Intercultural Mediation Research Articles

Overcoming barriers to mental health care: multimodal trauma-focused treatment approach for unaccompanied refugee minors

BackgroundThis study evaluated the feasibility of a short-term, multimodal trauma-focused treatment approach adapted specifically for unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) in the Netherlands. This approach aims to overcome barriers to mental health care and to reduce symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.MethodsAn uncontrolled study was conducted, evaluating the main request for help, treatment integrity and feasibility, and the course of symptoms of PTSD (Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale-13) and depression (Patient Health Questionnaire modified for Adolescents).ResultsIn total, 41 minors were included in the study. Most participants were male (n = 27), predominately from Eritrea (75.6%) with a mean age of 16.5 (SD = 1.5). Minors mostly reported psychological problems, such as problems sleeping, and psychosocial problems, including worries about family reunification. Deviations from the approach were made to meet the current needs of the minors. Factors limiting the feasibility of the approach were often related to continuous stressors, such as news concerning asylum status.ConclusionsThe results provide a first indication that this approach partly overcomes barriers to mental health care and emphasize the added value of collaborating with intercultural mediators and offering outreach care.Trial registration: The study was registered in the Netherlands Trial Register (NL8585), 10 April 2020, Retrospectively registered, https://www.trialregister.nl/trial/8585.

FRENCH AND UKRAINIAN CULTURAL SPACES IN IVAN BABYCH’S LANGUAGE PERSONALITY

The article is dedicated to the integrative essence of the language personality of a representative of the Ukrainian school of literary translation Ivan Babych. It is pointed out that I. Babych, as a person of European culture whose native land was France, was the disseminator of its fundamental values in Ukraine. At the same time, he promoted national culture, the Ukrainian word in French-speaking countries. Two cultural spaces have determined the specific function of intercultural mediation, in the context of which the linguistic personality of the master of literary translation should be considered.

О разграничении коммуникативных практик медиации и перевода

The article is devoted to the discursive phenomenon of mediation, which is often identified with the phenomena of linguistic, cultural and intercultural mediation. The author shows that the social communicative practice of mediation is a special type of communicative interaction. The author distinguishes between the terms "mediation" and "translation" and defines the essential characteristics of two different discursive phenomena based on the comparison parameters traditionally used to compare mediation and court. The article considers the differences between the two communicative practices on the following grounds: free / non-free choice of mediator; the purpose of mediated communication; the mediator's role in communication; the possibility/impossibility of terminating negotiations; confidentiality of communication; the duration of communicative interaction; the language of communication; the removal of psychological tension in communication. As a result of the analysis, it turns out that the coincidence of the parameters of mediation and translation is possible only in an interlingual situation of conflict dialogue.

Intercultural communication and cultural transfers in the colonial context. The encounter between Pizarro and Atahualpa in 1532 ans its discursive representations in early-modern cultures

This contribution treats the historical representations of the encounter between the Inca King Atahualpa and the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro on november 16th, 1532, in the Peruvian town of Cajamarca which was one of the decisive turning points of the Spanish conquest of South America. After theoretical and methodological reflections on the relations between intercultural communication processes and cultural transfers in the context of the conquista, it focuses first on the various contemporary Spanish discourses on the event of November 16th, 1532, which represented predominantly an official ideological version of it. In a further step are analyzed the new 18th-century discourses, influenced by different historical sources, like the work of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, which reveal very different ‘constructions’, based on a transcultural network of cultural transfers and intercultural mediators, of this event.

Interpreting in Early Modern Diplomacy: Occasional Mobility and the Liminal Spaces of Trust

In this article, I examine the relationship between mobility and trust in the work and life of a wide range of early modern diplomatic interpreters. I address this relationship by bringing together archival material unearthed by literary scholars and social historians: specifically, historians of diplomacy, translation, and interpreting. I seek to address these documents from the perspective of occasional dragomans who found themselves performing the often-dangerous role of intercultural mediation in exchange for money, an improved social status, or freedom.

Mediación cultural y prácticas educativas en Italia

This article focuses on cultural mediation by discovering its potential and relevance in Italy, during a project on intercultural education, that has been undertaken in Rome by us. And four intercultural singular initiatives are described. Specifically, this article is the result of the empirical work following a qualitative methodology. In the first phase (September - December 2019), 6 in-depth interviews were conducted with expert university professors on the subject, as well as visits to various formal and non-formal training centers. Based on the results, in the second phase (February 2020), 4 initiatives were selected, and 8 in-depth interviews were conducted with their managers and teachers. They are described in this article as an example of good educational practices in interculturality, characterized by their proposal for inclusive activities for immigrant groups, their networking with the community, and in which intercultural mediation plays a key role directly or indirectly.

