Language Brokering by Chinese Children

Language brokering by Chinese children

Nigel Hall and Sylvia Sham

Paper presented at Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, Dublin, August. 1998

Introduction

In recent years there has been a substantial shift in the way children and the nature of childhood are perceived. The recognition that childhood is a social construct has in the last twenty years led to a huge amount of study and publication on numerous aspects of the nature of childhood, accounts which qualify as ‘reconstructing childhood’ (James and Prout, 1990) Indeed the energy with which researchers have been uncovering these new childhoods might appear to represent a challenge to the claim that childhood is, anymore, invisible (Morrow, 1997; Books, 1998). Nevertheless, one area of childhood which has recently been explored as a relatively invisible phenomenon in the West is that of child work.

Qvortrup (1994) suggests that “children are often marginalised from our system of remuneration and distribution in the sense that their activities are often not thought of as having economic worth” (p21). Solberg (1994) has argued that children’s work is often relatively invisible to adults and in her study uncovered a wide range of ‘housework behaviours’ that could certainly be counted as having economic worth, and Morrow (1997) under the heading ‘Invisible children’ identified a range of types of work carried out by children which were on the whole unrecognised as such by both research and social agencies. It appears that children, popularly seen an an economic liability within a family (hence all those newspaper articles which count the cost of children), may actually in many households be making a significant contribution to the economy of the family.

Perhaps one of the most ‘unseen’ aspects of children’s work involves the role of some children as language brokers for families in which one or both the parents do not speak the main language of the country of residence. What is meant by my use of the term language brokering? In this paper the term is used to mean the activity in an event in which a child mediates between two different language speakers or writers/readers, and in which the child is actively involved converting meanings in one language into meanings in another. Such an activity is not simply a neutral, formal, linguistic, dictionary exercise in the ability to translate one set of words into another. The child is inevitably involved in cultural meanings as well as linguistic ones, hence the use of the term brokering my some authors (Gentemann, 1983; Shannon, 1990, and McQuillan and Tse, 1995).

The significance of language brokering.

Given the potential of the topic to raise significant issues, it is very surprising that it appears to have been almost totally ignored by the research community. Despite there being a large literature on bilingualism, and despite the phenomenon of child translators being readily acknowledged by people working in various fields, with a few exceptions the topic appears only peripherally in the research literature. When it does merit a mention it is usually in the context of a wider study, for instance into children’s participation in Chinese take-away businesses (Song, 1996), learning to read culturally (Schieffelin and Cochran-Smith (1984), literacy development (Zanger, 1994) and literacy in second-language families (Weinstein-Shr, 1994).

Only three studies have given the phenomenon a more central focus. Shannon, reported in Shannon (1990) and Vasquez, Pease-Alvarez and Shannon (1994) examines in great detail one child’s brokering activity is examined in great detail, largely within what seems to be the only published transcription of an actual translation event. Kaur and Mills (1993) document interviews with fifty-two people: twenty-four pupils from primary and secondary schools, seventeen parents and eleven teachers. All the children and parents were from Punjabi families in the UK. McQuillan and Tse (1995) interviewed nine adults, from five different language communities, who as children translated for parents and others.

In this paper we set out to look at three aspects of language brokering, paying particular attention to Chinese adolescents. The function of this paper is not to present a research report but to explore a range of issues and questions associated with the child as language broker and which would merit further study. The examples we use to illustrate these points are drawn from interviews carried out as part of a Ph.D study by one of the authors of this paper (Sham, 1997) and some subsequent interviews by her with Chinese adolescents. This work involved Cantonese-speaking, Chinese families living in the North-West of England. All were involved in the take-away restaurant trade. All her interviews were conducted in Cantonese.

Three issues relating to child language brokering

1Roles and positions

Having a child involved so centrally in mediating a family’s functioning has considerable implications for how all family members see their roles and positions within the family. One of the children interviewed by Sham suggested that his parents did not fully trust him,

They think I do not translate everything that I am supposed to. It is often difficult to translate a sentence while you are trying to absorb what the speaker wants to say or explain.

A level of dependency may well induce a degree of suspicion, and to some extent it may be justified. Another child gave an illustration:

Let me tell you one instance. My mum wanted me to help her translate her letter to one of my sister’s teachers. The letter concerned my sister’s homework. She asked the teacher why my sister did not seem to have any homework to do at home. I just changed the content of the letter and pretended to translate exactly what my mum wanted.

