Empirical designs in studies of public service interpreting and translation

110 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) EMPIRICAL DESIGNS IN STUDIES OF PUBLIC SERVICE INTERPRETING AND TRANSLATION. / DISEÑOS EMPÍRICOS EN LOS ESTUDIOS SOBRE TRADUCCIÓN E INTERPRETACIÓN EN LOS SERVICIOS PÚBLICOS. Jaana Vuori University of Eastern Finland, Finland [email protected] Sari Hokkanen Tampere University, Finland [email protected] Abstract: This article examines the types of research designs used in empirical studies on public service interpreting and translation (PSIT). Our data consists of 81 journal articles, articles published in collected volumes, and doctoral dissertations published in English or German in 2009-2018, derived from the Translation Studies Bibliography. Our analysis is structured according to the main data used in the research design (interactional data, interviews, textual data, questionnaires, ethnographic observations, and multi-data designs). We describe what kinds of research questions are posed, which data are used, and how the analysis is portrayed. The objects of study are categorized on a methodological metalevel into (1) facts, (2) views, (3) cultural meanings and practices, (4) experiences, (5) social relations, and (6) interaction. In addition, we discuss whether the overall aim of the studies is to analyze the researched phenomenon from a factual perspective or from a social-constructivist perspective emphasizing cultural meanings. The most frequent object of study is interpreted interaction, and it seems to be the most nuanced from an analytical perspective as well. The other meta-level objects of study are either more varied in terms of analytical depth or not equally recognized for their possible research value in PSIT. Most studies in our data take a factual perspective, and studies on cultural meanings attached to PSIT seem rare. Our results indicate a need for further development in empirical designs in PSIT research. Keywords: Public service interpreting and translation; Research design; Research methods; Analytical perspective. Resumen: Este artículo examina los tipos de diseños de investigación utilizados en los estudios empíricos sobre la interpretación y la traducción en los servicios públicos (TISP) sobre una muestra de 81 obras (artículos de revistas, capítulos de obras colectivas y tesis doctorales) publicadas en inglés o alemán entre 2009 y 2018 y extraídas de la base de datos Translation Studies Bibliography. El análisis se basa en los principales datos utilizados en el diseño de la investigación (interacciones, entrevistas, datos textuales, cuestionarios, observaciones etnográficas y diseños de datos múltiples). Describimos qué tipos de preguntas de investigación se plantean, qué datos se utilizan y cómo se describe el análisis. Los objetos de estudio se clasifican desde un punto de vista metodológico en (1) hechos, (2) puntos de vista, (3) significados y prácticas culturales, (4) experiencias, (5) relaciones sociales e (6) interacción. Además, se discute si el objetivo general de los estudios es analizar el fenómeno investigado desde una perspectiva fáctica o desde una perspectiva socio-constructivista que enfatiza los significados culturales. El objeto de estudio más frecuente es la interacción interpretada, y parece ser el más elaborado también desde una perspectiva analítica. El resto de objetos de estudio son más variados en cuanto a la profundidad analítica o carecen de reconocimiento por su posible valor en la investigación en TISP. La mayoría de los estudios de la muestra adoptan una perspectiva fáctica y, en TISP, los 111 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) estudios sobre los significados culturales son más bien raros. Nuestros resultados indican la necesidad de un mayor desarrollo de los diseños empíricos en la investigación en TISP. Palabras clave: Traducción e interpretación en servicios públicos; Diseño de investigación; Métodos de investigación; Perspectiva analítica. 1. Introduction What kinds of research designs are employed in empirical studies of public service interpreting and translation (PSIT)? By research design we understand the interplay between the research problem, the choice of data, and the analytical approach taken in the study. The research design may be understood to include the theoretical framework and central concepts as well, but in this article, we focus on the empirical design and refer to theoretical and conceptual underpinnings only occasionally. The theoretical and empirical frameworks cannot always be separated, however, since in the human sciences they may be closely interrelated in the form of theoretical-methodological frameworks that simultaneously carry both propositions for theoretical understandings and typical kinds of data and analysis. In this article, our aim is to describe the current methodological choices in studies of PSIT. Our research questions are: (1) What kinds of methodological choices have PSIT researchers made in creating their research designs? (2) Which objects of study have been central in the field and which are less used? Even though we present some of our results in a quantitative format, our analysis is qualitative and may be called descriptive content analysis. In the conclusions, we also discuss the shortcomings in current PSIT research and try to uncover underused research potential in the field. We analyze as our data a total of 81 empirical studies published in English or German between 2009 and 2018 (journal articles, articles published in collective volumes, and doctoral dissertations). The studies in our dataset are referred to with numerical identifiers (e.g., #1) and they are listed in the appendix.1 The studies were retrieved from the Translation Studies Bibliography. Our analysis is structured according to the data used in the studies. We start with studies examining interactional data, typically audio or video recordings from interpreted encounters. Second, we examine studies that analyze individual or group interviews, mainly conducted with interpreters or their professional service users and sometimes also with lay service-users, usually the clients of the public service institutions. Third, we analyze studies having diverse texts as their research materials, in this case typically different documents framing PSIT or self-reflexive texts written by interpreters or interpreter students. We then move on to analyzing studies using questionnaires, typically composed of a set of structured questions but often also utilizing open-ended questions. As the fifth category, we discuss studies based on ethnographic field observations as their central research materials, typically combining them with other kinds of data such as interviews and documents. As the final group, we analyze other designs combining multiple types of data. While describing the research designs in each data category, we look at the main object of the study on a methodological meta-level. The object can usually be inferred from the 1 The studies in the appendix are listed according to their object of study, following the same order as in our analysis in Section 4. The numerical identifiers do not form an entirely continuous sequence, because we assigned an identifier to all publications that we deemed to be (potentially) empirical studies based on their abstracts. After this point, a number of publications were screened out, but to keep track of our analysis, we did not re-number the remaining publications. The process of data selection is explained in more detail in Section 3. 