structural change. The paper highlights a new way of dealing with children’s participation, based on a social constructionist, systemic, and interactionist approach.

Children’s Citizenships: Limitations and Possibilities of Childhood Sociology in Italy

During the 1970s and 1980s, sociological studies in Italy were exclusively concerned with ‘adolescence’ as distinct from the general category of ‘childhood’. In the 1990s, local administrations and national government promoted new opportunities for children’s participation in society, and sociologists began to analyse the various aspects of this participation. Since the 1990s, sociological research has included the legal and political bases of children’s citizenship and rights, forms of interaction promoting children’s participation, ways of including children in mainstream cultural tendencies, children’s observations of their social context, intercultural situations involving children, deviance and the labelling of children. The expansion of childhood sociology, however, has been slow, and the political impulse which supported children’s participation has partially evaporated. Childhood sociology in Italy remains marginal in scientific research and university teaching. Its future depends partly on renewed political commitment to promoting children’s participation; however, its main obstacle is the lukewarm interest within the sociological community.

Intercultural Education and Communication in Second Language Interactions.

This article analyses intercultural education outcomes produced in the setting of teaching Italian as a second language (ISL) in an Italian school. Intercultural education is produced in interactions which are based on specific cultural presuppositions, i.e. expectations regarding learning, role hierarchy and evaluation of student performances. Sixteen hours of interactions associated with ISL teaching in a multicultural classroom were audiotaped, transcribed and analysed. The analysis highlights three ways in which cultural diversity becomes meaningful. First, cultural diversity is constructed as one task of learning. Second, cultural diversity is constructed as conflictive interaction. Third, cultural diversity is constructed as a point of departure for positive school performance. These three ways of giving meaning to cultural diversity reveal a prevailing ethnocentric form of ISL teaching, as a consequence of educational presuppositions which do not take the difficulties of intercultural communication seriously. Recently, ‘dialogue’ has been invoked to address ethnocentrism; however, the conditions of effective intercultural dialogue are uncertain. Questo articolo analizza l’educazione interculturale prodotta nell’insegnamento dell’italiano come seconda lingua (ISL) in una scuola italiana. L’educazione interculturale è realizzata in interazioni che sono basate su specifici presupposti culturali, che sono aspettative di apprendimento, di gerarchie di ruolo e di prestazioni degli studenti. L’educazione interculturale si occupa del problema della diversità culturale, basata su presupposti culturali diversi che emergono nella comunicazione. Sono state audioregistrate, trascritte e analizzate 16 ore di interazione durante l’insegnamento di ISL in una classe multiculturale: l’analisi ha evidenziato tre modi in cui la diversità culturale è resa significativa. La diversità culturale è costruita anzitutto come compito di apprendimento, in secondo luogo come interazione conflittuale, infine come punto di partenza per conseguire una prestazione scolastica positiva. Questi tre modi di costruire la diversità culturale rivelano una forma prevalente di tipo etnocentrico per l’insegnamento ISL, che è una conseguenza di presupposti educativi che non permettono di prendere seriamente le difficoltà della comunicazione interculturale. Recentemente, si è proposto di usare il ‘dialogo’ per superare l’etnocentrismo; tuttavia c’è incertezza sulle condizioni di un dialogo interculturale efficace.

On professional and non-professional interpreting in healthcare services: the case of intercultural mediators

Abstract A debate that has revolved around the organisation of Italian healthcare interpreting services concerns the choice adopted by most institutions to employ intercultural mediators rather than professional interpreters. Intercultural mediators do not necessarily have a professional training in interpreting, they are, however, preferred to professional interpreters in that they are considered more competent in mediating the possibly different perspectives of healthcare providers and migrant patients. This preference provides food for thought for reflections on professionalism in interpreter-mediated interaction in healthcare. Drawing form a 10-year research on mediator-interpreted interactions in healthcare and a set of data comprising around 250 consultations, our contribution sets out as an attempt to clarify what is involved in this mediating work. Our analysis shows that mediators’ agency is relevant both in providing renditions of participants’ utterances and in promoting their active participation in the interaction. We describe the different ways in which mediators’ agency is displayed in interactions and the interactional constraints on mediators’ choices of action. Suggestions derived from our analysis may have an impact on the improvement of both mediators’ and interpreters’ professionalism with particular reference to facilitating communication with migrant patients, an aspect that has been recognized as highly problematic in the literature.