Interpreting as Linguistic Entrepreneurship: Migrant Interpreters at a Chinese Border Hospital

Journal of Language Situation and Language Service

JLSLS, Vol. 1, No.1, 2026, pp. 83-105

Print ISSN: 3078-3755; Online ISSN: 3104-5065

Journal homepage: https://www.lslsjournal.com

DOI：https://doi.org/10.64058/jlsls260107ilemi

Interpreting as Linguistic Entrepreneurship: Migrant Interpreters at a Chinese Border Hospital

Mengyi Luo, Jia Li, Michelle Mingyue Gu

Abstract: In the context of China’s regional integration, China’s border provinces become a key site for initiating different forms of multilingual communication. Chinese border hospitals serve an increasing number of foreign migrants crossing the border for medical services, making interpreters essential to healthcare delivery. Based on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted periodically between July 2023 and July 2024 at a Chinese hospital in the China-Vietnam borderland, this study examines how interpreters mobilize their language resources to display their entrepreneurial personhood, how their interpreting skills are appropriated and enacted into the neoliberal logic of human capital development. Drawing on the concept of linguistic entrepreneurship, the study finds that interpreters’ multilingual skills in Chinese and Vietnamese help them secure a profitable job, expand their transnational networks and increase Chinese hospital revenue. Findings also reveal that interpreters actively seek to enhance their interpreting skills to adapt to various demanding jobs by strategically investing on the medical terminology, displaying their basic understanding of medical knowledge and managing their emotional labor. Despite their self-investment and self-regulating strategies, their transnational aspirations and entrepreneurial identities are largely structured by their lack of symbolic capital, gendered trajectories and asymmetries in healthcare communication. This study contributes to the existing scholarship by adding how gendered language practices and emotional labor constrain grassroots interpreters’ entrepreneurial agency, thus extending linguistic entrepreneurship theory beyond educational settings into an under-explored but geographically important borderland healthcare labor market.

Keywords: Interpreters; Multilingual healthcare communication; Linguistic entrepreneurship; Chinese border hospital

Authors Biographies:Mengyi Luo is a graduate of the English Department, School of Foreign Languages, Yunnan University. In September 2026, she will begin her doctoral studies at The Education University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include sociolinguistics and multilingual studies. E-mail: 17721852206@163.com. Corresponding author: Jia Li is a full professor of applied sociolinguistics. She is a center director for Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Yunnan University. Her research interests include multilingualism and social inclusion of linguistically diverse populations. E-mail: jia_li_yunnan@qq.com. Michelle Mingyue Gu is a Professor of Sociolinguistics at the Education University of Hong Kong. Her major research areas include: identity and language, multilingualism and mobility, digital literacies, youth development and social media, and family language policy. E-mail: mygu@eduhk.hk.

标题：口译即语言创业：中国边境国门医院的跨境口译员

摘要：中国区域一体化进程中，边境省份已成为多种跨语言交流的关键场域。中国边境地区的国门医院正为越来越多跨境就医的流动人口提供服务，这使得口译员成为医疗服务中不可或缺的角色。基于2023年7月至2024年7月期间在中越边境某国门医院进行的周期性民族志田野调查，本研究考察了口译员如何调动自身的语言资源来展现其企业家特质，以及他们的口译技能如何被纳入市场驱动的人力资本发展逻辑。借助语言创业这一概念，研究发现，口译员掌握的中越双语能力帮助其获得了高收益工作机会、拓展了跨国人脉网络，并提升了该医院的收入。研究还发现，口译员通过策略性地学习医学术语、展现出对医学知识的基本理解以及对情感劳动的管理，主动提升口译技能，以适应高要求的工作。尽管他们采取了自我投资与自我调节的策略，但其跨国职业抱负与创业者身份在很大程度上受制于象征资本的匮乏、性别化的职业发展轨迹以及医疗沟通中的权力不对称。本研究将语言创业理论从教育领域拓展至一个尚未被充分探索但具有重要地理意义的边境医疗劳动力市场，不仅丰富了现有学术案例，更通过揭示性别化的语言实践与情感劳动如何限制基层口译员的创业能动性，为语言创业理论提供了新的批判性视角与理论贡献。

关键词：口译者；医疗健康；语言创业；中国国门医院

作者简介：罗梦怡，云南大学外国语学院英语系毕业生。2026年9月将于香港教育大学攻读博士学位。研究兴趣包括社会语言学和多语研究。邮箱：17721852206@163.com。通讯作者：李佳，教授，应用社会语言学教授，担任云南大学外国语言学及应用语言学研究中心主任。研究兴趣包括多语现象与语言多样化人群的社会融入。邮箱：jia_li_yunnan@qq.com。谷明月，教授，香港教育大学社会语言学教授。主要研究领域包括：身份认同与语言、多语现象与流动性、数字素养、青少年发展与社交媒体，以及家庭语言政策。邮箱：mygu@eduhk.hk。