Transcript Document
TrIn 3102:
Consecutive Interpreting
Week 10
3/29/06
Lecture Goals-Week 10
• Write down a thought question from your reading of
“Interpreting in Mental Health Settings” and “Basic
Competencies for Mental Health Interpreters” and give
the card to the instructor
• Introduction to Mental Health Interpreting
• Discussion of settings and professional roles
• Specific concerns for mental health interpreting +
videotape
• Discuss the importance of equivalent register used in
the interpreting process
• Skills practice: Affect/Register Narratives
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Introduction to Mental Health
• Mental Health: includes psychiatrists, psychologists,
social workers, counselors, nurses, physical therapists
• Refugees: characteristics include speaking many
languages; forced to flee from their homes; loss of
home; loss of family members and friends through
warfare, starvation, untreated illness or injury; torture
or execution; loss of stable social and economic network;
children may have lost a parent and witnessed the
torture and/or death of a family member or been left
behind; many feel shame at having lost their country and
must cope with a strange language/culture and lower
social status.
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Settings
• Include psychiatric hospitals,
emergency rooms, general medical
clinics, social service agencies, clinics
and agencies serving refugees,
immigrants and minorities, schools,
private practice, workers
compensation situations, family
counseling, court.
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The professional mental health
interpreter:
1. must be able to speak, understand and write
in 2 languages, one must be
English.(exceptions: Navajo do not have a
written language and few Cambodians are
literate in their dominant language)
2. must be competent in both cultures
3. must understand the medical and ethical
dilemmas in mental health services
4. must apply the ethics and professional rules
to mental health care interpreting situations
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The professional mental health
interpreter:
5. must be skilled in facilitating communication
between patient and provider
6. must be assertive when needed to prevent
communication breakdown
7. must be familiar with the mental health system
8. must be familiar with the vocabulary specific
to mental health services
9. must be skilled in sight translation
10. must have extensive general knowledge
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Refugee concerns
• Refugees may have difficulty trusting the
mental health professional and the
interpreter. In their homeland, they may
have been abused by medical or mental
health personnel. Interpreters may have
been present during interrogation or
torture. They are afraid to trust them and
may be fearful for their immigration
status or even fearful of hospitalization.
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Refugee concerns
• But refugees depend on the
interpreter to bridge the language
barrier and mental health providers
depend on them to bridge cultural
barriers.
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Mental Health professional concerns
1.
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1. Ethical issues
Confidentiality
(fear of interpreter compared to death
squads or deportation)
Neutrality (does not advocate for provider nor patient)
Expertise
Fidelity (conservation of meaning and never summarize a
long discourse)
2. 2. Emotional stress and fatigue
3. 3. Transference (patient is emotionally dependent on
interpreter based on the patient’s own needs and wishes)
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Concerns
4. Financial issues (freelancers may
have difficulty collecting payment)
5. Training and continuous learning
(learn the mental health system and
how professionals work)
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Simultaneous or consecutive mode?
• Choice depends on:
–
–
–
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number of people
acoustics
language
kinds of communication: history-taking,
assessment, individual or group therapy,
counseling, patient education, day
program
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Language concerns
• Interpreter may need to interpret in the
patient’s second language (LB or LC)
• Mental health problems and medication may
influence their speech and ability to
understand what is said
• Mental retardation or speech problems as a
result of torture or malnutrition may be an
influence
• Their language may be distorted,
disconnected, irrational, angry or vulgar.
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Language concerns
• The interpreter should not normalize the
patient’s distorted language nor interpret
vulgar language with euphemisms nor
soften an insult nor minimize how bad the
patient feels (may be close to suicide)…the
professional needs an accurate picture of
all abnormalities. Be prepared to deal with
the vocabulary of war, concentration
camps, torture, starvation, physical and
sexual abuse.
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Mental health care interview
• Life history, religious affiliation, chemical
dependency (technical and street language),
prescription medications and dosages, mental status
exam
• Questions about anxiety, guilt, fear, dreams,
nightmare,night terrors, insomnia, hallucinations,
visions, startle reflexes, memory, concentration,
daily routine, depressed mood, loss of appetite or
weight, blurring of vision, ringing in ears, sighing,
choking feelings, sexual problems.
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Videotape: Refugee Mental Health
You will be shown a portion of the video tape on Refugee
Mental Health (viewed last semester).
•
Take notes in English on the tasks of the interpreter
in the mental health setting.
