Community Interpreting in Healthcare Settings for Armenians in Tehran[Latin Thesis]

Narisa Esmaeli

Community Interpreting occurs in the community, and one of its critical settings is Healthcare. The current thesis aims to investigate the state of community Interpreting in Healthcare settings for elderly Iranian-Armenians of Tehran whose daily spoken language is different from the dominant language, despite a long history of living in Iran. A Survey-based Research with the framework of Thematic analysis has been used for the methodology. The data has been collected through semi-structured interviews with 20 Iranian-Armenians over the age of 60. The participants of the interview were selected by convenient and snowball sampling. The interviews were done in person and in Armenian language and translated into English. 35 codes were identified from the interviews and then categorized into five themes. There are probable connections between the codes of the background and the socialization that the results are recognized in the healthcare themes. For example, participants who moved to the cities after their teenage years, didn’t have proper education, and lived only in Armenian neighborhoods are categorized as the ones who need interpreters when visiting healthcare settings, and they usually take the younger member of the family who had been born and raised in the city with more proper education. This thesis is explanatory research, and the results explain the state where some Armenians are fluent enough in the Persian language after having been educated at a younger age and proper socialization with Persian speaking community. But a part of this community needs community interpreters in the healthcare settings and unfortunately, the concept of having an interpreter in social spaces is unknown to them and they are unaware that they use their family members as healthcare interpreters.