Diversity and Adaptation in Intercultural Mediation

The paper focuses on intercultural mediation and the main function it is given: promoting cultural acceptance and adaptation through triadic inter-linguistic interactions. Mediators are generally invited to promote intercultural adaptation, bridging cultural differences but meanwhile keeping a neutral stance in the interaction. The paper analyses the relationship between neutrality and bridging in interactions involving members of a medical institution, members of cultural minorities, and interpreter-mediators belonging to cultural minorities, due to the coupling between linguistic translation and intercultural adaptation. A series of transcripts of interpreter-mediated sequences concerning these triadic interactions is analysed in order to provide empirical data for the scientific reflection upon the relationship between the intercultural mediation’s abstract function and empirical process. From a theoretical perspective, interpreted-mediated interactions are considered as particular communication systems included in and making reference to more complex systems, represented by institutions which fulfil particular functions (functional systems) inside society, such as the medical system. Analysing the coupling between the cultural forms derived from a medical system (the medicine code, the structure of roles, the reciprocal expectations in interactions among roles and persons) and the specific interactive structures of interpreted-mediated interactions (turn-taking, action sequences, implications of participants’ selections), the paper shows how mediators participate in intercultural communication promoting the acceptance of cultural orientations emerging in such interactions, and managing the conflicts derived from their co-existence. In particular, the analysis demonstrates that the main cultural forms deriving from the medical system are frequently presented and empowered, while dialogical interactions (distribution of active participation, addressing of interests and/or needs, checking perceptions, active listening, appreciation of actions and experience, feedback to actions) are rarely improved. The analysis also shows that these forms of interactions are promoted the mediators' initiatives in creating cultural meanings inside interactions. To sum up, mediators are active participants in communication systems, and their cultural belonging and training guarantee neither a voice to minority groups, nor neutrality: consequently, attention to the specific forms of communication is particularly important in order to understand how mediation can be enhanced in interpreted-mediated interactions.