Plurilingualism, multimodality and machine translation in medical consultations

Abstract

Abstract This contribution deals with the use of Google Translate as one among many resources that participants mobilize to overcome the language barrier in plurilingual medical consultations. It is grounded on a two-hour interaction involving a family of Albanian asylum seekers newly arrived in France and a French general practitioner. To reach mutual comprehension, participants rely on the mediation of a lay interpreter (one of the family’s children) who translates for the doctor and the other family members. In this interaction, English is used as a lingua franca, while machine translation is conducted between French and Albanian. The analysis will focus on the interactional work that participants accomplish in order to: (1) propose or solicit the use of Google Translate and make the computer accessible to all participants; (2) detect and repair misunderstandings caused by an unsuitable translation.