Abstract

Straniero Sergio was the first scholar who looked at the functions that repetitions deployed by interpreters can have in interpreter-mediated interactions, specifically in the context of interviews during TV talk shows. Taking inspiration from his work, the present paper examines repetitions deployed by intercultural mediators working with migrants in the public sector in interactions where English is used as a lingua franca.  By analysing a dataset comprising interactions from the healthcare and educational settings and using a methodology grounded in Conversation Analysis, repetitions have been classified and investigated in order to understand their functions in interaction and their implications for public service interpreting. Results show that repetitions both of other speaker’s words by the mediators and of the mediators’ own words can have the function of eliciting the migrant interlocutor’s confirmation of the information being gathered by the mediator. Repetitions are also shown to be deployed particularly when migrant speakers show low levels of language proficiency while speaking English as a lingua franca. In this context, mutual comprehension is often potentially at stake, and repetitions are shown to function as an effective way of double-checking migrant service users’ understanding, since they do not introduce new linguistic complexities in the exchange. Overall, the aim of this paper is to show how a conversational mechanism such as repetitions can also be used effectively to achieve interactional success in mediator-interpreted exchanges in the public sector.

Keywords: intercultural mediation, conversation analysis, institutional interaction, repetitions, migrants

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