112 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) research questions or research tasks posed in the publication, and therefore, we begin the analysis with them. We distinguish between the objects of (1) facts, (2) views, (3) cultural meanings and practices, (4) experiences, (5) social relations, and (6) interaction (Vuori and Alastalo, in preparation). There is no straightforward relation between the object of the study and the data used, as we will show, but some data types typically occur with certain objects of study. Since the research objectives in these studies are sometimes stated unclearly or in a rather long and complicated way, we have needed to clarify and simplify them in our descriptions in order to provide an overall picture of the research designs. While describing the research questions, we also review the research topics. After that we describe the nature and quantity of the research materials, and then discuss how the researchers name their analytical approaches or how they describe their analysis in general. Since specific analytical approaches are not always explicitly mentioned in the studies, we have attempted to infer the type of analysis from other information given in the publication. At the end of the analysis of each data type, we discuss whether the overall aim of the studies is to analyze the studied phenomenon from a realist, factual perspective or from a social-constructivist perspective that emphasizes the interpretation of cultural meanings. This is a crucial distinction in the human sciences (Alasuutari, 1995: ch. 5 and 6). Although all research should aim at objectivity, not all research attempts to discover facts about how things are in the world, what has happened, or what people think, for example. A large portion of studies in the humanities and social sciences —such as in the hermeneutic and phenomenological traditions— rather attempts to map people’s cultural understandings and cultural practices. This might of course be too simplified a picture of the variety of research orientations or paradigms in the human sciences (cf. Guba and Lincoln, 1994; Denzin and Lincoln, 2008), but the empirical studies of PSIT we have analyzed seem to fall into one of these two categories. 2. Previous maps of the field The field of research in translation and interpreting studies has been mapped with other divisions in the existing literature, either in translationand interpreting-specific terms, in terms of specific methods, or by using rather sweeping categories, mostly reflecting a positivist–phenomenological dichotomy, although not always with these labels. For example, Saldanha and O’Brien (2013) divide the field into product-, process-, participant-, and context-oriented studies, thus using a translation-specific conceptualization of potential topics of research. Angelelli and Baer (2016), while generally promoting a post-structuralist (as opposed to a positivist) approach to research, divide the field of research into 11 topics (e.g., agency and role, collaborative and volunteer practices, and the study of reader response and reception) and 13 methodological approaches (e.g., corpus-based studies, ethnography of communication, and survey-based studies). Other well-known divisions include those by Chesterman (2000) and Marco Borillo (2009), who distinguish between different models of research on a more abstract level: the comparative, process, and causal models by Chesterman and the textual-descriptivist, cognitively-oriented, culturalist, and sociological models by Marco. The models put forth by Marco also aim to connect the topic of research with specific methods, theoretical and conceptual frameworks, and neighboring disciplines, while other researchers have promoted a more flexible approach to connecting the topic of research to specific methods or theories (e.g., Saldanha and O’Brien, 2013). 113 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) In addition to these maps and models of the wider field of translation and interpreting, a few researchers have also set out to map the field of interpreting. Here we mention two recent mappings. Vargas-Urpi’s classification (2012) focuses on community interpreting, and accordingly divides the field into interpreting-related topics of research. These range from ethics, quality, and professionalization to specific PSIT contexts, technology, and training. Vargas-Urpi’s map also includes text analysis, but it mainly refers to the analysis of transcriptions of interpreting encounters, whereas our classification treats textual data and studies on interaction (also through transcripts) as different categories (see Sections 4.1 and 4.3). In their conceptualization of the field of interpreting research, Hale and Napier (2013) mainly distinguish between positivist and phenomenological approaches, referring approximately to the same distinction as we draw between the factual and socialconstructivist perspectives above. It is important to point out, however, that we do not see that all studies based on a factual perspective rely on a positivist philosophy and all studies using a social-constructivist perspective, on phenomenology. 