Floating in the Breath of the People: Ossianic Mist, Cultural Health, and the Creation of Celtic Atmosphere, 1760–1815

This essay uses Samuel Johnson's characterization of Gaelic culture as an essentially airborne phenomenon as the starting point for a wide-ranging consideration of the links between atmospheric and Celtic discourses during the Romantic era. This period has been deemed foundational to the literary ‘appearance’ of air and the conceptual formation of Celticity, but these two cultural phenomena have rarely been considered in tandem. Beginning with a discussion of the atmospheric ideas that underpin the Poems of Ossian's infamous mists, the essay argues that critics have largely ignored the complexity of Macpherson's medicalized ecologies of air. The essay then moves on to consider the development of comparable cloudy symbolism during the Welsh cultural revival of the 1790s, when overcast skies became an organising metaphor used to express the cultural benightedness of Wales. The often-unexamined cliché of ‘Celtic mistiness’ is revealed as a vital metaphor for the allure and imperfection of intercultural mediation.

Intercultural mediation in language and culture teaching and learning and the CEFR Companion Volume

Le reseau de recherche (Research Network / ReN) « Intercultural mediation in language and culture teaching and learning / La mediation interculturelle en didactique des langues et des cultures » est un groupe de chercheurs du monde entier qui s’est officiellement forme en 2015 pour entreprendre des recherches sur la mediation d’une maniere collaborative. Le ReN est ne des discussions entre le groupe EA 4514 PLIDAM d’INALCO et le Research Centre for Languages and Cultures de l’Universite de l’...

In Search of the Essential Competences for Overcoming Language Barriers in Public Services

It is argued in the article that despite the relatively strong presence of English in Slovenia, the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) alone does not guarantee access to quality public services. To supplement the use of ELF interpreting support is needed, in particular in high-risk situations. A step in this direction was the certification of a national vocational qualification for community interpreters for Albanian in 2020. Since at the same time a new vocational profile for intercultural mediators was created, which also aims to assist the inclusion of migrants in the Slovene society, we investigated the differences between these two profiles by comparing the competences defined in both. The results show that despite some overlaps Slovene vocational standards for both professions differ significantly: while transfer and linguistic competences are central to community interpreter’s profile, conflict resolution and mediation competence figure more prominently in the intercultural mediator’s profile.

Language as a Trigger for Racism: Language Barriers at Healthcare Institutions in Slovenia

The article analyzes the impact of language barriers on the medical treatment of foreign-speaking patients and illustrates that the absence of systemic, institutional responses to language barriers in healthcare facilities exacerbates racist attitudes toward migrants and ethnic groups. The article is based on 201 interviews with healthcare workers, employees of public or non-governmental institutions as well as users of healthcare services that were conducted between 2018 and 2019 in twelve local communities in Slovenia. Following the methodological and conceptual framework, the first part of the article highlights the various negative consequences of language barriers experienced by healthcare workers and foreign-speaking patients. The second part shows that in the absence of an accessible network of professional intercultural mediators or interpreters, healthcare workers are left to their own devices with respect to overcoming language barriers. Finally, the last part of the article shows that many interlocutors are increasingly searching for the culprit for this situation. Some healthcare workers attribute the responsibility to the abstract concept of the “system”, while others attribute the responsibility exclusively to migrants, thus perpetuating key elements of the culture of racism present in Slovenia. In this culture of racism, knowledge of Slovene language becomes one of the most important criteria that distinguishes deserving from undeserving migrants. The latter are a privileged object of racist responses at the level of cultural, institutional and personal racism, which is proving to be mutually toxic.

Rethinking the fundamentals and practices of intercultural education in era of insecurity

INTRODUCTION. In a globalized and multicultural world, one is increasingly challenged by encounters and relationships with the other. Intercultural pedagogy develops its reflections around these problems, while continuously updating its meanings and purposes. METHOD. Starting from a reinterpretation of the pedagogical foundations of the relationship between identity and otherness, this contribution proposes to outline the role and purpose of an intercultural pedagogy in relation to the framework of insecurity that characterizes multicultural society today. RESULTS. The interplay between the theoretical analysis of intercultural pedagogy and the various manifestations of risk, especially as regards the condition of vulnerability experienced by refugees and migrants, allows us to outline new educational goals for an authentic relationship with others. DISCUSSION. As a result of the above observations, the need for a continuous interpretation of intercultural education in relation to the constantly changing scenarios emerges. In addition, the training of educational and pedagogical professionals that make use of intercultural mediation to prevent conflict and upgrade living conditions and encourage a better education for the new wave of immigrants becomes crucial.

