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Interpreters are expected to have an advanced command of not only the vocabulary and grammar of their working languages, but also the pragmatic norms that speakers of their working languages employ in communicative interactions. The aim of this paper is to explore the perceptions and practices of interpreters in relation to intercultural pragmatics at work in healthcare interactions. The paper employs two theoretical frameworks: the first is based on interpretations of behavior according to speakers' discourse-pragmatic features as representative of “high” or “low” context cultures (cf. Hall 1976); the second applies Celce-Murcia's (2007) more refined notion of “communicative competence.” The data sample of this paper focuses on cultural-pragmatic features of two linguistic and cultural groups – 25 Chinese speakers and 24 English speakers – and contrasts their selected responses to five features of Chinese-English interpreted healthcare interactions. Responses from 33 Chinese-English interpreters are matched against those from speakers of the two groups to examine the degree of congruence that interpreters have with the self-reported (para-)linguistic behavior of the two groups of speakers, for whom they interpret. This study shows that the self-reported (para-)linguistic behavior of both groups is determined by their adoption of a particular approach (doctor- vs. patient-centered approach) and other micro-level features (perceived time constraints, different notions of “small talk”) that limit elaborate pragmatic enactments. Over-arching cultural-pragmatic models based on “high” (or “low”) context communication, or “vertical” (vs. “horizontal”) hierarchical perceptions of role and status appear to have limited application to the data. Instead, local features specific to the healthcare situation co-determine both English and Chinese speakers' responses to questions about their use of pragmatics. Findings indicate that interpreters attend to each group's enactment of pragmatic features and, as expert language users, are able to recognize features and components of interactions and their functions to a greater degree than the Chinese and English speakers.

This study focuses on a situation of retentive multilingualism and transmission of more than one language in the diaspora. The population in question are bi- or multilinguals who, in an immigrant situation, added a further language, English, to their repertoire. Sixty-six Iraq-born informants who identified as Chaldeans or Assyrians now living in Melbourne, Australia were interviewed about their nominated “first” language, situation and context of acquisition, self-declared level of proficiency and notions of attachment towards and co-identification with respective languages. Proficiency and use of Chaldean and Assyrian remain high among respondents, despite these languages' level of endangerment in Iraq. Only five informants had shifted to Arabic as their “dominant” language. However, Arabic has become, and remains, an established code in in-group situations. Although contact with Arabic-speaking Iraqis and non-Iraqi Arabic-speakers is significant, it is the established status of Arabic as a “complementary” code in Chaldean and Assyrian in-group interactions that accounts for why informants view Arabic as one of their languages alongside their L1, and, to a lesser extent, English. Desire for language maintenance applies chiefly to informants' L1, but also to Arabic, confirmed by data showing informants' practices in maintaining both codes and positive affective responses to them both. In contrast, informants express distance towards Kurdish. The connections between this pattern of language maintenance and attitudes and the social and political situation of the emigrants in Iraq and Australia will be discussed.

