Cultural presuppositions and re-contextualization of medical systems in interpreter-mediated interactions

It can be assumed that interpreter-mediated interaction in institutional settings is, at least partly, influenced by the institutional culture of the context in which it takes place (medical, juridical or otherwise). Institutional interactions do not simply reproduce cultural orientations, they produce a joint construction of cultural meanings. In particular, the reproduction of mainstream cultural meanings may highly depend on the contributions (and the acceptance of the contributions) of institutional roles and interactive negotiations can produce new cultural orientations.In this paper we analyse interpreter-mediated interactions as a particular type of institutional, intercultural communication. The question we pose is whether and to what extent medical culture influences intercultural communication mediated by an interpreter. In Western medical culture, doctors have two main types of tasks; on the one hand they acquire information, give instructions, offer advices and therapies. On the other, a widespread introduction of a client-oriented approach inside medical organisations may create opportunities for patients’ self-expression. The first type of tasks creates expectations of a cognitive nature, the second of an affective nature. Such expectations may take different forms in mediated interaction. In our data, we noted that the relevance that is given to cognitive expectations seems to influence interpreters’ translation choices. Our conclusion is that either in the case of cognitive and affective projected expectations, medical culture affects the interpreters’ translating choices in order to privilege the interaction between the institutional roles, including the interpreter, and the relevance of translation in giving voice to the patients was not sufficiently considered, also inside a client-oriented, affective-based cultural approach. These results invite to explore the relevance of managing translation effectively to improve intercultural communication in interpreter-mediated institutional contexts.