Polysemy in Language and Translation Conference – Poland
Dr. Diego Burgos traveled to Katowice, Poland, to present his paper co-authored with ITS alumna Jordan Burner, “Bridging the Disparity Between the Lexicon of Patients, Healthcare Providers and Interpreters”, at the Polysemy in Language and Translation Conference. The conference, according to its organizers, “is intended as a forum for presenting and discussing linguistic polysemy in all its multifarious variety. Therefore we invite researchers of all linguistic persuasions who are working on the polysemous structure of linguistic units to present and share with us results of their studies in whatever linguistic discipline they are working, be it polysemy in phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics or discourse studies.”
Below is an abstract of the paper Dr. Burgos presented.
“Most languages have their own dialects. Thus, for an interpreter, it is not enough to know the target language. An interpreter should be aware of lexical variations and cultural differences between language variants and dialects.
This is especially evident and problematic in the medical setting. An interpreter in a medical center is faced with patients from all different countries and regions, backgrounds, and upbringings on a day to day basis. No amount of learning or experience can completely prepare an interpreter for the plethora of variations he or she will face within a language and a culture. In addition, there are individual idealisms that may make a certain subject touchy or taboo for a patient, and they may skirt around explaining their condition.
This set of factors can create problems while interpreting for doctors and patients because any amount of time and effort spent trying to decipher what a patient intends to say is time lost in the patient consultation, which affects health care services as a whole (e.g., diagnosis, prescriptions, therapies, etc.). Additionally, if the true intention of the patient’s words is never found, then there could be misinterpretation, which in a medical situation can be the difference in life or death.
The present study proposes that the disparity between the lexical resources used by the patients, doctors, and/or interpreters used must be recognized as playing a central role in the success of the healthcare experience for all involved, and can negatively affect the healthcare experience if not valued. For instance, the patient may describe their condition using the expression ojo de pescado, yet the interpreter is only familiar with the technical term verruga. The interpreter may then interpret literally fish eye when the intended expression is wart.
Therefore, this study 1) characterizes resources and practices currently used by both experienced and novice interpreters working in two medical centers when they have to work around non-terminological variants and polysemy for medical concepts; 2) describes a methodology to build a lexical resource that contributes to minimize the disparity between patient’s, doctor’s and/or interpreter’s lexical resources in medicine; and 3) provides a glossary sample to be used by interpreters in a health care setting.
The results of this study show that, generally, novice interpreters tend to try to guess the meaning of the non-terminological variants within an interpreted setting, whereas experienced interpreters approach the same situation by asking the patient for clarification of meaning. This experienced approach is more effective in bridging the disparity between the various participants in an interpreted medical interaction.”