This paper presents examples of code–switching in a large Croatian–English corpus. Use of forms from two languages is a common feature in the speech of 100 Croatian–Australians and code–switching is a habitualised variety. Psycholinguistic and socio–psychological accounts of code–switching are examined to test their applicability and explanatory power to a sample of over 5,600 turns of which 40% contain code–switches. While some items such as proper nouns are possible triggers for psycholinguistically ’involuntary’ code–switch ing, the majority of code–switching examples are accounted within socio–psychological approaches that focus on how speakers position themselves towards others. Bilingual speech, in the context of this sample of semi–spontaneous discourse, is determined by speakers’ employment of ’other–language’ items which may signal re–positioning of roles and/or signal discourse–internal features. Code–switching into English and back to Croatian reflects speakers’ and listeners’ desired linguistic choices with the roles and discourse contexts that they are able to enact within these choices., Ovaj rad bavi se primjerima engleskih transfera u govoru 100 hrvatskih iseljenika druge generacije. Prijelazi s jednog jezika na drugi učestala su pojava u hrvatskom govoru ove skupine australskih Hrvata tako da se može zaključiti da je došlo do određene habitualizacije u usmenoj komunikaciji ovih govornika gdje i jedan i drugi jezik mogu davati lekseme, a samo jedan jezik sintaktičku strukturu. Unatoč njihovoj velikoj učestalosti u svakodnevnome hrvatskom govoru ovih ispitanika prijelazi na engleski jezik ipak mogu imati određeno konverzacijsko značenje, odn. funkciju. U žarištu su one teorije koje daju objašnjenja na ove tri pojave: na prvi pogled ’nesvjesno’ prebacivanje zbog engleskog transfera koji onda povlači za sobom i cijeli prijelaz na engleski (psiholingvističke motivacije putem engleskog ’okidača’, odn. ’triggera’); ’svjesno’ prebacivanje zbog očigledne nemogućnosti da se određena poruka prenese na hrvatskome; primjenjivanje teorije o apsolutnoj i relativnoj markiranosti dvojezičnog teksta u komunikaciji s drugim sugovornikom ovisno o odnosu prema njemu. Rad primjenjuje i modele i putem njih objašnjava osobine određenih tekstova, odn. podataka i daje usporedbu o primjenjivanju takvih modela u ovome velikom korpusu od 100 snimljenih razgovora. Dok su psiholingvističke i metalingvističke motivacije prilično rijetke, primjenjivanje modela speech accommodation theory (Giles & Brown) pokazuje da i u komunikacijskim interakcijama s pripadnicima iste etničke i jezične skupine prijelazi između jezika mogu se objasniti na osnovi međuindividualnih razlika. Primjenjivanje markedness modela (Myers– Scotton) ne pokazuje bitne razlike između govornika na osnovi stupnja bliskosti prema autoru što možda potvrđuje tezu o općoj nemarkiranosti prelaženja između jezika kao normalnome jezičnom fenomenu među ovim australskim Hrvatima.

This paper examines the phenomenon of receptive multilingualism where speakers of two different languages communicate through each speaking his/her own language and understanding the other’s. Comprehension in such an interaction is aided by the speaker and the listener employing linguistic, discourse-pragmatic and other features which represent strategies of accommodation (i.e. reduction of linguistics dissimilarities). This phenomenon is not presented as an alternative to interpreting, but in the context of interpreters who work from or into a language which is closely related, but not identical to the language spoken by one of the participating clients. Background information is provided from language pairs with a high level of mutual intelligibility and the experiences of interpreters, while the focus of the data sample is on 23 interpreters who have accreditation in one, two or three of the following closely-related languages: Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. Responses are elicited on the following: self-reported incidence of accommodation in non-interpreted interactions; linguistic and ethical protocols when a different, but closely-related language is used by a client; comments from clients about interpreters’ proficiency and ethnicity; attitudes on the distinctiveness of the three languages and future intelligibility. Informants’ linguistic behaviour is analysed according to the number of accreditations held and, in general, those with three accreditations report the highest levels of accommodation.

This paper examines the situation of 28 translators for the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages and elicits responses on the number of accreditations they hold and how they negotiate requests for assignments in languages other than their ‘own’. Specifically, data is gathered on the following: accepting or declining assignments for languages in which a translator does not have accreditation; responses to requests where the nominated language has an unofficial designation; increased income as an incentive for work in more than one language and use of resources across languages. Two dominant outlooks on working in other languages emerge: the first outlook views the languages as distinct and separate and encompasses those informants who hold one accreditation and who work almost exclusively in one language only; the other dominant outlook recognises the separateness of the languages and advocates multiple accreditation as a means to perform translation across two or more languages.

