The Pragmatics of Emotions in Interlinguistic Healthcare Settings

Federico Farini

doi:10.2478/v10015-012-0025-5

Authors

Federico Farini Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2478/v10015-012-0025-5

Keywords:

conversational analysis, medical interaction, pragmatics, emotion, intercultural communication

Abstract

Data-based studies on interlinguistic medical interaction show that frequently migrant patients encounter difficulties in expressing their emotions and concerns. Such difficulties are not always overcome through the intervention of an interpreter, as emotional expressions tend to “get missed” in translations which focus on problems and treatments in medical terms. The main question addressed here is: what types of interpreters’ actions cut out, or make relevant, migrant patients’ emotions? Our data is based on a corpus of 300 interlinguistic medical interactions in Arabic, Mandarin Chinese and Italian in two public hospitals in Italy. The conversations involve one Italian healthcare provider, an interpreter and a migrant patient. The corpus is analyzed drawing upon Conversation Analysis, studies on Dialogue Interpreting and Intercultural Pragmatics.

Author Biography

Federico Farini, Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom

Federico Farini, MA Early Modern History (University of Bologna) and Social Anthropology (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), obtained his Ph.D. in Sociology of Education at the Department of Language and Culture Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (2008). Since 2009, he has added to research on history of education, intercultural education and social interventions to promote the welfare of children and adolescents an interest on interpreting in intercultural healthcare settings, with a special interest of women’s health services. During these years he has contributed to the creation of corpora of interpretedmediated interaction in healthcare settings (Italian-Mandarin Chinese Interactions and Italian-Arabic Interaction). Recently, his research on interpreting has focused on the migrant patients’ emotional expressions and the way they are treated by the interpreters and the healthcare professionals in interpreted-mediated interaction. He has taken part in EU-funded projects and Italian Minister of University and Research-funded projects; since 2006, he has published a number of articles in international journals and chapters in edited books on the topics of communication theory, intercultural education and interpreting in healthcare settings.

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