Communicating Across Cultures and Languages in the Health Care Setting

Abstract

This book offers a novel approach to understanding the complexities of communication in culturally and linguistically diverse health care contexts. It marks the culmination of two decades of research in South Africa, a context that has obvious application in a wider international climate given current globalization and migration trends. The authors draw from a large body of evidence based across different sites and illnesses, scrutinising both the language dynamics of intercultural health interactions and the perceptions and narratives of multiple participants. Including a range of theoretical, methodological and empirical considerations, the volume sheds light upon qualitative research methods and their application in the intercultural context. This book will be a valuable resource for health professionals, medical educators and language practitioners as well as students and scholars of discourse analysis and the medical humanities. Part I -- Chapter 1. Prologue -- Chapter 2. The Context of Health Communication: Global, Local and Theoretical -- Part II -- Chapter 3. Methodological Issues: Approaches, Pitfalls and Solutions -- Part III. Chapter 4. Islands of Good Practice -- Chapter 5. Language Diversity in the Clinic: Promoting and Exploring Cultural Brokerage -- Chapter 6. Verbal and Non-Verbal Dimensions of the Intercultural Health Setting -- Part IV -- Chapter 7. Putting It All Into Practice: Some Examples and Advice -- Chapter 8. Conclusions and Implications: Paradoxes and Principles.