More on Language Brokering in the USA

Latest addition to the Bibliography of Natural Translation:

ORELLANA, Marjorie Faulstich (UCLA). Translating Childhoods: Immigrant Youth, Language and Culture. (Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies.) Piscataway NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008. 224 p.

“Skilled in two vernaculars, children shoulder basic and more complicated verbal exchanges for non-English speaking adults. Readers hear, through children’s own words, what it means be ‘in the middle’ or the ‘keys to communication’ that adults otherwise would lack. Drawing from ethnographic data and research in
three immigrant communities, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana’s study expands the definition of child labor by assessing children’s roles as translators as part of a cost equation in an era of global restructuring and considers how sociocultural learning and development is shaped as a result of children’s contributions as translators.” – Publisher
Descriptors: culture brokering, language brokering, adolescents, children, English, Spanish, USA

A paperback edition has appeared this year at $23.00 instead of $68.00 for the hardcover edition. Amazing what two pieces of cardboard can cost. The Table of Contents and some sample pages can be viewed at http://www.amazon.com/. I haven’t yet found out what is meant by “a cost equation in an era of global restructuring.”

Prof. Orellana is one of the leading researchers of Language Brokering. The Hispanic communities in the United States are full of it. There were already two publications by her and her colleagues in the Bibliography. At present she is on research leave from UCLA, so we may look forward to more.