New titles
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Title: Using Video to Support Teacher Reflection and Development in ELT
ISBN: 9781781797556
Author(s): Laura Baecher, Steve Mann and Cecilia Nobre
Pub.date: 15-2-23
Price: £24.95
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
Currently, there are many research articles across a wide array of teacher education journals that present promising practices in video as a tool in teacher learning, but no practitioner-friendly text that organizes a variety of approaches for application in the field. This book fills that gap by helping educators to greatly expand their repertoire and confidence in introducing, designing, implementing, and assessing video-based professional development. The authors focus on the variety of ways in which video can support and encourage reflection, increase awareness, foster collaboration, share practice, provide a tool for analysis, aid in materials production, and establish online communities of practice.
Video allows more possibilities for context-sensitive noticing, editing, sharing, repackaging, and tagging, especially in combination with screen-capture software, and there is an increasing array of tools that can be harnessed to support teacher learning and reflection. These can help to make aspects of classrooms, methodology and learning more concrete and visible. Across the chapters, the book draws on a growing community of educators using video in a wide range of approaches and features some of their experiences and views through data and vignettes. In doing so, this text acts as a conduit for innovative and effective video and visual media use in language teacher education.
Kemper Conseil Publishing Schuifmaat 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle: Myth Theorized
ISBN: 9781781798645
Author(s): Robert A. Segal
Pub.date: 15-1-23
Price: £22.95
Publishing company: Equinox publishing
Description:
Myth Theorized provides a survey of some key figures and topics in the modern study of myth. The first part of the book discusses the psychoanalysis of myth including a chapter on the extraordinary changes that psychoanalytic theory has undergone, and one on Otto Rank and his break with Freud which helped transform the focus of psychoanalysis, including myth, from the Oedipal stage to the pre-Oedipal one. This section finishes with a chapter which argues that Freud and Jung are more akin than opposed.
The next section looks at hero myths including a detailed history of the study of hero myths, and surveys approaches to hero myths by Otto Rank, Joseph Campbell and Lord Raglan. The author then applies Rank and Raglan to the life of the first king of Israel, Saul, showing how their theories transform the figure to whom they are applied. The following part of the book considers the relationship of myth to natural science including a discussion of the range of views that have arisen over the past 150 years – those of EB Tylor, JG Frazer, Claude Levi-Strauss and Karl Popper.
The next section covers myth and politics with an assessment of Bruce Lincoln’s Theorizing Myth and Robert Ellwood’s The Politics of Myth. The final chapter in this section argues that the theories of Frazer, Rene Girard and Walter Burkert all make violence in religion natural rather than unnatural. The final part of the book discusses the Jungian concept of synchronicity, uses DW Winnicott’s idea of make-believe to support the argument that Hollywood stars and their treatment as gods can be said to being divinity back to the world, and asks whether James Lovelock has brought myth back to the world through the Gaia theory
Kemper Conseil Publishing Schuifmaat 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle:The Mother of All Tableaux: Order, Equivalence, and Geometry in the Large-scale Structure of Optimality Theory
ISBN: 9781781798997
Author(s): Nazarré Merchant and Alan Prince
Pub.date: 15-6-23
Price: £75
Publishing company: Equinox publishing
Description:
forms the MOAT, the Mother of All Tableaux. The EPOs of a typology’s unique MOAT are respected in every violation tableau associated with it.
With the MOAT concept in place, it becomes possible to understand exactly which sets of disjoint grammars constitute valid typologies. This finding gives us the conditions under which grammars of a given typology can merge to produce another simpler typology and thereby abstract away informatively from various differences between them. Geometrically, the MOAT concept enables us to show, following the insights of Riggle (2010, 2012), that the grammars of a typology neatly partition its representation on the permutohedron into connected, spherically convex regions.
Discussion proceeds along both concrete and abstract lines, aiming to facilitate access for readers across a wide range of interests.
Title: LGBTQ+ Companion to Symbol, Mythology, Folklore and Spirituality
ISBN: 9781800502666
Author(s): Randy P. Conner, David Hatfield Sparks and Mariah Sparks
Pub.date: 15-5-23
Price: £150
Publishing company: Equinox publishing
Description:
LGBTQ+ Companion to Symbol, Mythology, Folklore, and Spirituality is a revised, expanded edition of Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit (Cassell, 1997). The volume remains an unprecedented reference source on the theme of same sex desire, gender variance and the sacred with a multicultural, transhistorical focus. In anthropology this grouping of various related topics into a central theme is sometimes referred to as a “domain.” The Companion, useful for general readers and essential for scholars, is highly informative, entertaining and empowering.