However, the children interviewed by Sham, while acknowledging that they did not always translate accurately what was being said, offered some considerable justification for their actions.

Sometimes I did it on purpose to misinterpret for my parents benefit. For example, when the fire inspector came to our take-away shop, I just translated it totally differently to my parents because it would stop them worrying about it, and then I told the fire inspector what I thought the appropriate answers were to avoid my parents getting into trouble. You just get used to that situation.

Yes, you know... I cannot consult my parents all the time. The situation does not allow you to do it. I know what my parents want anyway. I took some decisions on behalf of them and they did not even know. I have trained how to deal with that kind of situation since I was seven so I have the confidence to make decisions.

The second quote was from a twelve-year-old girl.

It is not only oral language which gets amended:

For example, on some occasions my dad wrote the notes to my teachers explaining why I could not attend some of the school activities after school. Because I work in the chippy I did not want my teachers to know that. So I just replied that I did did not find it interesting or useful to do it.

The above quotes reveal the considerable degree of sensitivity which the children were bringing to their role as a broker.

The position of the child who is a translator is potentially one of considerable power but the ambiguity of having this power and yet being a child within the family can create tensions in respect of the social-age/chronological-age expectations built into the different roles. Solberg (1990) uses the interesting notion of children growing or shrinking in age as negotiations take place within families about roles and rights. The children interviewed by Sham certainly seemed to have a sense of this:

Sometimes I am in control because I can make a decision on behalf of my parents or a person I help as an interpreter. They all depend on me. I feel great. My parents are so proud of me. They think I am their good boy and they can depend on me when they grow older.

My parents and my family are so dependent upon me. I feel I am so important. I am so used to making decisions on behalf of my sisters and my parents but I don’t feel great about it. I feel it is too much sometimes.

Clearly the role of language broker can have a powerful impact upon a child’s self-concept, but as will be seen later, it can also cause problems.

2The need for world knowledge.

Children growing up in mainstream language families usually serve a long apprenticeship in acquiring knowledge of complex events in the world, and may not actually have to deal with them until much later in life. They have parents who can guide and support them when they do. Children who translate experience relative isolation. As one Punjabi mother interviewed by Kaur and Mills (1993. p116) acknowledged, “In the Punjab, parents don’t need to involve their children in decisions until they are much older. In England it is necessary to involve the children even when they are young, because there are some things the parents don’t know about.”

As translating activities usually extend beyond schooling, the translating child has to develop knowledge about ways of cultural exchange from sources other than family members, and does so under conditions that are likely to be very different from children in competent English speaking families. Outside of schooling, Chinese children may not have too many opportunities to develop this wider knowledge of the world, yet they have to do so very, very quickly. Typically the children return from school to take part in food preparation prior to the shop opening, and contribute on the sales side once the shop has opened (Song, 1996 and Sham 1997). Such children often do not get to bed before midnight. Sunday might be the only day’s relief from such work, but the probability is that Sunday would be spent in the social activity with other Chinese families. So what kinds of knowledge do these children need to function effectively as language brokers?

When asked about when they translated, Sham’s children responded with :

Meetings at parents’ evenings, the health and safety inspector, insurance men, the doctors and nurses, the bank manager, the Post Office where we pay bills, customers and officials. I telephone my sisters’ school when they were ill.

Meeting an accountant, parents’ evenings, VAT persons, doctors, nurses, serving customers, meeting people from the gas and electricity boards, banks, insurance men, even to go shopping and everyday social occasions.

The problem is that while children take such responsibilities there is always the possibility that inexperienced language brokers might make mistakes, and sometimes quite serious ones. We have no evidence of Chinese children making such errors (although they might not have told Sham if they had) but other studies show that it can happen. Wagner, (1993) while studying literacy in multi-language Morocco, recounts how one Mr Boularbi asked his teenage son, Mhamid, to translate some instructions for a medicine. The young Mhamid makes a serious, potentially injurious error in translation. “We wonder what happens when we (the observers) are not around to make the necessary correction.” (p187/8)

Similarly, Shannon, in Vasquez, Pease-Alvarez, and Shannon (1994), reveals the dangers of child translation in an actual translation event. A Mexicano mother visited her chiropractor, taking with her eleven- year-old daughter to translate. However, Shannon comments, “The most serious miscommunication in this segment , however, occurred when Leti incorrectly translated the word matriz (uterus) as ‘stomach.’ Not knowing the meaning of matriz, or not knowing how to say it in English, Leti used an alternative strategy. Because her mother had just used the word ‘stomach,’ Leti used it.” (p104).

