Young people's representations of language brokering

Abstract

In recently arrived immigrant families, children and young people often act as language brokers for their parents and other adults. In public and academic debate, this activity is sometimes portrayed negatively as imposing excessive burdens of responsibility on the young people. This paper reports an analysis of qualitative data from a broader study of young people's representations of conflicting roles in child development. Interview participants were monolingual and bilingual students, aged 15Á18 years. Half of the latter had had personal experience of language brokering. The paper examines differences within this sample in their representations of a young person's involvement in language brokering. Monolingual students were not generally negative in their attitudes to bilingualism and language brokering, but many showed only a vague understanding of them and perceived them as unusual or 'strange'. Bilingual speakers, on the other hand, and in particular those with language brokering experience, saw these activities as 'normal' and often showed a richer and more subtle appreciation of what was involved. These differences illustrate ways in which personal experiences influenced individuals' representations of language brokering. Implications for an understanding of developmental scripts emphasising independence and interdependence between young people and their parents are discussed.

Encounters between multicultural family members and the nurses in the context of intensive care

“…[34] In immigrant families children and young people often act as language brokers for their parents. [35] Findings in the present study have no clear indications that the daughters of the critically ill immigrant fathers were language brokers. On the other hand, the daughters have grown up in a society where they have learned the Norwegian language, which was different for their fathers.…”

Child language brokers’ representations of parent–child relationships

“…After the full interviews had been transcribed, a Framework Analysis strategy was employed to investigate variation within the sample (Pope et al 2000). The key findings from the analysis of group differences in the full sample may be studied in detail in Cline et al (2011). For this paper we selected a purposive sample of four students whose personal histories and family situations were typical of those represented in the larger group in the original sample.…”

“…Previous reports on this study have focused on young people's representations of "work" (Crafter et al 2009) and on the early assumption of adult-like responsibilities as a young carer (O'Dell et al 2010). We examined young people's representations of language brokering in a study that investigated how people's direct experience of that activity and of bilingualism might have influenced the views that are developed (Cline et al 2011). The aim of that analysis was to clarify the impact of personal experience of the CLB process by comparing the views of young people who reported that they had performed CLB activities with those of a group of bilingual speakers who had not, and also with those of a group of monolingual speakers living in the same areas of England where there had been significant recent immigration.…”

Young Adult Language Brokers’ and Teachers’ Views of the Advantages and Disadvantages of Brokering in School

“…Research also points to some positive dimensions such as pride (e.g. Orellana, 2003) and to a perception in multilingual areas that such activity is just a normal thing to do when one is bilingual (Cline et al 2011).…”

“…We have argued elsewhere (Cline et al 2014a) that the lack of official policy guidance reflects an ambivalent attitude to the practice of language brokering that permeates professional and academic commentary on the subject of secondlanguage use and bilingualism more generally. Even within increasingly 'super-diverse' locations within the UK (see Vertovec, 2005), monolingualism is still perceived as the prevailing practice, whilst multilingualism is only vaguely understood (Cline et al 2011), and in some cases, explicitly viewed as negative (Brutt-Griffler & Varghese, 2004). In locations of high language diversity, the home languages of many immigrants are socially devalued and in some cases, actively suppressed in institutional settings like school (Cummins, 2000).…”