The result of more than 30 years of research, the Companion is a collection of LGBTQ+ related deities, spiritual/symbolic figures, mythological stories and folklore (ancient and modern), symbols (e.g. sacred animals, flowers, colors, designs, or motifs), language/terms/slang (e.g. Polari, a linguistic code, or “cant” employed primarily by marginal persons since the Middle Ages), and literature and the arts (authors, artists, texts, and artifacts). This variety is extensively researched and presented from a broad range of historic evidence and perspectives in written records, from personal interviews, oral histories, the treasured folklore of our communities, ranging from the Ancient Mediterranean, Africa and Asia, to Europe and the Americas.
Entries and longer articles often include the analysis of, and approaches from various LGBTQ+ and LGBTQ +-positive scholars of linguistics, religion, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, politics and popular culture. Negative and homophobic critiques and analysis, especially from the mid-19th-early 20th centuries, of spiritual leaders and academics, are also examined.
Kemper Conseil Publishing Schuifmaat 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle: Exploring Hindu Philosophy
ISBN: 9781800502703
Author(s): Ankur Barua
Pub.date: 15-1-23
Price: £22.95
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
This introductory text points to some of the diverse tapestries of Hindu worldviews where scriptural revelation, logical argumentation, embodied affectivity, moral reasoning, and aesthetic cultivation constitute densely interwoven conceptual threads. It begins with an exploration of some classical iterations of the quest for a fundamental ontology amidst the diversities of the everyday world. This quest is often embedded in both a diagnosis of the human condition as structured by suffering and a therapy for recovery from worldly fragmentation. A crucial aspect of this therapeutic structure is the analysis of the means of knowledge and the categories of reality, since in order to know the nature of the world one must proceed along truth-tracking routes. Such dynamic mind-world encounters are mediated through language, and Hindu philosophical texts extensively discuss the motif of whether or not deep reality can be comprehended through linguistic structures. These philosophical exercises also shape reflections on themes such as aesthetics, social organization, the meaning of life, and so on. As Hinduism increasingly migrates to western locations through practices of yoga, meditation, and mindfulness, and along with sensibilities relating to vegetarianism, ecology, and pacifism, we encounter multiple translations of these classical motifs relating to the self, language, and consciousness.
Kemper Conseil Publishing Schuifmaat 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle: The Western Epistemic Tradition and the Scientific Study of Religion
ISBN: 9781800502734
Author(s): Donald Wiebe
Pub.date: 15-5-23
Price: £24.95
Publishing company: Equinox publishing
Description:
This book provides an account of how a science of religion was able to emerge from the devotional, catechetical, theological, and philosophical forms of ‘religious studies’ that have generally characterized this field of scholarship. Although elements of the scientific study of religion can be found in the scholarly engagement with religion in the academy today, it is still primarily associated with religious and nonscientific humanistic quests for meaning, and the foundations for a flourishing existence. The idea of a scientific study of religion first emerged some 2500 years ago with the ancient Greeks but this history will show that the conditions for a strictly scientific study of religion didn’t emerge until the end of the nineteenth century. The purpose of this new science, like that of the natural and social sciences, is to seek objective knowledge about religious thought and behaviour for its own sake. For that reason, it is argued, the scientific study of religion ought to be established in the curriculum of the modern research university. This book is intended for students who are enrolled in religious studies programs, their teachers, university administrators, and others who are simply curious about the character of the study of religion most appropriate in the context of the modern research university.
Kemper Conseil Publishing Schuifmaat 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle: Syntax-Prosody in Optimality Theory: Theory and Analyses
ISBN: 9781800502758
Author(s): Jennifer Bellik, Junko Ito, Nick Kalivoda, and Armin Mester (eds)
Pub.date: 15-6-23
Price: £85.00
Publishing company: Equinox publishing
Description:
Optimality Theory has become the dominant approach to studying phonology, including analyses of the mapping from syntactic structure to prosodic structure. However, when syntactic and prosodic structures are represented as trees, it is difficult, if not impossible, to systematically generate by hand all the possible prosodic parses that must be considered in an Optimality Theory investigation for any given syntactic input. Consequently, most existing syntax-prosody analyses are in this way incomplete, compromising their validity.
