The Other Voice of medical Consultations. Analysis of Medical Interpreting in the NHS

Abstract

Aims: The main objective is to understand more about the role and experiences of medical interpreters. Medical interpreting (MI) is an activity that reflects the dynamics between language and healthcare access, and between ethnic minority groups and healthcare institutions. The lens of emotional labour and emotional work is used to achieve a better understanding of the practice and life of interpreters.

Methodology: This qualitative study uses semi-structured interviews to understand the perspectives of three groups (interpreters, clinicians, and patients). The research questions cover the role and the experiences of MI. In addition, an autoethnographic study was used to inspect my relationship with ‘the field’ of MI, and to analyse my participation. To reach a deeper level of understanding and to reveal latent images that might escape the normal discourse, I analyse metaphors for MI (presented by each group of participants). A thematic analysis is used within a broad phenomenological perspective that aims at revealing the lived experiences of MI by different actors.

Conclusion: My research has provided a closer look at the consultation room as a stage where three parties with different agendas, agencies, power status and roles are negotiating care and illness while dealing with linguistic and cultural barriers, with vulnerabilities and power imbalances. The main result is that the actual role of interpreters is far more complex than commonly assumed and institutionally prescribed and contains epistemic, ethical, and emotional aspects that are not officially recognised. A second result captures the complexity of voicing in medical encounters and the embodiment of interpreters. In strong connection with this, the cultural and emotional situatedness of interpreters has revealed the unrecognised emotion work and labour done by them.