期刊名称：MediAzioni : Rivista Online di Studi Interdisciplinari su Lingue e Culture
电子版ISSN：1974-4382
出版年度：2010
期号：10
出版社：Università di Bologna sede di Forlì
摘要：It is well known that many migrants to a new country are assisted by their children who have learned the language of the new country, in situations that require interpreting (verbal communication) and translating (written work). The literature on this phenomenon defines what children do as “language brokering”, an activity in which the child mediates between a parent and different language speakers or writers, converting meanings in one language into meanings in another (Hall and Sham 1998). “Such activity is not simply a neutral, formal, linguistic, dictionary exercise in the ability to translate one set of words into another” (ibid.: 3), but also fits definitions of intercultural transactions, because translating involves finding alternatives to multiple sources of linguistic and cultural knowledge in order to create meaning, negotiate a task, or solve a problem (Hall and Robinson 1999: 3). The term “language brokering” was originally coined by anthropologists, to describe the activities of individuals who connect local and national worlds as “cultural brokering”. These anthropologists suggest that the “broker” makes more independent decisions in negotiating and initiating action (Paine 1971, cited in Hall 2007). Thus, it is believed that when immigrant children interpret and translate, they are “not simply constructing the world for themselves, but are acting as brokers who are playing principal roles in constructing versions of the new world forother family members” (Hall and Robinson 1999: 4). Orellana, for example, in her study of Latino children in the United States, views the activity children do in language brokering situations as “para-phrasing”. According to Orellana, children “’phrase’ things for others […] ‘sum things up’, and ‘put things in their own words’ – in other words [they] paraphrase” (2003: 15) in order to accomplish the social goals required. Moreover, as Orellana (2009: 21) and Hall (2004) cogently show, as translators children become actors and agents by making things happen for themselves and for their families. For example, they forge connections and open up lines of communication, they make it possible for adults to do things that they could not have otherwise accomplished, and their actions also release space and time for others in less direct ways (for example when a child helps a younger sibling to read thus providing the free time for his/her mother to do housework).
