This book offers a novel approach to understanding the complexities of communication in culturally and linguistically diverse health care contexts. It marks the culmination of two decades of research in South Africa, a context that has obvious application in a wider international climate given current globalization and migration trends. The authors draw from a large body of evidence based across different sites and illnesses, scrutinising both the language dynamics of intercultural health interactions and the perceptions and narratives of multiple participants. Including a range of theoretical, methodological and empirical considerations, the volume sheds light upon qualitative research methods and their application in the intercultural context. This book will be a valuable resource for health professionals, medical educators and language practitioners as well as students and scholars of discourse analysis and the medical humanities.

Claire Penn is a professor and director of the Health Communication Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. She holds the endowed Chair of Speech Pathology and Audiology and is a leading international researcher in this field. Claire has a special interest in health communication research and ethics.

Jennifer Watermeyer is an associate professor in the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology and Deputy Director of the Health Communication Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Her research focuses on communication processes in multicultural healthcare contexts.

Part I.- Chapter 1. Prologue.- Chapter 2. The Context of Health Communication: Global, Local and Theoretical.- Part II.- Chapter 3. Methodological Issues: Approaches, Pitfalls and Solutions.- Part III. Chapter 4. Islands of Good Practice.- Chapter 5. Language Diversity in the Clinic: Promoting and Exploring Cultural Brokerage.- Chapter 6. Verbal and Non-Verbal Dimensions of the Intercultural Health Setting.- Part IV.- Chapter 7. Putting It All Into Practice: Some Examples and Advice.- Chapter 8. Conclusions and Implications: Paradoxes and Principles.