Managing Language Barriers in Unplanned Care

Language barriers (LBs) negatively impact access to and quality of healthcare for foreign language speaking (FL) patients. As yet, the literature remains remarkably silent on the mechanisms through which this occurs and on how LBs can be managed best during medical consultations when professional interpreters are not available. MaLBUC will shed light on these issues through an interdisciplinary approach that combines methods from sociolinguistics, interpreting studies, medical education and healthcare communication. Research will draw on participatory case study work involving the primary beneficiaries (healthcare providers and FL patients). Theoretical insights will be turned into guidelines and training materials for practitioners. MaLBUC will develop a new interdisciplinary research agenda that exploits positive research spillovers between the Arts and Life Sciences and contributes to making academic research more relevant to tackle today’s societal challenges.