What is it about?
Cultural interpreters often tell stories that showcase the complexities involved when interpreting with Aboriginal patients. These stories highlight the multiple roles that interpreters adopt. The way that the cultural interpreters position themselves in these stories becomes a vehicle for constructing their professional identities.
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Why is it important?
The findings show that story telling is a vehicle for discovering who we are, and making sense of our world. The exchange of stories enables cultural interpreters to contribute their understandings of the complexities of interpreting in healthcare settings and the need for: a) education and training for trainee interpreters and doctors of the varied positions, storylines and worldviews that people bring to an interpreting event; b) governments to officially expand the role of the professional interpreter.
Perspectives
Researching interpreting with cultural interpreters to write this article was a unique opportunity firstly, to step inside the world of these professionals and have a glimpse of how people with different worldviews come together in an interaction and secondly, to see how communication differences may be both a barrier to but aslo an enabler when interpreting in healthcare contexts.
Dr Maria Karidakis
University of Melbourne
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Interpreter and Aboriginal Liaison Officer identity construction and positioning, Narrative Inquiry, June 2020, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/ni.19090.kar.
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