Il Fenomeno Del Child Language Brokering
The Child Language Brokering Phenomenon

Summary/Abstract: Millions of people leave their countries of origin every year, because of economic, political and social factors in order to find better living conditions for themselves and their families in another country. In Italy the migratory flows are constantly growing, the need to increase the presence of linguistic mediators in public services such as schools, courts, hospitals is not met. This is why immigrants and foreigners are increasingly resorting to non-professional mediators. When they have to access various social services for various needs, they are often forced to end up using a person from their own language community who fluently speaks the language of the host country, and usually the people who speak more fluently are children and teenagers. Translation between parents and children gives rise to a phenomenon called Child Language Brokering which is described as the activity of linguistic and cultural mediation by children and adolescents within families or immigrant communities. In this article the CLB will be analyzed, starting from a general vision that focuses on the early studies and the consequences, both social and emotional, on children-linguistic mediators. The Italian context will be deepened, based on testimonies originating from a personal professional activity of linguistic and cultural mediator of Russian and Romanian languages. The CLB is a particular facet of mediation by non-professionals and has conflicting opinions. The aim of this research is to be able to provide a general picture which in first instance could explain what is this so little known phenomenon and then help to adopt a position towards it. "Is CLB beneficial or non beneficial for child language brokers?" is the question synthesizing this research.

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