Is there such a thing as summary interpreting? “Cross-linguistic formulation”, facilitation and mediation in French asylum proceedings

This paper focuses on a case of systematic resort to consecutive summary interpretation in French Asylum courtroom proceedings and provides the first analysis of this controversial practice. Drawing on conversational analysis, it shows that summary interpreting is framed as a separate interaction between interpreter and asylum seeker, under the eye of a remote court. The interpreter performs (cross-linguistic) “formulations” of what precedes and what follows in the proceedings, and in so doing does not only render, gatekeep and facilitate the main elements of the source text, as usually found in dialogue interpreting, but endorses the role of an intercultural mediator.

The Liaison Interpreter’s Role as an Intercultural Mediator: A Cognitive-Pragmatic Approach

Liaison interpreting is a type of interpreting performed in cross-cultural communications. The role of liaison interpreters has been studied by scholars for many years. For a long time, interpreting has been regarded as a communication activity, which solely converted languages and transferred the linguistic meaning of the original utterances. However, the practitioners and researchers began to realize that interpreting is a bilingual as well as bicultural communication activity. It bridges the cultural gap for people who don’t share the same language or cultural background. Therefore, this paper proposes an account of the liaison interpreter’s role as intercultural mediator as an alternative to other accounts of the interpreter’s role in the literature on liaison interpreting. The account of the liaison interpreters’ role as intercultural mediator is derived from the principles of a theoretical framework that draws on the findings of the theory of sense (Seleskovitch and Lederer, 1995) and Sperber and Wilson’s (1986, 1995) relevance theory of communication (RT). The account provides the basis for formulating a clearer definition of the concept of intercultural mediation in the context of liaison interpreting (LI). With data from authentic examples from interpreters’ actual performance, this paper intends to analyze interpreter’s role as an intercultural mediator in interactions within the framework of cognitive-pragmatic approach (CPA). In order to enhance liaison interpreters’ competence of cultural mediation, the paper then provides some implications for interpreters training in China.

PECULIARITIES OF THE TRANSLATION INTO GERMAN LINA KOSTENKO’S POETRY

The article is devoted to the classification and analysis of the German-language translations of Lina Kostenko's poems based on the material of the lyrical collection "And again the prologue" translated by Alois Woldan. The article introduces the theoretical foundations of poetry translation as a separate type of literary translation, examines its genre-specific features, and analyses the features of the modern Ukrainian poetry and the author's style of Lina Kostenko, which jointly form the basis for further comparison of the original example and the translation. The paper shows the main difficulties that Alois Voldan faced interpreting the poems, describes the ways of overcoming them and offers a qualitative assessment of the translation. The lexical and stylistic analysis showed the wide usage of the poetic instruments in his works of pictorial and expressive language as well as aphorisms. However, to preserve the idea and reproduce the ideological motives, Alois Voldan avoided literal translation and resorted to the descriptive translation of these linguistic means. When translating lexical tautologies, which are widely inherent in Lina Kostenko's poetics, the translator replaced lexical units, graphic signs, sentence structure and transferred repetitions from one line to another to preserve emotionality and expressiveness in lyric poems. When we look closely at the grammatical level of translation, there are replacements of grammatical constructions and parts of speech. We also recognize the addition of new parts of speech that are missing in the original poem. The reason for such transformations was the differences in the grammatical structures of the German and Ukrainian languages, and the translation strategies used to preserve the rhythmic and melodic pattern of the poems. A special place is given to the characteristics because of the national specificity of poetry and the translation of its semantic equivalent. That is, the reason why the translation is used primarily for intercultural communication, and the translator, in this case, is an intercultural mediator. But Alois Voldan managed to convey the thematic orientation of the poems and the Ukrainian colour.

Social Communication and Intercultural Mediation in Decompartmentalizing Identity Groups in Socio-political Crisis Context in Cameroon

From the corporatist strike in the North-West and South-West regions in 2016, from which the “Anglophone crisis” arose, to the campaign and the presidential elections of 2018, the results of which were openly contested by one of the candidates, there is the ongoing question of living together routinely emerge in the Cameroonian public space. These events appear as triggers of identity folds, until then latent in the collective subconscious. Among other things, they fostered the propensity and confrontation of hate speech between Cameroonians claiming different territories and identities: anglophone-francophone, tontinard-sardinard, bamiléké-beti. Faced with this, certain public institutions such as the Ministry of Youth and Civic Education and the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism, are sending out messages calling for civility, patriotism and tolerance. This paper demonstrate that, despite the limited confidence of Cameroonians in their public institutions, the discourses of these organizations are positioned within the framework of the intercultural tensions observed, as the third party speeh, and contribute to initiating the decompartmentalization of community and identity, with a view to consolidating a true culture and national identity. The Methodology consists precisely in analyzing the messages disseminated by these institutions on their Facebook pages, as well as the comments of their followers.