This volume presents a series of complete analyses of the syntax-prosody interface, thanks to their use of the Syntax-Prosody in Optimality Theory (SPOT) application. This JavaScript application, developed by the editors of this volume, automates candidate generation and constraint evaluation, making a rigorous Optimality Theory analysis of syntax-prosody possible. SPOT allows the user to test the typological predictions of the numerous proposed constraints on prosodic markedness and syntax-prosody mapping, so that researchers can make progress toward determining which formulations of the constraints should actually be part of the universal constraint set. A theme of the volume is comparing Selkirk’s Match Theory with the older Align Theory of syntax-prosody mapping, finding that both are needed, at least in some languages.
Title: Voice and Mirroring in L2 Pronunciation Instruction
ISBN: 9781800502789
Author(s): Darren LaScotte, Colleen Meyers and Elaine Tarone
Pub.date: 15-1-23
Price: £24.95
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
Voice and Mirroring in L2 Pronunciation Instruction presents an approach to teaching pronunciation which aims for learners to internalize the oices(complexes of linguistic and non-linguistic features that embody particular speakersemotion, social stance, and group identification) of proficient speakers of the second language (L2). Beginning with a review of ottom-upand op-downapproaches to second language acquisition (SLA) research and pronunciation teaching, the authors present previously published and new findings in interlanguage phonology and variationist approaches to SLA showing the powerful impact of sociolinguistic context on L2 pronunciation. On the basis of this review, the authors argue that a top-down approach which begins with social context is preferable in both the research and teaching of L2 pronunciation. They highlight the Mirroring Project as one such approach that includes the social factors impacting L2 pronunciation, such as interlocutor, empathy, and nonverbal elements. With accompanying instructional activities that have been used in a variety of teaching and learning settings in the U.S., the authors demonstrate how this project can help language learners modify their L2 pronunciation patterns and improve their intelligibility as they internalize and channel the voices of speakers they have selected as models.
The audience for the volume includes language teachers, particularly those desiring to use top-down pedagogical approaches like the Mirroring Project to improve learners’ intelligibility, and academic researchers interested in studying the way adults can acquire second language phonology by holistically adopting and channeling the voices of speakers they admire. The book is also of potential interest to language teacher educators, curriculum developers, and textbook writers.
Schuifmaat
Kemper Conseil Publishing 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle: Dora Bright: Her Life and Works in the Public Eye
ISBN: 9781800502802
Author(s): Anthony Bilton
Pub.date: 15-5-23
Price: £25.00
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
Dora Bright was a ‘stage star’ before the term ‘star’ had even been invented. After a successful period at the Royal Academy of Music, reports of her ability circulated the globe from America, across Europe and as far as Australia. She became known as one of the finest pianists of her generation and was the first woman to be invited to perform at a Philharmonic Society concert in 1892, where she performed her newly composed Fantasia No. 2. A woman of considerable determination and stamina, she was at the forefront of the English Musical Renaissance at the turn of the twentieth century, and an avid supporter of the music of her friends and colleagues. Marriage did not prevent her from performing and composing, but the death of her husband made her turn away from public view for a time as she mourned his loss. Returning to the stage, she became friends with Adeline Genée, and together they returned English ballet to the centre of London Theatre, and were key to the creation of the Royal Academy of Dancing. This book takes the reader from the arrival of Dora Bright’s grandfather in Sheffield in 1769 through to her death in 1951 providing, through a rich variety of archival materials, a public perspective on the life of this important, but now little-known, musician and composer.
Kemper Conseil Publishing Schuifmaat 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle: Kansas City Jazz: A Little Evil Will Do You Good
ISBN: 9781800502826
Author(s): Con Chapman
Pub.date: 15-3-23
Price: £40.00
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
The brand of jazz that developed in the Kansas City area in the period from the late 1920s to the late 1930s is recognised as both a distinct stylistic variation within the larger genre and a transitional stage between earlier forms of African-American music, such as ragtime and blues, and later, more modern forms, up to and including bebop. Kansas City’s brand of jazz has been described as “the most straightforward and direct style which has been developed outside New Orleans,” by Hughues Panassié and Madeleine Gautier in their Dictionary of Jazz. Kansas City jazz has inspired the creation of a museum and has been the subject of a feature-length film, Robert Altman’s 1996 “Kansas City,” and even a sentimental rock song, “Eternal Kansas City” by Van Morrison.