3. Data and methods To compile a set of empirical research publications on PSIT from the past 10 years, we searched the Translation Studies Bibliography (TSB) with “dialogue interpreting” or “community interpreting” set as keywords.2 A further search criterion was the date of publication, which was set to include all publications between 2009 and 2018. These search criteria yielded 233 publications. Our process of identifying analyzable, empirical publications from these 233 is illustrated in Figure 1. Based on the abstracts of the publications, we first screened out results that did not seem relevant for our study. These included two studies that were not about interpreting and 18 collected volumes, since we could not treat the latter as single empirical studies. Furthermore, individual papers published in these collections were already included in the search results. After screening out these 20 non-relevant results, we proceeded to screen out non-empirical studies based on the information given in the abstracts. A total of 85 publications were identified as non-empirical at this point. These included pedagogical, theoretical, and policy-related publications as well as country-specific reviews on the state of PSIT training and profession, among others. The remaining 128 publications included a number of uncertain cases, and we could not be sure whether they were empirical based on the information given in the abstract. We set out to acquire the full texts of these 128 publications and gave them a numerical identifier (e.g., #1). We were able to find the full texts of all but four studies. These four had to be screened out from further analysis, because the information given in the abstract alone did not allow us to analyze their research designs. At this point, we also decided to focus only on English and German publications due to our own language skills and because we needed to be able to skim the entire publication in many cases, again, due to a lack of information in the English abstracts. Thus, we had to disregard eight publications (five in Spanish and one 2 “Public service interpreting” was not used as a separate search word, because TSB treats it as a synonym to “community interpreting”. While the term “dialogue interpreting” may also refer to cases unrelated to PSIT, we examined the abstract or full text of each result to verify that such studies were not included in our analysis. These results mostly concerned pedagogical publications that were not considered to be empirical studies of PSIT. 114 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) each in Catalan, Slovak, and Korean). Based on the full texts, we further screened out 33 publications that were not empirical studies. Thus, we analyzed a total of 81 publications in terms of their research design. We examined the research questions posed, the types of data used, and the type of analysis carried out in the studies. We then categorized the studies in terms of their object of study: (1) facts, (2) views, (3) cultural meanings and practices, (4) experiences, (5) social relations, and (6) interaction. The distribution of the publications into these categories are illustrated in Table 1 in Section 4. Our dataset allows us to examine the research designs and methodological choices in a selection of studies on PSIT from recent years, but it is not without its limitations. Due to time constraints, we were only able to conduct our search in one database. Optimally, this search would have been complemented with others to ensure that studies appearing in publications outside the field of translation and interpreting studies would also have been included. As it stands, our dataset includes a very limited number of such studies. Furthermore, even though we aim at describing the current state of PSIT research, our results do not include the most recent publications (from 2019 onwards). Finally, an important limitation has to do with our selection of languages. As mentioned above, we limited our analysis to studies published in English and German due to the limitations in our language skills and in the quality of the English abstracts of some of the publications. Our analysis cannot therefore be said to represent the entire field of PSIT research, as significant work is also published in other languages. 115 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) Figure 1. Process of data selection 4. Findings The results of our analysis are presented in separate subsections for each type of data. First, we examine the main meta-level object of each study. We then describe the data in more detail as well as the methods of analysis applied in the studies. Table 1 below provides a quantitative illustration of our findings, presenting the distribution of the studies in terms of 233 213 128 4 8 81 Screening based on abstracts (potentially) empirical Screening based on full text empirical, included in analysis TSB search 2 18 non-relevant results topic not interpreting collected volumes 85 not empirical 33 not empirical unclear full text not available not in English/ German 2 non-relevant result (not PSI) 116 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) the types of data and the objects of study. It is worth noting that we could not separate between the meta-level research objects by only looking at the research questions or tasks as we first anticipated. Instead, we often had to examine the ways that the analysis and the results had been described as well. Our analysis demanded a fair amount of interpretation, and thus, the table should be taken as suggestive rather than definitive. Sari Hokkanen was mainly responsible for analyzing the interactional data and Jaana Vuori for analyzing the other settings, but we discussed our analysis together. Type of data Object of study Total Facts Views Cultural meaning s and practice s Experiences Social relations Interaction Combination Unclear Interactional data 1 0 0 0 0 30 2* 0 33 Interview data 0 15 2 0 1 0 0 0 18 Textual data 2 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 7 Questionnair es 4 4 0 0 0 0 2** 2 12 Ethnographic observations 0 0 2 0 0 0 1*** 3 6 Multi-data designs 0 3 0 0 0 0 1** 1 5 Total 7 24 7 0 1 30 6 6 81 * 1 study combining facts and interaction, 1 study combining cultural meanings/practices and interaction ** combination of facts and views *** combination of views, social relations, and interaction Table 1. Distribution of analyzed publications in terms of their type of data and object of study 4.1 Interactional data A total of 33 publications in our dataset studied interpreted interactions with interactional data. By interactional data, we refer to audio or video recordings of interpreted encounters, typically processed into detailed transcriptions. Most often, such interactional data is gathered from real-life everyday or institutional conversations (e.g., Drew and Heritage, 1992; Wooffitt, 2005; Lindholm, Stevanovic, and Peräkylä, 2016: 10-12), but our dataset also includes other than such naturally-occurring data: a few used scripted simulations or role plays. Naturally occurring data are typical for studies on interaction in general and have also been prominent in PSIT research, especially in the “dialogic discourse-based interaction” paradigm that gained momentum after the seminal works of Roy (2000) and Wadensjö (1998), as argued by Pöchhacker (2004: 78-79). Some researchers have even maintained that, for the study of interactional aspects in dialogue interpreting, “simulated data are of limited value” (Mason, 2012: 180). We conceive of interaction as a meta-level object of empirical research. Interactional data could be used for studying other phenomena as well, for example, to acquire