Re-conceptualising communicative expertise in professional practice through the lens of sign language intercultural mediation

Abstract

The Candlin Lecture When we consider language, communication and the professions, we know that talk (speech or signs) is critical to professional practice and to relationships between professionals and service users. In a multilingual and multicultural world where people do not share the same languages or language repertoires, they must either adapt the way they talk to others (intercultural communication) or, if they cannot communicate directly, allow others to mediate communication on their behalf – a process labelled intercultural mediation. The latter occurs through professional or non-professional interpreting or language brokering. Current theories in interpreting studies consider (professional) interpreters as co-constructors of meaning and co-participants in any interaction. Communicative expertise is usually conceptualized in direct, monolingual communication. Using an explorative illustrative case study, this paper extends this theoretical framework to examine how communicative expertise manifests in interpreter-mediated communication, and particularly in relational aspects of intercultural mediation between a signed language and a spoken language and how professional interpreters and non-professional interpreters (brokers) draw on and apply their expert or lay knowledge about communication in a mediated interaction.