The first comprehensive work on the subject in over 15 years, this book draws on new research to delve deeper into music of the American Midwest that evolved into Kansas City jazz, and includes profiles of individual musicians who developed very different styles within or beyond the framework of the sub-genre. Kansas City Jazz focuses on the broader themes and the stories of the major personalities whose individual talents came together to create the larger whole of Kansas City’s distinctive brand of jazz.
Kemper Conseil Publishing Schuifmaat 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle: The US Constitution in 5 Minutes
ISBN: 9781800502857
Author(s): Joseph L. Smith and David Klein(eds)
Pub.date: 15-4-23
Price: £18.99
Publishing company: Equinox publishing
Description:
The U.S. Constitution was written more than 230 years ago for a new country on the periphery of the world. Two centuries later, it governs the most powerful nation on earth and its meaning is constantly debated.The U.S. Constitution in Five Minutes presents 59 essays on subjects central to the meaning and application of the Constitution. Written by scholars, these essays cover origins; institutions, processes, and structural features; civil rights and liberties; and modes of interpretation and address common questions and misunderstandings about the Constitution, such as:
Can the President start a war?
Does the Constitution protect hate speech?
Does the Second Amendment give everyone the right to have a gun?
Does the Constitution protect non-citizens?
How can we tell what the Constitution means?
Intended for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the underlying principles of the U.S. political system, the book will also be a valuable supplement to political science courses. As with all the “in 5 Minutes” books, the essays are written in lively and accessible prose and are brief enough to be read in 5 minutes.
Title: Religion and Marxism: An Introduction
ISBN: 9781800502871
Author(s): Paul-François Tremlett
Pub.date: 15-3-23
Price: £15.00
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
This concise and accessible introduction brings the writings of Marx and Engels and later thinkers in the Marxist tradition including Althusser, Gramsci, the Frankfurt School as well as Liberation Theologians such as Gutierrez and Maduro, into focus in relation to questions of religion, social change and social justice. Marx was a nineteenth century thinker trying to develop a theory that could explain the dramatic social and technological changes that he lived through. Later thinkers modified and developed key elements of Marx’ theoretical model, with religion – particularly Christianity – providing a vital point of critical self-reflection for thinkers in the Marxist tradition. This book tracks these modifications and developments to Marx’ ideas, and their continuing relevance to contemporary debates about religion, social change and social justice.
Kemper Conseil Publishing Schuifmaat 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle: News Across Five Continents: Newspaper Language in the Context of Regional and Functional Variation
ISBN: 9781800502901
Author(s): Jennifer Fest
Pub.date: 15-3-23
Price: £24.95
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
This volume presents a thorough analysis of newspaper language from a regional and functional perspective. Based on a collection of 4,000 newspaper articles from five English-speaking regions and five different news domains, it discusses the benefit of register analysis in a systemic functional framework to comparing varieties and determining their developmental status. For this purpose, it starts with revisiting the states of the art in the fields of media studies, text analysis and variational studies, and then combines the three strands to result in an operationalization of register parameters and thus the basis for the analysis. The results are presented for each parameter as well as in terms of correlations, and are visualized frequently. After a discussion of the findings, the work considers their implications for the theory and method as well as the author’s ideas for enhancements and future research.
Title: Ivor Cutler: A Life Outside the Sitting Room
ISBN: 9781800502949
Author(s): Bruce Lindsay
Pub.date: 15-1-23
Price: £25.00
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
Ivor Cutler: A Life Outside the Sitting Room is the first biography of one of post-war Britain’s most recognisable authors, poets and performers. Mr Cutler (as he preferred to be known) wrote and recorded some of the most unusual and memorable songs and poems in British popular culture, including the hilarious and unsettling ‘Life in a Scotch Sitting Room’ series. Described by fans and commentators as an outsider because of his eccentric behaviour on and off stage, in many ways he was an insider, working for thirty years as a primary school teacher, gathering a body of fans from the heart of the cultural and social establishment, and regularly appearing on mainstream media. He was one of the first – if not the first – performers to appear on BBC radio 1, 2, 3 and 4 and famously recorded more John Peel sessions than any other act except The Fall.
