12. Quality in healthcare interpreter training
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Raffaela Merlini
Abstract
This paper presents an interpreter training program recently implemented at an Italo-American healthcare facility and illustrates how the notion of “norm”, as developed within Descriptive Translation Studies, successfully shifted the trainees’ attention away from externally imposed instructions onto internally generated behavioural patterns. The process of critical rethinking was carried out through guided self-assessment of both authentic and simulated interpreting performances, based on transcript analysis. Exemplification is provided here by the use of first vs. third person. Given the highly specific context of the medical institution in question, the experience described in this study is significant only insofar as it indicates how to make rigid and undifferentiated rules superfluous while, at the same time, assuring quality services and enhancing the professionalisation of healthcare interpreting.
Abstract
This paper presents an interpreter training program recently implemented at an Italo-American healthcare facility and illustrates how the notion of “norm”, as developed within Descriptive Translation Studies, successfully shifted the trainees’ attention away from externally imposed instructions onto internally generated behavioural patterns. The process of critical rethinking was carried out through guided self-assessment of both authentic and simulated interpreting performances, based on transcript analysis. Exemplification is provided here by the use of first vs. third person. Given the highly specific context of the medical institution in question, the experience described in this study is significant only insofar as it indicates how to make rigid and undifferentiated rules superfluous while, at the same time, assuring quality services and enhancing the professionalisation of healthcare interpreting.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- 1. Introduction. Quality in interpreting 1
-
Part I. A shared responsibility
- 2. Forensic interpreting 13
- 3. The tension between adequacy and acceptability in legal interpreting and translation 37
- 4. A discourse of danger and loss 55
- 5. Is healthcare interpreter policy left in the seventies? 71
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Part II. Investigations and innovations in quality interpreting
- 6. Interpreter ethics versus customary law 85
- 7. A shared responsibility in the administration of justice 99
- 8. Interpreting for the record 119
- 9. Court interpreting in Basque 135
- 10. Community interpreting in Spain 149
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Part III. Pedagogy, ethics and responsibility in interpreting
- 11. Toward more reliable assessment of interpreting performance 171
- 12. Quality in healthcare interpreter training 187
- 13. What can interpreters learn from discourse studies? 201
- 14. Achieving quality in health care interpreting 221
- 15. Research ethics, interpreters and biomedical research 235
- Contributors 251
- Index 253
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- 1. Introduction. Quality in interpreting 1
-
Part I. A shared responsibility
- 2. Forensic interpreting 13
- 3. The tension between adequacy and acceptability in legal interpreting and translation 37
- 4. A discourse of danger and loss 55
- 5. Is healthcare interpreter policy left in the seventies? 71
-
Part II. Investigations and innovations in quality interpreting
- 6. Interpreter ethics versus customary law 85
- 7. A shared responsibility in the administration of justice 99
- 8. Interpreting for the record 119
- 9. Court interpreting in Basque 135
- 10. Community interpreting in Spain 149
-
Part III. Pedagogy, ethics and responsibility in interpreting
- 11. Toward more reliable assessment of interpreting performance 171
- 12. Quality in healthcare interpreter training 187
- 13. What can interpreters learn from discourse studies? 201
- 14. Achieving quality in health care interpreting 221
- 15. Research ethics, interpreters and biomedical research 235
- Contributors 251
- Index 253
