Interpreters experienced role dissonance between conduit training and the collaborative demands of actual encounters

Description #

On post-encounter surveys, all three interpreters reflected on and challenged the dominant "conduit" notion of their role, revealing role dissonance: their training and national standards cast them in the "impossible" role of actively managing a conversation while erasing their own presence. One interpreter, asked to complete "The role of a language interpreter in a health care encounter is…", answered that it was to make communication as easy and accurate as possible "as though the interpreter weren't even present" — illustrating the tension between the trained ideal and the collaborative reality.

"on the post-encounter survey, when asked to complete the phrase, 'The role of a language interpreter in a health care encounter is…' one interpreter responded: 'to make the communication between the health care provider and the patient as easy as possible and as accurate as possible—as though the interpreter weren't even present.'" (Estrada, 2015, p. 286)

"The interpreters in this study had been trained to assume a non-intrusive role but experienced dissonance in negotiating the performance of the role within the demands of the actual clinical interactions (Hsieh, 2008). They were cast in the impossible role of actively managing a conversation in ways that erased their presence." (Estrada, 2015, p. 286)

Methods Context #

What? #ⓘ

The observable: interpreters' self-reported conceptualizations of their own role (open-ended survey responses), analyzed alongside their observed conduct for evidence of role dissonance.

"all three interpreters reflected on and challenged the dominant notion of interpreter as conduit. The interpreters' responses showed evidence of role dissonance." (Estrada, 2015, p. 286)

How? #ⓘ

Self-administered open-ended post-encounter surveys completed by nurse practitioners and interpreters after each recorded visit, interpreted in light of the conversation-analytic findings.

"After each clinical encounter, the nurse practitioners and interpreters completed a brief survey consisting of open-ended questions about their impressions of the clinic visit and their role perceptions." (Estrada, 2015, p. 280)

Who? #ⓘ

Three female clinic-based interpreters (ages 41-51; one paid staff, two volunteers; 3-20 years' experience; all with AHEC interpretation training) working in two North Carolina primary care clinics.

"Of the three female interpreter participants, ages 41–51, one was paid staff and two were volunteers. They all had education and training in interpretation, including formal training through the local Area Health Education Center (AHEC)" (Estrada, 2015, p. 279)

Other Notes #

A mechanism connecting interpreter training/standards to communication practice: the conduit standard's assumption that "language is a neutral and arbitrary medium" sits in tension with the collaborative co-construction the encounters actually required.

Caveats #

• Findings rest on five illustrative (non-prototypical) encounters, limiting generalizability The findings derive from only five interpreter-mediated encounters, and the authors explicitly present the exemplars not as prototypical or representative cases but as illustrations of interactional dynamics. The trouble-spot and intersubjectivity mechanisms are therefore demonstrations of what can occur in such encounters, not claims about how frequently or generally they occur; they cannot be read as estimates of prevalence or effect.