This book is based on evidence from official documents, print and broadcast media; archive interviews with Ivor Cutler, his close friends and family, fans and collaborators; and new interviews with fans, friends and fellow performers. Contributors include musical and acting collaborators who have never been interviewed about their experiences with Mr Cutler.
Kemper Conseil Publishing Schuifmaat 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle: Exploring the Principles of Reflective Practice in ELT: Research and Perspectives from Turkey
ISBN: 9781800502970
Author(s): Bahar Gün and Evrim Üstünlüoğlu (eds)
Pub.date: 15-6-23
Price: £24.95
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
This book aims to shed light on the ways in which Reflective Practice (RP) is exploited in the Turkish context, by introducing the research and practical applications in different language education settings. It is important to note that in Turkey there is a great amount of knowledge and research in ELT in general, and RP in particular. Extensive publications and national and international conference presentations on reflection related topics are increasingly common in Turkey. The book includes examples of this scholarly work, so that ELT professionals in different parts of the globe may benefit from the advances made in context-dependent RP applications in Turkey. This book, overall, is a call to action for all ELT professionals, whether experienced, novice or student teachers, leaders, managers or teacher educators, who wish to invest in their own professional development by engaging in Reflective Practice. It is hoped that the book contributes to the diversity of understanding and interpretations of this practice, by sharing a variety of perspectives from scholars in Turkey.
Title:Power and Agency in the Lives of Contemporary Tibetan Nuns: An Intersectional Study
ISBN: 9781800503014
Author(s): Mitra Härkönen
Pub.date: 15-2-23
Price: £24.95
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
This book examines the lived experiences of oppression and opportunities encountered by contemporary Tibetan Buddhist nuns living in the People’s Republic of China and the Tibetan exile community in India. It investigates how the intersections of the nuns’ female gender, their Buddhist religion and their Tibetan nationality on the one hand produce subordination and an unequal distribution of power but, on the other, provide the nuns with opportunities and agency. Depending on the intersection of her status positions, the Tibetan nun can be either disadvantaged or privileged, and sometimes both at the same time.
Power structures and relations that disadvantage nuns as women, as religious practitioners, and as Tibetans, are constructed and maintained in different domains of power. In the structural domain, traditional but still dominant institutions – such as the distribution of work, marriage, educational practices and religious institutions – disadvantage Tibetan nuns. In the disciplinary domain of power, the nuns are monitored by traditional culture and the Chinese authorities. The unequal distribution of power in these domains is justified by hegemonic ideas based on religious and cultural beliefs, ideas of religion and modernity, and religion and gender. These domains of power find their expression in the everyday life in the interpersonal sphere.
Kemper Conseil Publishing Schuifmaat 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle: The Five Principles of Middle Way Philosophy: Living Experientially in a World of Uncertainty
ISBN: 9781800503045
Author(s): Robert M. Ellis
Pub.date: 15-2-23
Price: £24.95
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
This second book in the ‘Middle Way Philosophy’ series develops five general principles that are distinctive to the universal Middle Way as a practical response to absolutization. These begin with the consistent acknowledgement of human uncertainty (scepticism), and follow through with openness to alternative possibilities (provisionality), the importance of judging things as a matter of degree (incrementality), the clear rejection of polarised absolute claims (agnosticism) and the cultivation of cognitive and emotional states that will help us resolve conflict (integration). These are discussed not only in theory, but with links to the wide range of established human practices that can help us to follow them. Like all of Robert M. Ellis’s work, this book is highly inter-disciplinary, drawing on philosophical argument, psychological models and values that prioritize practical application.
Title:Reflective Practice in TESOL Service-Learning
ISBN: 9781800503076
Author(s): Cynthia J. Macknish
Pub.date: 15-4-23
Price: £24.95
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
This book, like others in the series, provides both theory and practical tools for TESOL educators (and others) to use as they guide pre-service teachers of English to reflect in meaningful ways in a servicelearning context. Service-learning in TESOL is valuable because it enables pre-service teachers to collaborate with a community partner in implementing projects that benefit culturally and linguistically diverse learners, while concomitantly improving their own academic and professional skills through increased opportunities to practice and reflect on teaching and learning. Effectively reflecting on service-learning experiences helps pre-service teachers develop an inquiring disposition and transform their learning, enabling them to question their beliefs and challenge existing norms and work towards a more just future for learners of English. In this book, interpretations of service-learning are presented along with the crucial role that reflective practice plays in it. Challenges in defining and implementing reflective practice in TESOL service-learning contexts are explored and practical tools and strategies to help address them are shared.
