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Abstract
While the act of “immigration” is among the phenomena likely to have shaped the human history, our current times can also be acknowledged to stand out in the number of immigrants leaving their homelands for several purposes. It is no wonder that the immigrant families in the new lands are in need of numerous services, among which language services can be counted as paramount importance. When language provision services are inadequate in the host countries, the immigrant family is left with no choice but to depend on the one with the target language knowledge, regardless of the proficiency level of that family member in that language. Most often than not, it is the child in the family that takes on the language brokering role. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the contexts of child language brokering in the novel titled Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok with a view to the role of language brokering in immigrant-welcoming countries. The little girl called Kimberly in the novel turns out to be the language broker for her family. The analysis of her language brokering contexts reveals that Kimberly experiences communication problems due to her lack of command over English, which fall into the area of “language competency” pertaining to the relevant literature in community interpreting. Hence, Kimberly employs three techniques to make up for her poor linguistic skills as a language broker, namely paraphrasing, summarizing, and simplification. While child language brokering, as an instance of non-professional community interpreting, is concluded to prove instrumental in coping with the obstacles resulting from language and communication gaps in the host countries, the due well-being of immigrants is still proposed to be ensured through the provision of professional community interpreting.
