Children’s Narratives of the Emotional Impact of Child Language Brokering

Abstract

Child Language Brokering (CLB) is a very common, yet unseen form of language and cultural (inter)mediation performed by bilingual children and adolescents to help their family, peers and other involved parties interact with members of the host society in a wide variety of formal and informal settings and domains (Antonini 2016). Extant literature provides a detailed description of various aspects of CLB, including, inter alia, who children translate for, where they do so, what they translate, how they feel when they language broker, as well as the impact that CLB has on various aspects of their life and development. Past research focussing on the emotional impact of this practice have reported that child language brokers may experience mixed feelings (Corona et al. 2012). They may perceive CLB either/both as a cause of stress and a burden and/or an experience that they find enjoyable (Hall and Guéry 2010; Parke and Buriel 1998; Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco 2001; Weisskirch 2007) and which they are proud to undertake (Love and Buriel 2007). This article presents a thematic analysis of the over 600 visual and written narratives by children and adolescents collected by means of three editions of the school contest “Traduttori in Erba” that took place in Emilia-Romagna (Italy). The results show how the affective responses of child language brokers may be shaped by age, setting and the people for whom children language broker, but are also indicative of broader feelings related to their migration experience and the dynamics of family relationships (Crafter and Iqbal 2022).

Keywords

• child language brokering
• feelings
• empathy
• awareness
• linguistic mediation