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About Us Vanesa Rodríguez Tembrás

International Academic Programs / Center for Galician Studies, Research Associate

Vanesa Rodríguez Tembrás is a research associate and lecturer at Heidelberg University and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Vienna. She studied communication, linguistics, and literature at the Complutense University of Madrid, the University of Valladolid, and the University of Seville. Additionally, she holds a diploma in Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language (UNED). She completed her her PhD at Heidelberg University with the dissertation titled Code-switching in bilingual medical consultations (available open access).

Code Switching in Bilingual Medical Consultations (Galician Spanish) - heiDOK

Currently, she is a Research Associate and the director’s assistant at the Centro de Estudos Galegos (HCIAS), where she manages the center's academic collaboration with the University of Vienna. Since December 2022, she has also coordinated two DAAD-funded international study programs: the Master's double degree program in Specialized Translation and Cultural Mediation in partnership with the Universidad de Salamanca, and Specialized Translation and Translation Technologies in collaboration with the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She led the coordination team for the second edition of the DAAD-funded teaching project Communication and Society in Ibero-America – CS@Ibero-America_PLUS (2023). Further, she coordinates courses on communication, translation and interpreting as part of the ABeLL Project on Continuous Education (HCLA). In recent years, she has been a guest lecturer at the University of Copenhagen (2015-2016), University of Mannheim (2018), University of Zurich (2018), University of Panama (2022), and has contributed to international programs with the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and the the University of Chile (Diplomado de Comunicación Pública, HCLA).

Center for Galician Studies

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Research

Vanesa's dissertation explored code-switching in bilingual family doctor-patient interactions (Spanish-Galician). Her research centers on the communicative dynamics of healthcare, with a particular focus on the power of language to impact social and health outcomes by selecting precise words in the appropriate language. Her broader research interests include multilingualism in professional contexts, language contact phenomena, Ibero-Romance languages, human-machine interaction, and the study of underrepresented minority languages.

During her doctoral studies, she was awarded several prestigious scholarships. In 2019, she received DAAD funding for a research stay at Harvard University's Observatorio Insituto Cervantes, during which she was also a visiting scholar at Rhode Island University and presented her project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 2018, she was awarded a full scholarship by the Google Faculty Institute to attend a Machine Learning workshop in Sunnyvale, California.

Academic Grants and Awards

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  • 2024 – COMET Research Award 2023 for the best paper by a PhD student or Postdoctoral Fellow at the 21st Communication, Medicine, and Ethics Conference (Cork, Ireland).
  • 2023 – Seed Money Fund for a Postdoctoral Pilot Study, Language & Medicine Competence Center, University of Zurich.
  • 2019 – DAAD Full Scholarship for a PhD research stay at Harvard University, Observatorio Instituto Cervantes.
  • 2018 – Google Faculty Institute Stipend, full scholarship for a Machine Learning course in Sunnyvale, USA.
  • 2016-2019 – Multiple grants for conference attendance and project funding in Denmark, the US and Spain: Viggo Brøndal Fond, Knud Henders Legatfond, and Oticon Fond (Denmark), AIEG (Spain).

Publications

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  • Rodríguez Tembrás, Vanesa (2024). Code-Switching in Bilingual Medical Consultations (Galician-Spanish). DOI: 10.11588/heidok.00035533.
  • Rodríguez Tembrás, Vanesa (2024). Two Languages, One Goal: Code-Switching in Doctor–Patient Communication in the Galician Healthcare System. Languages 2024 9(6), 209. 
  • Rodríguez Tembrás, Vanesa (2023). “Bertha M. Gutiérrez Rodilla / José A. Pascual (eds.): Tesoros lexicográficos y terminología médica. La explotación del recurso TeLeMe.” Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana 21(42), pp. 246-250. 

    https://doi.org/10.31819/rili-2023-214222

    .
  • Kotnis, Bhushan, Gashteovski, Kiril, Rubio, Daniel, Shaker, Ammar, Rodriguez-Tembras, Vanesa, Takamoto, Makoto, Niepert, Mathias, and Lawrence, Carolin (2022). MILIE: Modular & Iterative Multilingual Open Information Extraction. In: Proceedings of the 60th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers), pp. 6939–6950.
  • De Oliveira, Sandi Michele, Hernández-Flores, Nieves, and Rodríguez Tembrás, Vanesa (2019). 'To Prescribe or Not to Prescribe’ is Not the Only Question: Physician Attitudes Towards Antibiotics and Prescription Practices in Spain. In: Jensen, Carsten Strøby, Nielsen, Søren Beck, Fynbo, Lars (eds.). Risking Antimicrobial Resistance. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 79–93.
  • Flores, Nieves Hernández and Rodríguez Tembrás, Vanesa (2018). “Lo que se debe hacer es cambiar un poco el estilo de vida: estrategias de atenuación en el consejo médico”. In: Spanish in Context 15 (2), pp. 325–345.
  • Rodríguez Tembrás, Vanesa (2016). “Alternancia de lenguas como estrategia de actividad de imagen en la comunicación médico-paciente en un consultorio gallego”. In: Textos en proceso 2 (1), pp. 94–121.
  • Rodríguez Tembrás, Vanesa (2015). “Achega á presenza (ou ausencia) do galego e a súa literatura en Dinamarca: estudo, tradución e coñecemento/An Approach to the Presence (or Absence) of Galician and Its Literature in Denmark: Academia, Translation and Awareness”. In: Madrygal: Revista de Estudios Gallegos 18, pp. 579–590.