This paper examines the reported actions and strategies of translators working in three closely related languages, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, which have recently undergone re-codification in countries that have greatly changed their language planning and language policy regulations. The legacy of former and unofficial designations such as ‘Serbo-Croatian’ or ‘Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian’ within the post-conflict situation is contextualised and translators’ decisionmaking processes and reported strategies in relation to language form and designation are examined. The paper seeks to demonstrate the explanatory power of Toury’s notion of norms as a framework to account for new regularities of practice. Texts identified to be different from their nominal code, or market requests to work from or into unofficial designations are now problematised and re-negotiated as secondary practices or a less commonly reported behaviour. The paper extends and applies the notion of norms to the social and occupational, macro-pragmatic role that translators occupy.

This study focuses on a language broker – a younger family member who performs lay interpreting for other family members. This paper examines three real-life interactions between a broker who relays speech from English-speakers to Macedonian-speaking family members. Adopting Goffman's notions of ‘footing’ and ‘participant roles’ that a speaker can assume, this paper examines how a broker engages with the conversational moves of others for him to assume the role of not only animator and author , but also principal . Transcribed speech shows evidence of features that are characteristic of interpreter speech: ‘relayed inter-lingual transfer’ and ‘recipient design’. At the same time, inter-lingual transfer is punctuated cyclically by responses and prompts from others to engage with the broker as a speaker in his own right. This paper shows a broker's positioning to the role of principal and how this is negotiated and re-negotiated in changes of footing in which the broker can assume this role and then relinquish it.

This paper presents profiles of eight multilinguals and examines the circumstances that determine their continued use, in addition to English, of at least two of their ‘home’ languages. I attempt to identify in which domains this occurs, whether there are established patterns of domain-specific language use and whether these patterns are maintained or altered to encompass informants' continued multilingualism. Further, the three vintages of informants offer cross-generational comparison. Findings reveal that informants have been able to establish social networks similar to those that they have been part of before arrival in Australia. This has been instrumental for them to remain multilingual. These social networks are primarily family- and friend-based, together with the neighbourhood and workplace domains. There are few cross-vintage differences in the importance and function of these networks to informants. Further, informants' self-descriptions of a mono-, bi- or multicultural identity may change afte...

This paper examines the presence of English-origin interjections - affirmatives and negatives - in otherwise Croatian speech. Previous examinations of bilingual discourse marking has focused on habitualisation, pragmatic transference, cognitive processes (in terms of reducing the "mental load" of distinguishing between two systems) or psycholinguistic factors (eg. "non-deactivation" of pragmatic forms from one language which speakers habitually speak). However, such studies only address transference of pragmatic norms, whether features and/or forms. They have limited explanatory power where speakers employ discourse forms from one language and equivalent forms from the other language there. This study examines the frequency and functionality of English-origin forms compared to Croatian ones. Findings here show that English forms generally co-occur with Croatian forms in a statistical sense and only displace Croatian ones where English forms are polyfunctional or perform more functions that their Croatian counterparts. This accounts for the higher statistical frequency of yeah, while forms such as no or nah occur roughly to the same degree as their Croatian equivalents. Thus, linguistic, in particular micro-discourse features are shown to influence selection of interjections.

This paper focuses on the profiles and reported behaviour of interpreters and translators for the Croatian language in professional settings in Australia and in Europe. This paper first describes the circumstances of translation and interpreting (hereafter: ‘T&I’) in predominantly Anglophone countries, as well as the norms (professional and ethical) that pertain to the interpreters and translators. The sample of respondents consists of 31 interpreters and translators, of which 16 have accreditation for Croatian only, while fifteen have accreditation with Bosnian and/or Serbian, in addition to Croatian. Data were elicited on the following: reported behaviour in professional and non-professional situations; unanticipated differences in the language for which an assignment was accepted and its actual form; attitudes on assignments with unofficial or unclear designations; others’ assumptions of respondents’ native speaker competency and ethnicity; attitudes towards the distinctness of the three languages. Research results show that there are differences between the two groups in regard to verbal accommodation and readiness to consider interpreting or translation assignments with outdated or unofficial language designations.