The (Un)imagined Work of Linguistic Inclusion
About this episode
Emily Pacheco interviews Brynn Quick about her research on language policies in healthcare and their impact on patients' English language proficiency.
In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Emily Pacheco speaks with PhD candidate Brynn Quick (Macquarie University, Australia) about her 2025 paper, The (un)imagined work of determining patients’ English language proficiency. The conversation focuses on language policies in healthcare, the monolingual logic, and language access. Quick, B., Piller, I., & Lising, L. (2025). The (un)imagined work of determining patients’ English language proficiency. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2025.2594462 Abstract. This study investigates how Australian healthcare policies imagine communication between limited English proficiency (LEP) patients and healthcare providers to occur. This is done through a work as imagined (WAI) vs. work as done (WAD) analysis of 13 Australian medical policies from four levels of governance. Findings reveal that policies mostly conceptualise the work of determining if a patient needs a professional interpreter as an act of self-assessment that patients will do themselves. When policies direct healthcare staff to assess patients’ English language proficiency, they often instruct staff to…
More episodes of New Books in Language and Translation
- Bilingual Writers and Corpus Analysis
- Aya Elyada, "A Lingering Legacy: The Afterlife of Yiddish in German-Jewish Culture, 1818–1938" (Stanford UP, 2026)
- Elena Foulis, "Embodied Encuentros: Oral History Archives of Latina/o/e Experiences" (Ohio State UP, 2026)
- Nathaniel Greenberg, "The Long War of Ideas: American Public Diplomacy in Arabic After 9/11" (Columbia UP, 2026)
- Myung-jin Han with Nicolas Levi, "I Was a North Korean Diplomat: Inside the Secret World of Pyongyang's Foreign Service" (Independently Published, 2026)
- Elizabeth Rosner, "Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening" (Catapult, 2025)
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the New Books in Language and Translation podcast page.