An integrated approach to the higher education terminology in Spanish-Russian university texts

The commitment of European and non-European countries for the convergence of educational standards happened decades ago. In the beginning, in 1999 (Bologna Declaration) Spain became an integral part of the Bologna Process. Meanwhile the Russian Federation required four more years to respond to this initiative and sign in 2003 the Berlin Communique. Many issues were raised by the alignment of different education systems and their adaptation to common quality standards. However, few solutions were offered to tackle terminology issues in university domain. In this study, we will focus on how we can overcome higher education terminology differences. We will analyse Spanish-Russian university texts, exploit a mixed monolingual and bilingual corpus as well as investigate the system for terminological equivalence of terms. Finally, we will elaborate a bilingual glossary of terms, synonyms and abbreviations conceivably to meet the needs of intercultural mediators, translators or education experts.

La riformulazione in inglese del discorso legale italiano come processo di ‘ELFentextualization’

This paper introduces a new model defined ELFentextualization , devised for the English reformulation of the Italian legal discourse in the field of Migration. It is meant as a pedagogical and practical tool that can help intercultural linguistic mediators increase their competence at the time of analysing and reproducing source texts for an audience of non-native English speakers. In particular, our model is adopted here for the retextualization into English as a ‘lingua franca’ (ELF) of a number of extracts from the ‘Bossi-Fini’ law and ‘Testo unico sull’immigrazione’, which indicate the actions that migrants have to follow to request residence document. After illustrating the theoretical grounds of the ELFentextualization process, this paper will examine the selected corpus of English retextualizations of Italian legal discourse. The comparison between the original and ‘ELFentextualized’ versions will exemplify that the latter are elaborated after an initial phase of ‘text analysis’, which is meant to infer the gist of the message. The essential pieces of information are then reconstructed by resorting to lexical and syntactic simplification, as well as to the macrorules for text summarization. Finally, this paper enquires into the initial phases of a reception study of the examined reformulations, which will help discuss the lingua-franca connotation of the English uses in the texts under examination.

Interculturality Between Formal and Non-formal Education in Italy

The paper focuses on the educational and cultural needs of adult migrants, in order to overcome a uniquely paternalistic view of immigration. Focusing on the educational and cultural needs affects, in fact, the quality of the experience of integration. Within this proposal the adoption of an intercultural mediation strategy can play an important role also with reference to the context of cultural services.

A Status Report on School Intercultural Mediation in Europe

This paper provides results of an investigation into the research literature of intercultural mediation and how intercultural mediation has been implemented in Europe. To this end, a systematic quantitative literature review was conducted, which identified 77 conceptual and empirical manuscripts for this study. The review showed that little agreement exists on precisely what intercultural mediation is and how it should be structured and supported as a profession. The empirical works identified in this study can be characterized as ad hoc in nature, capitalizing on circumstances. The result is a patchwork of concepts and studies that collectively do not provide sufficient support or foundation for the use of intercultural mediation. In order to move the field forward, we argue that an immediate next step should be the development of a well-thought, systematic research program, grounded in the existing literature. A strong recommendation found in the literature is the use of evaluation to illustrate the value of intercultural mediation. Evaluation can provide data that could help those in authority make defensible decisions about policy support for intercultural mediation. Finally, considering the current situation in European schools, we propose that in the field of mediation the intercultural approach be implemented.

Barreras en la comunicación asistencial con pacientes inmigrantes de origen amazig

Introducción: Estudio sobre problemas de comunicación asistencial teniendo en cuenta la institución y la lengua y cultura de los pacientes. Se estudiará la expresión de síntomas relacionados con cuestiones no orgánicas desde el punto de vista lingüístico, y que genera malentendidos que suelen pasar desapercibidos por los profesionales. Objetivos: El objetivo principal es analizar barreras de comunicación con pacientes de origen amazig. Los objetivos específicos son analizar recursos disponibles y formación relacionada con la atención a pacientes inmigrantes y describir dificultades de comunicación. Metodología: Cualitativa descriptiva. Realizado en los centros de atención primaria y hospitales de las comarcas de Girona y Barcelona escogidos al azar. Participantes: 32 informantes (13 médicos, 9 enfermeros, 4 mediadores y 6 trabajadores sociales). Se utilizó un cuestionario y una entrevista semiestructurada. El análisis de los discursos e interpretación de los contenidos se realizó con el soporte Atlas.ti 6.0. Resultados: Los profesionales refieren una distribución desigual de los pacientes inmigrantes y carencia de recursos y de tiempo. Las dificultades de comunicación son no son detectadas en la mayoría de los casos. Conclusiones: Algunas cuestiones lingüísticas pueden dificultar la comunicación. Más recursos y formación proporcionada por la institución podrían ayudar a solventar este problema.