Invited Talks (from 2018)

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20.06.2024 - Two languages, one goal: Doctor-patient communication in the Galician healthcare system. Ringvorlesung, Institut für Übersetzung und Dolmetschen, Heidelberg University.
15.01.2024 - Literatura e sector audiovisual en Galicia onte e hoxe: clásicos, bestsellers e novas voces. Romance Language Department, University of Vienna.
25.01.2023 - Un médico, un paciente y dos lenguas: code-switching en la consulta médica gallega. Romance Language Department, University of Vienna.
01.12.2022 - International Virtual Academic Exchange: Addressing Interculturality in Ibero-America. German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD, Bonn (online, together with Cruz, A. and Recio, I.).
08.11.2022 -  Code-switching in bilingual medical consultations (Galician-Spanish): social, interpersonal, and situational dynamics. Competence Center Language and Medicine, University of Zurich.
25.01.2022 - Dos idiomas, siete minutos y dos hablantes: Code-switching en consultas de atención primaria bilingües. Romance Language Department, University of Vienna.
08.11.2022 - Code-switching in bilingual medical consultations. Social, interpersonal, and situational dynamics. Research Colloquium: Language and Medicine, Zurich University.
16.11.2020 – Cambiar ou non, non é só esa a cuestión. Code-switching nas consultas médicas bilingües en Galicia. Doktorandenworkshop: A língua portuguesa desde uma perspectiva comparativa e contrastiva, University of Tübingen.
17.03.2020 - Negotiating the Asymmetry: Code-Switching and its Functions in Bilingual Medical Consultations. Research Colloquium: Language and Medicine, Zurich University.
13.11.2019 - La interacción médico-paciente bilingüe en Galicia (español-gallego): la negociación asimétrica a través de la alternancia de lenguas. Program Romania Minor, University of Vienna.
26.10.2019 - Negotiating the asymmetry in bilingual doctor-patient interaction: Distance adjustment through code-switching. Internationalen Wissenschaftsforum, Heidelberg University.
17.04.2019 - Politeness strategies in bilingual doctor-patient interactions: The case of rural Galicia, Spain. Department of Modern and Classical Language and Literatures, University of Rhode Island.
26.03.2019 - Code-switching and its function in doctor-patient interaction. Department of Linguistics, Harvard University.
27.11.2018 - Atenuación e alternancias de linguas en Galicia: a interacción médico-paciente nun contexto comunicativo bilingüe. Department of Galician and Portuguese Philology, University of Santiago de Compostela.

Congress Participation (from 2018)

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27.06.2024 - Communication, Medicine, and Ethics (COMET), Universitá degli Studi di Brescia (Italy): “Two languages, one goal: Code-switching in bilingual medical consultations”.
31.05.2024 - VII Foro Internacional de Lingüística do Discurso, Universitá degli Studi di Milano (Italy): “Consultas médicas bilingües triádicas: el acompañante-cuidador como intermediario transaccional, comunicativo y emocional”.
08.02.2024 - II CROS, Cruce de fronteras: español y otras lenguas y literaturas en contacto, University of Brussels: “Dos lenguas, dos hablantes y un objetivo común: code-switching como regulador de la distancia interpersonal en la consulta médica”.
23.06.2023 - Conference on Communication, Medicine, and Ethics (COMET), University College Cork (Ireland): “When a medical consultation is a challenge: A pilot study on language use and healthcare outcomes for Galicians in the Canton of Zurich”.
25.09.2020 – 49th Meeting of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest, online: “Seven minutes for a diagnosis: Code-switching as a communicative strategy in bilingual medical consultations”.
24.01.2020 - University of Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona), XLIX Simposio de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística (SEL): “Anamnesis en consultas bilingües de atención primaria: atenuación y gestión de imagen”.
19.09.2019 – University of Valencia, Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Jóvenes Lingüistas: “Niños y personas mayores en la consulta médica: atenuación y dinámicas interaccionales con acompañante”.
13.04.2019 –  University of Massachusetts Amherst, II International Symposium on Linguistics Attitudes Towards Spanish, Portuguese and Related Languages (LASPRL II): “Y si le hablo en gallego, ¿me entiende? : Actitudes lingüísticas y negociación de identidades en una consulta médica bilingüe en Galicia (España)”.
23.10.2018 - University of Sevilla, VIII Coloquio Internacional del Programa EDICE: “Actividades de imagen e identidad: la atenuación en la realización y recepción del consejo médico con pacientes”.
14.09.2018 - Complutense University of Madrid, XII Congreso da Asociación Internacional de Estudos Galegos: “Alternancia de linguas como estratexia de atenuación na interacción médico-paciente en Galicia”

CONTACT

Dr. Vanesa Rodríguez Tembrás

Heidelberg Center for Ibero-American Studies | HCIAS
Brunnengasse 1 69117, Heidelberg

Email: vanesa.rodriguez(at)uni-heidelberg.de

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