Beyond Interpreting: The Companions’ Role in Bridging Patient-Doctor Understanding in Intercultural Oncological Visits

Health contexts are culturally and organizational rich environments, often difficult to be navigated also by “indigenous” participants, i.e., those, who are native speakers of the context and, thus, share with the health practitioners a common ground of cultural knowledge. This chapter investigates the construction of nonnative patients’ communicative competence in oncological visits, including also a companion. Particularly, the study examines whether and how companions of patients, who are nonnative of Italian, help patients to travel communication with their Italian oncologist and particularly, what is their contribution to the accomplishment of the patient’s telling and responses in the course of the visit.