Elena Davitti
Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation: Integrating Talk and Gaze in the Analysis of Mediated Parent-Teacher Meetings
Although non-verbal features have been recognised as part and parcel of human social interaction as well as important vectors of meaning and co-ordination (e.g. Goodwin 1981, Kendon 1990; Rossano 2009), their sequential positioning in relation to the production of the ongoing flow of talk and their use by interpreters to complement/replace specific verbal features is uncharted territory for IS. Since the groundbreaking work by Lang (1978), little research has integrated gaze in the analysis of the interpreter's (and participants) verbal output (e.g. Wadensjo 2001, Bot 2005).
The data used in this study consists of a small corpus of authentic, video-recorded, mediated interactions between English/Italian in pedagogical settings. An interdisciplinary approach encompassing Conversation Analysis and studies on non-verbal communication is adopted to explore how interactants orient to both verbal and nonverbal activities (mainly gaze) in the production and monitoring of each other's actions, the initiation and maintenance of social encounters, and in the co-construction of meaning and participatory framework.
To enable its investigation, gaze is systematically encoded alongside specific conversational cues via ELAN, a software to interface audio-video input in a user-friendly hypertextual transcription. Through analysis of the actions performed via talk and gaze in specific sequences, I will investigate in particular what interpreters do as intercultural mediators in a setting where, according to direct observation of preliminary findings, they tend to act as ratified participants, thus influencing the unfolding of the interaction, and whether they empower participants' voices, thus promoting participation and achieving effective intercultural communication.