knowledge about social relations or the construction of cultural meanings and practices, but according to our analysis, interactional data in the PSIT studies examined here were mainly used for studying interaction: 32 of the 33 studies had interaction as their object of study, but, according to our interpretation, one combined this with the study of facts and one with the study of cultural meanings and practices. The research questions posed in these studies focused on issues such as the linguistic challenges faced by interpreters in a specific language 117 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) pair and setting (#44), the discursive functions of interpreters’ minimal responses (#65), the effects that interpreters’ conduct has on primary participants’ ability to participate in the interpreted encounter (#74, #128), and the pragmatic shifts taking place in an asylum interview through interpreting (#123). The study investigating facts in addition to interaction looked at gatekeeping and the different “gates” in interpreter-mediated encounters that may hinder migrant clients’ access to public services (#75). The study identified a number of institutional practices and factual processes that could have such an effect and analyzed how they influenced sequences of interpreter-mediated interaction. The study combining the study of interaction and cultural meanings and practices (#60) examined the ways in which pain is understood in different cultures and how this affects interpreting in medical settings. Finally, we categorized one publication as exclusively studying facts. This study (#44) investigated possible translation solutions of statements and questions relevant to medical consultations into American Sign Language. As mentioned, the types of interactional data in these studies comprised of video or audio recordings, usually with the help of transcripts or in combination with other methods. The two studies that did not mention an analysis of transcripts relied exclusively on videorecorded data: one studied the management of metalinguistic references by American Sign Language–English interpreters (#4) and the other examined gaze shifts in immigration interviews (#70). In addition, seven studies combined audioor video-recorded data with interviews. Three of these were retrospective semi-structured interviews (#4, #7, #73), two exclusively with interpreters (#4, #7). Furthermore, one study (#12) used interactional data together with data from two semi-structured group interviews. The final two studies combining recorded interactional data with interviews used in-depth interviews with service providers and members of migrant communities (#17, #75). These interviews aimed to elicit both internal and external viewpoints on interpreters’ work, but the main focus of the analysis was on interpreters’ strategies (#17) or the effect of institutional practices on interpreted interactions (#75). Only three studies focusing on interaction explicitly mentioned having combined audio or video recordings with observations, even though ethnographic and other fieldwork-based methods are sometimes seen as an obvious choice for interactional studies (Lindholm, 2016). One study (#73), focusing on the interpreted interaction in a single assessment session at a speech therapy clinic, utilized the available training facilities and had a group of 37 senior students observe the interaction through a one-way mirror. These observers were asked to comment in writing on the activities and participation dimensions of the session, and their comments were included in the analysis. Another study combined 14 audio-recorded asylum review hearings with researcher observations and informal interviews with the participants (#120). The researchers’ observations proved crucial in determining a key point of interest in the study: the way the presence and the processes related to the written record of the asylum hearing affects the interpreted interaction. The third study explicitly identifying observation as a data collection method analyzed 29 audio-recorded medical consultations with the aim of determining the different functions that the interpreter’s visibility may have (#23). One-third of the studies using interactional data (11 of 33) identified conversation analysis as their method of analysis, sometimes in combination with other methods such as thematic content analysis or multimodal communication analysis. Other methods of analysis identified in the studies were discourse analysis (#71, #75, #99, #107, #128), grounded theory (#17, #75), discourse-based analysis (#120), multimodal analysis (#12, #72), and the analysis of linguistic features (#1, #44, #80). Furthermore, three studies identified gaze as a key component of the analysis (#48, #70, #71), and one named ethnography of communication as 118 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) its analytical framework (#60). Only one study (#128) used quantitative methods in the analysis of audio-recorded and transcribed interactions in addition to qualitative and discourse-analytical methods. In this study, the quantification mainly referred to the categorization and counting of the types of questions asked by an official in an asylum interview, the types of responses given by the interviews asylum-seeking child, and the accuracy of the renditions given by the interpreter. A more detailed statistical analysis of the types of utterances and their renditions was apparently not carried out. A few of the studies (8 of 33) did not apply a clearly defined or established method of analysis but either developed an analytical framework or approach for the purposes of the study or used qualitative methods of analysis without specifying them in more detail. Among the latter were coding of interpreting strategies with the help of video-analysis software (#4) and categorization of interpreted renditions and strategies used by interpreters to solve translationor interaction-related problems (#7). Other qualitative approaches were used in the study of the functions of utterances partly or entirely owned by the interpreter (#23), of the relationship between interpreters’ monitoring and their professional self-concept (#24), and of the functions of the mediator’s expansions in a medical consultation (#61). Three studies developed novel analytical frameworks. In a study on code switching, the researcher developed a heuristic framework focusing on aspects such as types of shift and their sequential position (#59). Another study developed a multi-level analytical framework for the study of the interpreter’s participation, based on conceptual analysis (#74). A third analytical approach was developed on the basis of Goffman’s construct of role (#27). Almost exclusively, the PSIT studies in our data examining interaction took a factual rather than a social-constructivist perspective, that is, they attempted to analyze generalizable features of interpreted interaction rather than socially constructed interpretations of the cultural understandings at play in interaction situations. The study (#60) examining the ways in which pain is understood in different cultures and how this affects interpreting in medical settings was the only one taking a more social-constructivist perspective. 