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I Am Not a Robot

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I Am Not a Robot
Qualitative Health Research http://qhr.sagepub.com/

' 'I am not a robot! ' ' Interpreters ' Views of Their Roles in Health Care Settings
Elaine Hsieh Qual Health Res 2008 18: 1367 DOI: 10.1177/1049732308323840 The online version of this article can be found at: http://qhr.sagepub.com/content/18/10/1367

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“I am not a robot!” Interpreters’ Views of Their Roles in Health Care Settings
Elaine Hsieh
University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA

Qualitative Health Research Volume 18 Number 10 October 2008 1367-1383 © 2008 Sage Publications 10.1177/1049732308323840 http://qhr.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

In this study, I examined interpreters’ self-perceived roles and their corresponding communicative goals and strategies. Twenty-six professional interpreters (of 17 languages), 4 patients, and 12 health care providers were recruited for this study, which involved participant observation of medical encounters and in-depth interviews. Constant comparative analysis was used to generate a typology of interpreters’ self-perceived roles, which are different from the roles they learned in their training. Different roles reflect differences in interpreters’ concern for other participants’ goals, institutional goals, and their own communicative goals. Interpreters’ desire to maintain neutrality during the medical encounters influences the communicative strategies they adopt when assuming other roles. I conclude the article with the theoretical and practical


Citations: http://qhr.sagepub.com/content/18/10/1367.refs.html Downloaded from qhr.sagepub.com at Swansea University on March 24, 2011 Downloaded from qhr.sagepub.com at Swansea University on March 24, 2011 1368 Qualitative Health Research Downloaded from qhr.sagepub.com at Swansea University on March 24, 2011 Hsieh / Interpreters’ Views of Their Roles 1369 Procedure Two research assistants and I used constant comparative analysis for the data analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), coding the data for dominant themes and categories Downloaded from qhr.sagepub.com at Swansea University on March 24, 2011 1370 Qualitative Health Research Downloaded from qhr.sagepub.com at Swansea University on March 24, 2011 Hsieh / Interpreters’ Views of Their Roles 1371 Downloaded from qhr.sagepub.com at Swansea University on March 24, 2011 1372 Qualitative Health Research Advocate The CCHCP training defined advocacy as “any action an interpreter takes on behalf of the patient outside [italics added] the bounds of an interpreted interview” (Roat et al., 1997, pp
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