On 19 March, CULCOM hosted a talk by Emma Brooks titled ‘Because I’m coming from outside and they’re coming from outside, I’m sort of a bridge’ Exploring (intercultural) healthcare through a multilingual lens.
Discussions surrounding migration and health in the UK frequently frame language as a barrier to care, with a range of interpreting and translation solutions posited as means of bridging the conceptualised divide. Yet, the linguistic diversity of the NHS workforce remains a largely unrecognised and under-utilised resource, despite an increase in the number of international healthcare professionals, whose repertoires often mirror those of local diasporic communities. Informed by an understanding of language as a fluid and dynamic practice, I adopt a translanguaging approach, to investigate the (dis)advantages that linguistic flexibility could be said to bring in terms of comprehension, well-being and equitable care. I draw on ethnographic observations of medical consultations in a London hospital and explore everyday experiences of multilingual NHS professionals, collated through in-depth interviews. In doing so, I hope to highlight the extent to which individuals (feel able to) draw on personal linguistic repertoires, the pragmatic decisions behind employing additional resources and some potential for (un)anticipated consequences.
Emma is Lecturer in Language Learning and Intercultural Communication at University College London. Her research interests include translanguaging, (intercultural) professional communication, superdiversity and the dominance of English as a global language: with a particular interest in linguistic ethnography and the role of language in facilitating (in)equalities.