4.2 Interview data Interpreters, interpreting students, professional clients, and foreign-language-speaking clients were interviewed in 18 studies either separately or in two or even three groups in the same research design. The range of topics was wide. The publications in which the analysis concentrated solely on interviews are discussed in this section, even though some of them have been conducted in a wider ethnographic frame. Generally, interviews are mainly conducted in order to acquire knowledge about respondents’ views, and these were the main object of study in 15 of the 18 analyzed publications with interview data. This object of study might be formulated as a research question, for example, “how institutions perceive CLB [child language brokering] as a means to interface with adult migrants” (#105) or as a research task, stating that the study aims to “explore the difficulties and possibilities in the communication between non Swedishspeaking patients/clients and Swedish authorities, particularly healthcare providers and social welfare professionals” (#127). The research interest goes a bit further in studies focusing on cultural meanings and practices (#50, #104): they aim to combine the analysis of what is said in the interviews to an interpretation of how statements are connected to different culturally shared ways of understanding, speaking, and acting (e.g., discourses or subcultures). What people say in the interviews is taken more as accounts that need interpretation than as 125 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) examined students’ and instructors’ evaluations of a course (#106). One study combined views with facts in order to analyze the impact of politics on the third sector providing language help for the service users (#19). The publications in this category differ greatly from one another, and so do their combinations of diverse datasets. For example, a dissertation combined semi-structured individual and group interviews of foreign language speaking clients with texts written by professional clients and documents (incident reports issued by the healthcare center) (#126). Another study used both questionnaires and interviews with immigrant officers in order to find out how they saw the interpreter’s role (#21), while a third study combined a desk-top survey of documents to interviews with service providers (#19). One study had a small dataset of interviews and questionnaires (#106). The analytical approaches mentioned were qualitative content analysis, focus group analysis and phenomenography (#126), and framework analysis (#19). Others used descriptive analysis without naming it in any specific way. In our interpretation, all studies using multiple types of data leaned towards a factual perspective. 5. Discussion In this article, we have analyzed 81 empirical studies about PSIT listed in the Translation Studies Bibliography. We are aware that the TSB does not include all studies published in PSIT, especially those published in other disciplines than translation and interpreting studies, but due to time constraints we were unable carry out further searches in other databases. The resulting analysis is, furthermore, limited in terms of the language of publication. Our main reasons for selecting English and German have to do with our own language skills and the lack of information given in the English-language abstracts for some of the publications written in other languages. The number of publications we excluded due to language was, however, fairly small: eight in total. Nevertheless, it would be important for researchers working in other language-areas to carry out similar studies in order to create a more comprehensive view of the current field of PSIT research. We asked what kinds of methodological choices PSIT researchers have made when creating their research designs. Furthermore, we asked which objects of study have been central to the field and which have been less used. By research design we understood the interplay between the research problem, the choice of research materials or data, and the analytical approach taken in the study. Examining the objects of study at a methodological metalevel, we distinguished between (1) facts, (2) views, (3) cultural meanings and practices, (4) experiences, (5) social relations, and (6) interaction. At an even more general level, we made a distinction between factual and social-constructivist perspectives that may be taken in studies within the human sciences (e.g., Alasuutari, 1995). By departing from previous mappings of the field, which have often been exclusive to translationand interpreting-related phenomena (e.g., Marco Borillo, 2009; Saldanha and O’Brien, 2013), we hoped to offer a fresh perspective to the field of PSIT research. Empirical research of PSIT during the past decade has been varied and included different kinds of data production methods and analytical approaches. In this sense, researchers have relied broadly on the methodological traditions within the humanities and social sciences. However, the main focus has in most cases been on studying facts rather than studying interpreting-related phenomena from a social-constructivist perspective and understanding data as an example of cultural understandings and practices, experiences or 126 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) interactional situations. A focus on facts —for example, knowledge about policies or the factual practices in interpreting and views of interpreters, their clients, and other stakeholders— is important. Equally important would be to study PSIT from a socialconstructivist perspective —for example, examining the cultural meanings interpreters, different stakeholders, and the wider society give to interpreting-specific issues and the kinds of interpreting cultures and cultural practices that may exist in the field. Especially the study of the interpreter’s roles, which is one of the main topics in PSIT research, would gain greatly from a wider perspective. After all, questions such as what interpreters do and should do are moral issues to which there are no correct or incorrect answers. These are arguable norms that entail culturally and socially specific perspectives (Angelelli and Baer, 2016). In addition, the understanding of the factual perspective has sometimes been rather narrow in the studies analyzed