Linguistic resources and strategies used in multilingual communication in HIV/AIDS care centres in Lesotho (original) (raw)
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By submitting this dissertation electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the owner of the copyright thereof (unless to the extent explicitly otherwise stated) and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification.
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The patient-centred model of health care, which recognises patients' autonomy, promotes their active participation in decisions concerning their own health, and strives to treat patients holistically, improves health outcomes but relies on effective communication between healthcare providers and patients. In a multilingual society, a major barrier to effective communication arises when healthcare providers and their patients do not share the same first language. This review aims to explore the impact of the language barrier on the effective rendering of healthcare services in South Africa, and to raise awareness that studies regarding language barriers within the South African healthcare sector are currently limited to isiXhosa in the context of English and Afrikaans, and has been conducted almost exclusively in the Western Cape. Research, therefore, needs to be extended to healthcare settings in the rest of the country, and needs to include all the languages and cultures protected under the South African Constitution. Moreover, there is an opportunity, and a need, for interdisciplinary collaboration between language practitioners and healthcare professionals to find viable solutions to communication challenges posed by linguo-cultural barriers within the multilinguistic South African population, in order to honour the right of every citizen to equitable health care.
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There has been a longstanding call to employ trained interpreters to address language barriers in health care in South Africa. The international literature shows that while trained interpreters can be effective, the existing sophisticated models of upper-income countries are expensive and contextually inappropriate for low-resource settings like South Africa. In community interpreter models, members of the community are given brief training in interpreting; these models have a number of potential advantages for our context, but have not been sufficiently reviewed in the literature. In this chapter, we describe the findings of a pilot project in which community interpreters were introduced to hospitals in the Western Cape to address the language barrier experienced by isiXhosa-speaking healthcare users. Using participatory action research methods, we discuss emerging themes identified by the interpreters, from mentor sessions conducted with them over a three-year period. The emerging...
LANGUAGE BARRIER AS AN OBSTACLE TO GET ACCESS TO MEDICAL CARE.doc
INTED2018 (12th annual International Technology, Education and Development Conference), 2018
Doctor – patient communication is a common thing if both of them represent a common culture and speak the same language. The difficulties arise when the participants of the dialogue are from different cultures and do not speak the same language. This situation is not uncommon in multicultural and multilingual countries. Health care in many western countries is faced with the fact that the non-native population has diverse languages and ethnic characteristics. The diversity of the local population and immigrants affect the major aspects of treatment, such as the patient's record at admission, description of symptoms, description of the disease, the presentation of personal data, marital status, and discussion of diagnosis or compliance with treatment. This problem is obvious through personal contacts. The challenge that humanity faces is the necessity to build bridges of intelligibility among the languages and to respect cultural identities. In today’s world (especially in Europe) health and administrative services need interpreters more urgently than ever before. The authors mention three main barriers to overcome: language, cultural, emotional. Working as researchers and interpreters, the authors have developed certain understanding of the problem. The work can be useful for both the beginners and experienced interpreters.
Revista Letras Raras, 2020
The article seeks to reflect on hospital language policies in Angola based on a bias of public policies that can be seen as promoting the (in) exclusion of national language speakers who, when resorting to health services, feel marginalized or stigmatized. being forced to speak Portuguese because it is the official language. Most doctors have no command of native languages. As a methodology, we interviewed five elderly people who do not speak Portuguese and were treated at the hospital service of Malanje. From the interviews it is concluded that Angolan public policies in the hospital field do not pay attention to patients who do not speak Portuguese, an attitude that excludes besides rendering poor service to these citizens. Several official documents from the Ministry of Health and Government do not discuss the role of language in health care and services. This situation promotes exclusion and denounces the need to include interpreters or translators for full communication. Little or nothing sign language is considered in hospital care, which is serious if “all are equal before the Constitution and the law” (REPUBLIC OF ANGOLA, 2010). The inclusion of interpreters and / or translators in local languages would reserve the right of the citizen to express himself freely in the language that best masters what would favor dialogue oriented health care practices.