What is it about?
The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, the study aims to explore unique conditions in Korea under which issues concerning medical interpreting have been addressed. Second, the study aims to diagnose problems with the medical communication in ordinary hospitals between Korean medical personnel and limited Korean proficient (LKP) patients. These two purposes are achieved using a descriptive and explanatory approach.
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Why is it important?
One might see medical interpreting in Korea not as a type of PSI but as ‘business interpreting’ performed for international clients. According to the MITC website, the ultimate goal of the program is to “attract medical tourists and enhance the competitiveness of the medical tourism (MT) industry through interpreter training”. As Lee (2009) argues, medical interpreter services in Korea may be considered a means to an end in the health care business and thus it is necessary to reconsider the conventional view that the socio-legal dynamics of medical interpreting is linked with demographic changes and growing streams of immigration.
Perspectives
Given the recent developments mentioned above, it may be argued that Korea’s socio-institutional factors influencing medical interpreter training and services are different from those in other countries. In immigrant and multilingual societies, medical interpreting has been perceived either as a basic public service that enables language minorities to gain access to quality health care (Corsellis 2008) or as a type of interpreting which takes place within one country’s own community and between residents of that country (Hale 2007). Be that as it may, there has been an assumption that the recipients of medical interpreter services are basically local residents with little or no proficiency in the dominant language and that improving local residents’ health care is, at least on the face of it, the primary goal of medical interpreter training and services. In Korea, however, policies on medical interpreter training and services are targeted at non-resident medical tourists and much of the discussion about medical interpreting is oriented towards MT and economic growth.
Professor Sang-Bin Lee
HUFS
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Medical interpreting for business purposes and language access in ordinary hospitals in Korea, Babel Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation / Revista Internacional de Traducción, December 2015, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/babel.61.4.01lee.
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