Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Risk and Protective Factors in Language Brokering: A Retrospective Study

Migrant children and young people often learn the host-language quicker than their parents post migration and subsequently become language brokers for their family and significant others. Language Brokering is a complex task of translating and interpreting the new language into the language of the host culture without any formal training. Language Brokering is vital for survival and acculturation. It requires high linguistic abilities and is found to be associated with language brokers’ psychological wellbeing. This study examined the protective and risk factors associated with the psychological wellbeing along with prosocial capabilities of language brokers. Whilst the study was mainly quantitative, it also consisted of a single qualitative component related to the positive and negative experience of language brokering. A total of 119 (89 females, Mage = 21.20 and 30 males, Mage = 23.67) undergraduate students at an Australian university completed an online survey consisting valid and reliable measures related to language brokering frequency and attitudes, parent-child relationships, emotional regulation, resilience, psychological wellbeing and prosocial capabilities. Poor-parent child relationships, perception of burden, low resilience and low emotional regulation were found to be significant predictors of low psychological wellbeing. Frequency of language brokering and sense of efficacy moderated by parent-child relationships were not found to predict better psychological wellbeing significantly. However, perception of efficacy moderated by good emotional regulation predicted prosocial capabilities significantly. The findings underline the importance of feelings, attitudes and perceptions; parent-child relationships, emotional regulation and resilience in the psychological wellbeing and prosocial capabilities of language brokers. The results add to the body of knowledge with implications for research, policy and service providers within the Australian context where research on language brokering is sparse.