Negotiating Linguistic Boundaries: Francophone Immigrant Children’s Experiences as Language Brokers in South Africa

Abstract

This article discusses a qualitative research study investigating francophone immigrant children’s experiences as language brokers for their families in the multilingual environment of the Western Cape, South Africa. We argue that while language brokering is regarded as a convenient way of integrating immigrant families into the host country by negotiating and (re)constructing language identities through a common language, it may be either rewarding or stressful for children, who have to play adult-like roles in a foreign country. Guided by the conceptual framework on language brokering and language ideologies, we collected and analysed data from interviews with five immigrant children. Their personal narratives revealed that immigrant children use their multilingual repertoires to negotiate linguistic boundaries. Consequently, as a key finding suggests, language brokering persuasively strengthens young children’s socio-cultural and cognitive capabilities to navigate the linguistic landscape of the host country. The findings also show that language brokering enhances young children’s interpersonal and multilingual skills, enabling them to facilitate effective communication on behalf of immigrant people and families with limited proficiency in English, the dominant language of socio-economic advancement in South Africa. The necessity for language brokering becomes productive not only in their language development, but also in the integration of their families in the host country.