here; the studies have, for example, only reported what people have said in the interviews, given direct distributions of survey answers, and described what happened in observed encounters. Instead of remaining at the level of such narrow descriptivism, many PSIT studies would benefit from a deeper analysis leaning to some specialized analytical approach. The study of interpreted interaction is one of the main tasks of PSIT research, and this is well reflected in our data. Accordingly, many studies analyze video or audio recordings and transcripts of interpreted encounters. The research design is usually a case study, which is typical to the analysis of interactional encounters in general. The studies on interaction in our dataset exhibit varied and nuanced analyses, and the researchers are well rooted in the analytical approaches typical to this field: conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and multimodal analysis. We see this as a clear strength of PSIT research, because such a strong footing in this field allows PSIT researchers to offer a unique perspective through the analysis of triadic institutional encounters and multilingual situations. Another often-used type of data in the PSIT studies analyzed here are individual and group interviews. Several of these studies are extensive, but at times the number of interviewees was rather modest, making it difficult to analyze the interviews more deeply. Both professional and lay interpreters and their clients —usually professional clients— were interviewed. Interviews were mostly semi-structured, and the informants were mainly asked about their views on the interpreter’s role and state of the profession as well as about their experiences of providing or using interpreting services. The analysis was usually qualitative content or thematic analysis concentrating on the contents of the discussion and did not consider the interactional nature of the interviews as a part of analysis or the way things are said and the kind of reality that is constructed in the interviews. To summarize, interviewees were mainly asked about their views, and their accounts were analyzed from a factual perspective. Some studies, however, also analyzed cultural understandings at least to some extent. The few studies with text as their main data used documents governing PSIT (such as ethical materials), texts written by the research participants to describe their experiences and viewpoints, and documentation about interpreted encounters. The quantity of the data varied from a single document to a large set of texts produced over several years. A specific analytical framework was usually identified, even if the publications did not describe their analysis in detail. Quantitative data used in these PSIT studies mainly consisted of questionnaires, even though some interactional materials were also analyzed quantitatively. The use of questionnaires in our dataset was very limited, sometimes involving only a few questions or even a single question. In most studies, the number of respondents was also too limited to 127 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) allow for a more nuanced analysis. The modest nature of the studies is also emphasized by the fact that only one study included statistical analysis, which is the basis of survey analysis. In the other cases, the analysis was purely descriptive and usually only displayed direct answers or percentages. A few studies in PSIT also used ethnographic data and combined field observations with other kinds of materials such as interviews and documents. Some studies expanded over several years and had extensive datasets, but some were modest pilot studies. Conversely, some studies had extensive data, but the results were reported in the publications through a narrower perspective or with a limited range of data. In article-length studies, this is understandable, because ethnographic analysis often requires more space in the form of a monograph. Ethnographic research may be understood as both a mode of producing data through observations and other methods and as an analytical approach on its own terms, but it is not uncommon that the analysis remains unspecified or rather poorly described in ethnographic research reports, and this was true in our data as well. Even though ethnography in general is a specialized approach to the study of socially constructed understandings and practices, in the PSIT studies analyzed here, the perspective was usually factual. 6. Conclusion Based on the analysis reported here, the most developed research topic in PSIT research is clearly interaction. It is studied widely from several perspectives and with nuanced analytical approaches. In addition, facts —issues such as how PSIT is organized or what interpreters and their clients do— seem to be a self-evident object of study. Views of different stakeholders around PSIT have also been studied frequently. However, cultural meanings and practices are severely under-studied in PSIT research, which we take as the main critical point in our analysis. It is a widely repeated dogma that interpreting is a social practice, but only few researchers seem to design their research projects in a way that takes into account the way this practice is molded by cultural understandings. There also seems to be a lack of studies examining the experiences of interpreters and their clients, and while this may not be a central issue in the study of interpreting and translation as a public service, it might nevertheless offer an interesting analytical angle. Finally, we found one study explicitly aiming to examine the social relations between interpreters. We suggest that social relations among public service interpreters may be a fruitful object of study to a much larger extent, given that they are a very diverse group of professional and lay actors with varying educational and experiential histories, coming from different gender, generational, and ethnic backgrounds. Few of the PSIT studies in our dataset stemmed from larger or well-funded research projects, which may partly explain the methodological shortcomings discussed here. Most studies may have derived from individual theses or been single articles written amidst teaching. Furthermore, PSIT as an object of research may not be that popular among scholars from other disciplines than translation and interpreting studies, even if multicultural encounters and policies as well as social, health, and educational services aimed at migrants in general are steadily gathering interest. In studies on interactional encounters, however, PSIT research may already have a good foothold. As a societally important area of public services, PSIT requires high-quality research and therefore better datasets and a more comprehensive use of approaches. Based on the present analysis, we would hope to see the field develop towards more diversity in terms of 128 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) objects of research and analytical perspectives without losing ground in areas where PSIT research is already robust. As a practical recommendation, we could also suggest that training efforts were directed to researchers and doctoral students regarding abstract writing skills, since the abstracts in our dataset did not always provide enough information for distinguishing between empirical and non-empirical studies. Acknowledgments We would like to than the two anonymous reviewers as well as Marja Alastalo and Kaisa Koskinen for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. References Agar, Michael H. 1986. Speaking of Ethnography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Alasuutari, Pertti. 