fulbright Taiwan online journal

fulbright Taiwan online journal

Tag: Social Work

My Fulbright Journey in Taiwan: Language-Discordance as a Social Phenomenon

    Social worlds and social relationships are created, maintained, and resisted through human communication. The best of communication scholarship emerges through researchers’ willingness and ability to listen, by recognizing the perspectives of others, and learning through the nuances and complexities of communication practices. This is particularly important when working with marginalized and underserved populations, whose voices are often deprived and silenced, resulting in disparities in their everyday life. These are the values that have driven my research program for nearly two decades. Interests in and empathy for humans and the human phenomenon is fundamental to the scholarship of any social scientist.       I have dedicated my research to understanding how linguistic and cultural differences can create barriers to patients’ health experiences, including their access to and process of care. In particular, I am interested in how language-discordant patients, such as patients with English-limited proficiency (LEP), coordinate and negotiate healthcare services with their healthcare providers. As I presented my model of Bilingual Health Communication (Hsieh, 2016), a communicative model that aims to provide guidance for interpreter-mediated provider-patient interactions, to various groups in the United States, interpreters of American Sign Language often told me that their deaf patients are

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My Fulbright Experience at Eleanor Roosevelt College at the University of California, San Diego

    I was very pleased and honored to receive the prestigious research grant as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in 2014. It represents a wonderful opportunity to obtain new knowledge in the field of child protection in the United States. My research grant will let me help children in need in Taiwan after I finish my research project. This paper contains reflections on my stay in the US as a Fulbright Senior Scholar over the past 6 months.   Research Experiences      I am very grateful that Professor Richard Madisen, the acting provost of the Eleanor Roosevelt College at the University of California, San Diego, hosted me during my grant.  Professor Madisen actually graduated from my home institution, National Taiwan University (NTU), as well. He can speak fluent Chinese and has translated several books from Chinese to English. I was surprised and pleased to know that he has close connections with Taiwan. He is also the Director of the UC Fudan Center, which has hosted a variety of seminars featuring speakers from top universities/institutes from all over the world, and I have been very fortunate to attend some of these seminars. It was a great learning experience for me.  

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Research & Reflections

fulbright taiwan online journal