Video-mediated interpreting: The interactional accomplishment of interpreting in video-mediated environments

Abstract

The thesis explores the interactional accomplishment of interpreting in video-mediated environments. Three articles explore video recordings of video-mediated interpreting in hospital encounters through conversation analysis. The final article employs discourse analysis to explore interviews and government documents. Employing multimodal conversation analysis, the first article explores the temporary suspension of medical professionals’ turns in order to let the interpreter interpret. The second explores interpreters’ embodied displays of trouble caused by trouble hearing and understanding in the video-mediated environment. The third article explores how participants’ orient to the visual affordance of the media in the organization of interpreting. The thesis demonstrates how interpreting is an interactional activity accomplished collaboratively by participants in situ. The participants have different access to linguistic content, to the visual ecology and to background knowledge. Features of the video-mediated environment, like delay and lack of mutual visual access, may delimit which resources participants have available to organize interaction, for instance pre-beginning signals and embodied actions. Participants can overcome some challenges through adapting their actions to the setting, like the temporary suspension of medical professionals’ longer turns, and by creating an interactional space that is appropriate for the activities. The fourth article discusses the comparison of video-mediated interpreting to telephone and onsite interpreting in government documents and interviews with practitioners. While government documents use the comparison between media to construct a rationale for increased use of video-technology to provide interpreting, practitioners’ narratives demonstrate how technology is relevant for the accomplishment of their work. The combination of analytical approaches demonstrates how technology as a workspace is not just a matter of efficient service provision but fundamentally alters resources participants have available to establish understanding in interaction.