Epistemic Brokering in the Interpreter-Mediated Medical Visit: Negotiating “Patient’s Side” and “Doctor’s Side” Knowledge.

A significant dilemma involved in communication in medical care is the interactional negotiation of “doctor’s side” versus “patient’s side” knowledge—two divergent, yet indispensible, understandings of sickness. The present study examines the ways in which language interpreters, as active coparticipants in the clinical encounter, can engage with these emergent territories of knowledge by reformulating how information is presented in the ongoing talk. Although related to the strategies used in language and culture brokering, the practices described here for epistemic brokering are distinct in that they redesign action types and stances, as well as initiate sequences, in the service of aligning with and satisfying the social, communicative, and medical objectives that exist on each side of the mediated interaction. It is argued that epistemic brokering practices are one means through which interpreters can accomplish—on a turn-by-turn basis—their various roles of codiagnostician, gatekeeper, patient advocate, etc., which previous research has identified. Data are in American English and in Central American dialects of Spanish with English translation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]