Theoreticians of translation and interpreting studies have consistently emphasized the deficiency of simplistic notions of "fidelity," "accuracy," and "equivalence" when dealing with the complexities of bridging linguistic and cultural worlds. Nowhere is it more important to contest and complicate these notions than in interpreting for speech-language pathology assessments.
What should an interpreter do, for instance, when the patient produces a word whose meaning is "wrong," but whose phonetic features are very close to the expected word?
UIUC alumnae Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle, MA, CHI and Edie Babbitt, PhD, CCC-SLP, BC-ANCDS have piloted a research initiative that trains medical interpreters to reconceive normative understandings of fidelity and interpreter invisibility, with the aim of providing SLPs a fuller understanding of not just the content but the form of a patient’s speech. In a controlled study, the researchers measured the enhancements in reliability of interpreter-mediated aphasia assessments with and without this training.
Come find out what they learned, and the implications for the fields of interpreting and translation, linguistics and speech and hearing studies.
