Child language brokering in Catalonia: Profiles and experiences in migrant communities

Abstract

In many families of migrant origin, children are the first to learn the language or languages of the new country where they live and often become the link between their parents and the Public Administration or public service providers, or they act as translators when their parents need to understand written information in a language with which the latter are not familiar. This task, known as child language brokering (CLB), is an example of a complex form of multilingual communication, with all sorts of implications for the child or young person who performs it. Thisarticle offers a panoramic description of CLB in Catalonia, considering the perspectives of the main agents involved and focusing on four migrant groups: Amazigh, Moroccan Arabic, Pakistani and Chinese. We used questionnaires distributed among secondary school teachers (n = 60) and social service workers (n = 96), interviews with nineteen young adults with previous experience in CLB and with twelve parents who have used CLB, and a focus group of six current CLB teenagers in order to delve deeper into such CLB variables as gender, frequency, age, and the context in which it occurs. We also analyse how CLB influences both young people’s and their parents’ linguistic awareness as well as the emotional impact that it has on young people.