Bias
a personal attitude or perspective that is not impartial and tends to favor one viewpoint or social group over another. It is usually unconscious.
Project Implicit
A Harvard-based project supported by decades of research that lets you explore your own unconscious bias in a series of tests.
Intervening
The act of interrupting a session for any reason.
mediation
any act or utterance of the interpreter that goes beyond interpreting and is intended to address a barrier to communication/ service delivery (access to service).
When should you mediate?
When the potential consequences of not intervening exceed the risks of intervening.
Mediation script
- mental statement that helps prepare you to mediate effectively. You can write them down.
- having a few basic mediation scripts can help you in almost any situation where you have to intervene
Why have mediation scripts?
they will make you a more efficient mediator
Good guideline for mediation
When in doubt stay out!
Interpret what you say when you intervene?
YES. Transparency is required un NCIHC ethics and standards.
Why is transparency important?
if not transparent, you undermine communicative autonomy and direct communication as well as trust.
5 steps for mediation:
- Interpret what was just said
- Identify yourself as the interpreter
- Mediate briefly
- Report your mediation to the other party
- Resume interpreting
a term you don’t know?
- Request clarification.
- Use dictionary
- Check electronic glossary
- clarify you don’t know how to interpret the term
- Request that the speaker would offer another term
Why NOT explain a cultural misunderstanding
You could be wrong
You are taking away communicative autonomy,
You might be patronizing or paternalistic
You could lead the other party to mentally stereotype that culture based on your information.
Identify cultural misunderstanding w/o explaining
- state what you see is causing the misunderstanding
- facilitate a cultural discussion, you don’t explain anything to either parties