Such a dilemma is understood by the Chinese children. One told Sham when asked about problems:

Meetings with doctors in hospital because my mum had a woman’s problem. It was difficult in terms of medical terms to translate into Chinese medical term which I could make my mum understand. I always felt it was a big responsibility for me. She was very worried about what was wrong and if she needed to have an operation.

Most of the children interviewed by Sham had hard experience of the limitations of their knowledge.

...the inspectors from the health and safety department and the fire station came to our chippy. I am an interpreter for my dad and inspectors. It is all about regulations and guidelines which are so confusing. I could not understand it. It seems to be so complicated. If I interpreted wrongly my parents would get trouble from it... they will be fined or in serious trouble and they can close our business.

The range of situations in which language brokers are used is extensive, and the demands can be considerable. Precisely how these children develop the skills is a subject which needs considerably more investigation, and their precise competence is unknown because of the absence of documentation of actual brokering events, something which, for many reasons, would be very difficult to gather. The event analysed by Shannon in Vasquez, Pease-Alvarez, and Shannon (1994) was secretly recorded by the mother, an activity to which many ethical objections could be raised.

3Language brokering as a burden

It follows from what has been said above that there is considerable potential for language brokering experiences to be highly stressful. What is clear from many of the comments recorded by Sham is that dealing with these external agencies, having to take responsibility, and not experiencing a long-term apprenticeship in handling complex events, does pose immense burdens for some children. Most of Sham’s interviewees recounted experiences which were very stressful:

One afternoon, a big tall man came to out take-away shop and showed his identity card and said that he came from the Health and Safety Environment Department to do the inspection. My dad and mum could not understand what he was going on about because they could not speak English. The man talked to me instead of my dad. He asked me to interpret between them. I was shaking with fright. My dad told me, “Don’t answer his questions because we can lose our shop and business.” Every time it’s something like this. I could not sleep for nearly a week for worrying about what the report would be.

Another reported:

I grow up with fear, worry and uncertainty. Every time when I need to help our parents to translate letters or do interpreting I get all stressed up and worry if I have done the correct translation or interpretation.

Another commented:

I remember that it was not long ago, I went to the bank with my parents. They tried to explain to a counter assistant. He turned to me asking me what my mum and dad wanted to say in front off all the customers in the bank. I just felt so embarrassed because people in our queue were getting angry with us. It took so long to sort things out. At first I tried to understand what were my dad’s problems and then to explain them to the counter assistant. He tried to make me understand that there was no mistake in my dad’s bank statement, so in a situation like that, it was so confusing and I felt I needed to give up explaining between them both. I wish I could walk away from it.

Such stress and responsibility puts strain on family relationships, and can cause great resentment on the part of children. One child told Sham,

The whole thing...being an interpreter for my parents...my family. I feel it is too much sometimes. I often ask myself why my mum and dad came to England? Why am I their No. 1 daughter? I need to deal with everything from the simple matters to complicated matters. I feel I am like a translating machine. It is not fun at all. I have my school work to do too, and helping in my parents chippy after school.

While Kaur and Mills (1993) and McQuillan and Tse (1995) document comments relating to the burden of language brokering, there are very few comments which approach the intensity of feeling of the adolescents interviewed by Sham. All of them commented quite negatively on the experience, while recognising that there was no escape from it, and that duty demanded that they continue doing it.

Discussion

Only three aspects of the issues raised by children as language brokers have been dealt with in this paper, but it is worth asking two questions in relation to these.

1 To what extent are these Chinese children’s experiences similar to or different from those experiences reported in other studies?

On some levels this is relatively easy to answer but in other quite difficult. This is mainly due to the undifferentiated nature of the data in two of the studies. Nevertheless, there does seem to be some some substantial similarities between these reports and our data, and the brief reports that exist in other papers. The types of activities for which brokering is necessary are often similar. This not really surprising as families in such circumstances have to interact with the general range of national and local social, administrative, political and legal institutions. Brokering does seem to put many children under some stress, sometimes considerable stress, and while this does not normally appear to cause brokering to fail, it can do so sometimes.