•
At home, compare your notes with the reading
material assigned this week (“Interpreting in Mental
Health Settings….”) and authored by the presenter in
the video.
•
For next week, write 5 questions (NOT yes-no or
T/F) pertaining to your notes and the reading
material.
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Equivalent Register
• Formal
– Formal lecture/speech/documents
– Sophisticated, academic vocabulary
– Technical jargon: legal or medical
• Informal
– Light Conversation
– Slang: What a tight (great) car!
– Colloquial: The car is running great!
• Speech is difficult to understand due to:
– Speech impediment (stuttering) or mouth/jaw
apparatus
– Random, disconnected thought patterns
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Comparative Examples of Register
• Discussion by language pair: How would you
interpret the following statements?
– High: I have intermittently experienced a
burning sensation in my upper
gastrointestinal tract. Frequently I am
plagued with nausea and regurgitation.
– Low (child): My tummy hurts. I want to puke
a lot.
– Low: I got a pain in my gut. Sometimes I feel
like throwing up.
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Register exercise by language pair
• In groups of three, read aloud the
following three sentences. Contrast
the vocabulary used in each language
level.
1. “As I was driving to work in the morning,
I noticed that the stop sign which used to
be on the corner of Main and First had
been removed.”
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High Register
2. Upon transporting myself to my place of
employment in a motor vehicle at some point
in time prior to noon, I observed that the
insignia which had formerly been stationed at
the intersection of the thoroughfares known
as Main and First to cause motorists to bring
their vehicles to a stationary position, had
been displaced.
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Low Register
3. On my way to work in the morning I
saw that they took out the stop sign
that used to be at Main and First.
• Somali: Select 2 registers and
translate.
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Lab Goals-Week 10
1. Turn in the lab exercise # 4 (sight
translation) to your lab instructor (20
points)
2. Vocabulary for Mental Health (p. 86):
With your lab instructor, discuss as a group
possible translations or ways to
define/explain these terms.
3. Affect and Register Activity
4. Dialogue activities
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Affect/Register
Lab pp. 100-101: Each pair will be assigned a situation.
1. Your lab instructor will assign Paragraph A or B to each
student to be interpreted into your other working
language.
2. Your partner will read (in English) Paragraph A aloud,
sentence by sentence, while you interpret using the
consecutive mode. Then you will read Paragraph B aloud
while your partner interprets.
3. Discuss with your lab instructor the differences in
vocabulary (register), tone, emotion (affect) as you
compare the two discourses A and B.
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Lab activities-Week 10
A. Sight translation practice of mental health related materials:
Groups of 3 will meet to “translate” together. All groups do the
first exercise (a) and then go directly to the dialogue exercises.
Do (b) and (c) only if you have time.
•
(a) “What is Mental Illness?” (98-99)
•
(b) “What is Lead Poisoning?” (104-105)
•
(c) Prozac discussion (102-103)
B. Dialogue practice using material related to mental health issues
1. At the drug clinic (pp. 92-94)
2. Open dialogue (p. 95)
3. Case 5 (p. 96-97)
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Lecture assignment for Week 11
• Text readings (see syllabus)
– Prepare one thought question for each
reading next week
• Ethics situation #2 (10 + 15 points)
• Write 5 questions regarding reading
material on mental health and notes
from video.
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Interpreting Situation #2
• For this interpreting situation, identify the
following steps in the problem-solving process:
– The ethical issue in the situation
– Any cultural issue in the situation
– Factors which may influence how the interpreter
handles the situation
– Options of the interpreter
– Consequences to those options
– Which option you consider to be the best choice
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Situation 2
• When the doctor enters the room with a smile on his
face and congratulates the young, unmarried Ethiopian
woman with her pregnancy, the interpreter is shocked.
Although he knows that everything said should be
interpreted as closely to the meaning as possible, he
decides that it would be unethical to interpret the
doctor’s message. Instead, he stops the conversation
and explains that, in Ethiopian culture, being pregnant
while not married is cause for committing suicide to
avoid shaming her family. Although the woman may not
be clinically suicidal, there is a chance that she becomes
suicidal when the issue of her pregnancy is not dealt
with in a culturally appropriate manner.
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Situation 2
• Note: Next week you will be discussing
your problem-solving process in small
groups. After your discussion, you will
write a follow-up paper (3-5
paragraphs) stating if you have
changed your mind or what additional
aspects of the situation you
considered in your group discussion.
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