1995. Researching Culture. Qualitative Method and Cultural Studies. London: Sage. Angelelli, Claudia V. and Baer, Brian James. 2016. (eds.). 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Interactional Interaction 4 Petitta, G.; Halley, M. and Nicodemus, B. 2018. “‘What’s the sign for nitty gritty?’: managing metalinguistic references in ASL–English dialogue Interactional Interaction 130 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) interpreting”. Translation and Interpreting Studies 13 (1): 49-70. 7 Arumí Ribas, M. and Vargas-Urpi. M. 2017. “Strategies in public service interpreting: A roleplay study of Chinese–Spanish/Catalan interactions”. Interpreting 19 (1): 118-141. Interactional Interaction 12 Felberg, T. R. and Nilsen, A.B. 2017. “Exploring semiotic resources in sight translation”. JoSTrans 28: 230-249. Interactional Interaction 17 Pöllabauer, S. 2017. “Issues of terminology in public service interpreting: From affordability through psychotherapy to waiting lists”. Antonini, R.; Cirillo, L.; Rossato, L. and Torresi, I. (eds.). Non-professional Interpreting and Translation: State of the art and future of an emerging field of research. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 131-155. Interactional Interaction 23 Zhan, C. and Zeng, L. 2017. “Chinese medical interpreters’ visibility through text ownership: An empirical study on interpreted dialogues at a hospital in Guangzhou”. Interpreting 19 (1): 97-117. Interactional Interaction 24 Englund Dimitrova, B. and Tiselius. E. 2016. “Cognitive aspects of community interpreting: Toward a process model”. Muñoz Martín, R. (ed.). Reembedding Translation Process Research. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 195-214. Interactional Interaction 27 Krystallidou, D.K. 2016. “Investigating the interpreter’s role(s): The A.R.T. framework”. Interpreting 18 (2): 172-197. Interactional Interaction 32 Turner, G. H. and Merrison, A.J. 2016. “Doing ‘understanding’ in dialogue interpreting: advancing theory and method”. Interpreting 18 (2): 137-171. Interactional Interaction 44 Swabey, L.; Nicodemus, B. and Moreland, C. 2014. “An Examination of Medical Interview Questions Rendered in American Sign Language by Deaf Physicians and Interpreters”. Nicodemus, B. and Metzger, M. (eds.). Investigations in Healthcare Interpreting. Gallaudet University Press: 104-127. Interactional Facts 47 Böser, U. 2013. “‘So tell me what happened!’: interpreting the free recall segment of the investigative interview”. Translation and Interpreting Studies 8 (1): 112-136. Interactional Interaction 48 Davitti, E. 2013. “Dialogue interpreting as intercultural mediation: Interpreters’ use of upgrading moves in parent–teacher meetings”. Interpreting 15 (2): 168-198. Interactional Interaction 52 Niemants, N.S.A. 2013. “From role-playing to roletaking: Interpreter role(s) in healthcare”. Schäffner, C.; Kredens, K. and Fowler, Y. (eds.). Interpreting in a Interactional Interaction 131 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) changing landscape: Selected papers from Critical Link 6. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 305319. 59 Anderson, L. 2012. “Code-switching and coordination in interpreter-mediated interaction”. Baraldi, C. and Gavioli, L. (eds.) Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 115-148. Interactional Interaction 60 Angelelli, C.V. 2012. “Challenges in interpreters’ coordination of the construction of pain”. Baraldi, C. and Gavioli, L. (eds.) Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 251-268. Interactional Cultural meanings and practices, Interaction 61 Baraldi, C. 2012. “Interpreting as dialogic mediation: The relevance of expansions”. Baraldi, C. and Gavioli, L. (eds.) Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 297-326. Interactional Interaction 65 Gavioli, L. 2012. “Minimal responses in interpretermediated medical talk”. Baraldi, C. and Gavioli, L. (eds.) Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 201-228. Interactional Interaction 70 Mason, I. 2012. “Gaze, positioning and identity in interpreter-mediated dialogues”. Baraldi, C. and Gavioli, L. (eds.). Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 177-200. Interactional Interaction 71 Van De Mieroop, D.; Bevilacqua, G. and Van Hove, L. 2012. “Negotiating discursive norms: Community interpreting in a Belgian rest home”. Interpreting 14 (1): 23-54. Interactional Interaction 72 Pasquandrea, S. 2012. “Co-constructing dyadic sequences in healthcare interpreting: A multimodal account”. Abou-Bakr, F.; Solano, M.A;, Charlston, D.; Davitti, E.; Kim, K.H.; Meade, R. and Pasmatzi, K. (eds.). IPCITI 2010 proceedings 8: 132-157. Interactional Interaction 73 Penn, C. and Watermeyer, J. 2012. “Cultural brokerage and overcoming communication barriers: A case study from aphasia”. Baraldi, C. and Gavioli, L. (eds.) Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 269-296. Interactional Interaction 74 Pöchhacker, F. 2012. “Interpreting participation: Conceptual analysis and illustration of the interpreter’s role in interaction”. Baraldi, C. and Gavioli, L. (eds.). Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 45-70. Interactional Interaction 132 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) 75 Pöllabauer, S. 2012. “Gatekeeping practices in interpreted social service encounters”. Lee-Jahnke, H. and Forstner, M. (eds.). La CIUTI, chef de file pour la promotion de l’employabilité et de la recherche / CIUTI: leader in advocating employability and research 57 (1): 213-234. Interactional Interaction, Facts 78 Straniero-Sergio, F. 2012. “‘You are not too funny’: Challenging the role of the interpreter on Italian talkshows”. Baraldi, C. and Gavioli, L. (eds.). Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 71-98. Interactional Interaction 79 Tebble, H. 2012. “Interpreting or interfering?” Baraldi, C. and Gavioli, L. (eds.). Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 23-44. Interactional Interaction 80 Zhan, C. 2012. “Mediation through personal pronoun shifts in dialogue interpreting of political meetings”. Interpreting 14 (2): 192-216. Interactional Interaction 81 Zorzi, D. 2012. “Mediating assessments in healthcare settings”. Baraldi, C. and Gavioli, L. (eds.). Coordinating participation in dialogue interpreting. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 229-250. Interactional Interaction 87 Gavioli, L. and Baraldi, C. 2011. “Interpreter-mediated interaction in healthcare and legal settings: Talk organization, context and the achievement of intercultural communication”. Interpreting 13 (2): 205233. Interactional Interaction 99 Lázaro Gutiérrez, R. and Pena Díaz, C. 2010. “Training interpreters in the healthcare area: guidelines for the pediatrics consultation”. del Rosario Caballero Rodríguez, M. and Pinar Sanz, M.J. (eds.). Ways and modes of human communication. Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla La Mancha: 1269-1276. Interactional Interaction 107 Valero-Garcés, C. 2010. “Challenging communication in doctor/non-native patient encounters: Two perspectives, three types of interaction and some proposals”. JoSTrans 14: 229-248. Interactional Interaction 120 Pöchhacker, F. and Kolb, W. 2009. “Interpreting for the record: A case study of asylum review hearings”. Hale, S.; Ozolins, U. and Stern, L. (eds.). The critical link 5: Quality in interpreting: A shared responsibility. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 119-134. Interactional Interaction 123 Tillmann, M. 2009. “The pragmatic significance of modal particles in an interpreted German asylum interview”. de Pedro Ricoy, R.; Perez, I. and Wilson, C. (eds.). Interpreting and translating in public service settings. Manchester and Kinderbrook (NY): St. Jerome: 156-170. Interactional Interaction 133 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) 128 Keselman, O. 2009. Restricting participation: Unaccompanied children in interpreter-mediated asylum hearings in Sweden. Unpublished dissertation. University of Linköping. Interactional Interaction 2 de Pedro Ricoy, R.; Howard, R. and Andrade Ciudad, L. 2018. “Walking the tightrope: the role of Peruvian indigenous interpreters in prior consultation processes”. Target 30 (2): 187-211. Interview Views 6 Viljanmaa, A. 2018. “Students’ views on the use of film-based LangPerform computer simulations for dialogue interpreting”. Translation and Interpreting Studies 13 (3): 465-485. Interview Views 10 Devaux, J. 2017. “Virtual Presence, Ethics and Videoconference Interpreting: insights from court settings” Valero-Garcés, C. and Tipton, R. (eds.). Ideology, Ethics and Policy Development in Public Service Interpreting and Translation. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters: 131-150. Interview Views 15 Määttä, S.K. 2017. “Community Interpreters in Finland: a heterogeneous community divided by ethnicity”. Taivalkoski-Shilov, K.; Tiittula, L. and Koponen, M. (eds.). Communities in Translation and Interpreting (Vita traductiva; No. 9). Les Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre: 183-216. Interview Social relations 26 Kaczmarek, Ł. 2016. “Towards a broader approach to the community interpreter’s role: On correspondence between role perceptions and interactional goals”. Interpreting 18 (1): 57-88. Interview Views 28 Lee, J.; Choi, M.; Huh, J. and Chang, A. 2016. “Community interpreting services by marriage migrants for marriage migrants in South Korea”. Perspectives 24 (2): 179-200. Interview Views 50 Gustafsson, K.; Norström, E. and Fioretos, I. 2013. “The interpreter – a cultural broker?” Schäffner, C.; Kredens, K. and Fowler, Y. (eds.). Interpreting in a changing landscape: Selected papers from Critical Link 6. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 187202. Interview Cultural meanings and practices 58 Zimányi, K. 2013. “‘Somebody has to be in charge of a session’: On the control of communication in interpreter-mediated mental health encounters”. Translation and Interpreting Studies 8 (1): 94-111. Interview Views 66 Gheorghiu, C.I. 2012. “Bodily perception in female ad hoc interpreting: Romanian immigrants in contemporary Spain”. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 20 (3): 329-343. Interview Views 134 Vuori, Jaana and Hokkanen, Sari (2020) 67 Gustafsson, K.; Fioretos, I. and Norström, E. 2012. “Working conditions of community interpreters in Sweden: Opportunities and shortcomings”. Interpreting 14 (2): 242-260. Interview Views, Facts 76 Zendedel, R.; Ross, J.; Schouten, B. and Meeuwesen, L. 2012. “Informal interpreters in medical settings: A comparative socio-cultural study of the Netherlands and Turkey”. The Translator 18 (2): 311-338. Interview Views 101 Mooney, E. and Pettigrew, J. 2010. “The experiences of occupational therapists using interpreters”. Translation Ireland 18 (2): 75-97. Interview Views 102 O'Byrne, M. 2010. “Interpreting in the area of occupational health and safety training for migrant workers in the Irish construction industry”. Translation Ireland 18 (2): 43-55. Interview Views 104 Tipton, R. 2010. “On trust: Relationships of trust in interpreter-mediated social work encounters”. Baker, M.; Olohan, M. and Calzada Pérez, M. (eds.). Text and context: Essays on translation and interpreting in honour of Ian Mason. Manchester & Kinderbrook: St. Jerome Publishing: 188-208. Interview Cultural meanings and practices 105 Cirillo, L.; Torresi, I. and Valentini, C. 2010. “Institutional perceptions of child language brokering in Emilia Romagna”. mediAzioni 10: 269296. Interview Views 109 Zimányi, K. 2010. “The professionalisation of mental health interpreting in Ireland: Current practice”. Translation Ireland 18 (2): 57-74. Interview Views 110 Zimányi, K. 2010. “Training for interpreting in mental healthcare in Ireland”. International Journal of Interpreter Education 2: 3-13. Interview Views 127 Fatahi, N. 2010. Cross-cultural encounters through interpreter: Experiences of patients, interpreters and healthcare professionals. Unpublished dissertation. University of Gothenburg. Interview Views 8 Baixauli-Olmos, L. 2017. “Ethics codes as tools for social change in public service interpreting: Symbolic, social and cultural dimensions”. JoSTrans 28: 250-272. Textual Cultural meanings and practices 18 Skaaden, H. 2017. “‘That we all behave like professionals’: An experiential–dialogic approach to interpreter education and online learning”. Cirillo, L., and Niemants, N.S.A. (eds.). Teaching Dialogue Interpreting: Research-based proposals for higher education. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 324-340. Textual Cultural meanings and practices 35 Rosendo, L.R. and Conniff, D. 2015. “Legislation as backdrop for the professionalisation and training of the healthcare interpreter in the United States”. JoSTrans Textual Facts