Kemper Conseil Publishing Schuifmaat 14 unit GH, NL 2495 AM, Den Haag NetherlandsTitle: Formation: Building a Personal Canon, Part 1
ISBN: 9781800503137
Author(s): Brad Mehldau
Pub.date: 15-3-23
Price: £30.00
Publishing company: Equinox Publishing
Description:
As an innovative and constantly inventive jazz pianist, Brad Mehldau has attracted a sizable following over the years, one that has grown to expect a singular, intense experience from his performances. With Formation, Brad seeks to extend that experience to the page, by sharing some of the deeply personal elements of his life, and how these came together for him to become the musician and person that he is today. For the first time, he offers an in-depth look at how he came to understand his adoption, survive sexual abuse, and overcome heroin addiction.
The book creates a vibrantly-written portrait of the jazz world in New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s, showing how a generation of musicians met and sparked off one another to take the music in new directions, drawing on a wealth of influences but also keeping sight of tradition, including those rooted in both the jazz and classical worlds. The atmosphere of the clubs, the creative scene in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and Brad’s early experiences of touring are brilliantly brought to life. The formation of the “Mood Swing” quartet with Joshua Redman is described, as is the growth of Brad’s own groups, leading to his acclaimed Art of the Trio series of recordings with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy. The trio’s later life with Jeff Ballard joining in place of Rossy; Brad’s solo ventures; and his explorations of other areas of music, are also covered.
There is no holding back when it comes to Brad’s period of heroin addiction – his painful personal decline and ultimate redemption make for compelling and often distressing reading. Yet throughout the book, his own reading and listening are a constant frame of reference and often inspiration, from the works of James Joyce and Thomas Mann to the sounds of Prog rock and Bob Dylan, not to mention critics from Harold Bloom to Terry Eagleton. The book can be read as a bildungsroman, but this coming-of-age is no novel, it is vividly lived personal experience.
Intimate, vulnerable and profound, Formation is a rare look inside the mind of an artist at the top of his field, in his own words.
Title: Interpreter Mediated Healthcare Communication
ISBN: 9781845539030
Author(s):
Pub.date:
Price: £24.95
Publishing company: Equinox publishing
Description:
This book engages – conceptually and empirically – with the ongoing debate concerning the ‘influence’ occasioned by the participation of an interpreter – whether professionally trained or as a lay family member – in healthcare delivery. Healthcare delivery, especially in the primary care sector, is increasingly becoming multicultural and multilingual in character. This global reality manifests itself as a communicative challenge in interpreter-mediated healthcare consultations, involving professional as well as family members in the role of interpreters. In the context of this book (previously published as a special issue of Communication & Medicine), interpreter-mediated healthcare consultations are seen simultaneously as multilingual and multiparty interactions, as well as being dyadic and triadic communication.
The introductory editorial sets the scene by foregrounding the core notion of ‘communicative vulnerability’ of all participants – the care recipient, the healthcare provider and the interpreter – in relation to the emergent interactional subtleties at the spheres of participation and interaction. In addition to the ‘brought along’ communicative vulnerability of the participants, the interactional trajectory itself, iteratively, contributes to such vulnerability at the contingent level. Especially, the interpreter routinely shifts between ‘just being a linguistic/literal medium/conduit’ to ‘being a communicative mediator/broker’, potentially influencing the processes and outcomes of a given healthcare encounter.
The contributors to the volume, representing different parts of the world (Australia, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, UK and USA), address, in different ways, the complexities surrounding the concepts of ‘participation’, ‘mediation’ and ‘shifts in roles/frames/footings’ and their interactional manifestation/ consequence. As the empirical studies illustrate, the interpreters – professional or otherwise – position themselves actively in the interaction as their roles and participation formats become situationally and culturally embedded, albeit in varying degrees in different phases of the consultation. The contributions engage along a variety of axes as far as the data settings are concerned – professional vs lay interpreters, primary vs. tertiary healthcare setting and low-stake vs. high-stake encounters. The issues raised in the book – albeit dealing mainly within the confines of the western healthcare landscape – point in the direction of how ‘communicative vulnerability’ may be heightened in relation to the currently dominant paradigms of patientcentredness, patient autonomy and shared decision making.