Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The Benefits of Being a Language Broker

The immigrant population in the U.S. continues to grow, from 11.1% in 2000 to 12.9% in 2010, accounting for a population growth of 8.9 million people in the most recent census. This rise in foreign-born citizens implies an increase in the number of childhood language brokers because the brokering practice is inherent in immigrant culture. While the body of research on bilingual individuals is vast, there has been very little attention given to this subgroup of the bilingual population, language brokers, who translate frequently for their non-English speaking family members and friends. This topic is a fairly new area of study, as much research had not emerged until the mid-1990s. Language brokering is understood as an extension of bilingualism. While bilingualism is concentrated around the ability to understand and speak two different languages, language brokering refers to the ability to translate and interpret materials or conversations.
Much of the past research on bilingual individuals has examined the differences in executive function between monolinguals and bilinguals. Executive function (EF) refers to higher order cognitive skills that are comprised of a network of processes that work distinctly yet concurrently to facilitate individuals shifting between tasks or cognitive sets, inhibiting dominant responses, and manipulating as well as updating information in working memory. It has been hypothesized that bilinguals have an advantage in EF over monolinguals because they are constantly employing the executive control system in order to monitor two languages and maintain attention to the target language. The EF advantage has not, however, been investigated in language brokers.
A study by graduate student Valerie Flores seeks to explore how language brokering practices relate to EF using electroencephalography (EEG) methods in order to investigate the time course of EF processes. There are three primary brainwave components implicated in inhibition and shifting: N200, P300, and N450. These waveforms take place at approximately 200, 300, and 450 milliseconds after a stimulus is presented, and the N or P preceding each event-related potential (ERP) component denotes whether they are negative- or positive- going brainwaves. The N200 reflects conflict monitoring, in which the brain is detecting whether conflicting information is present that may require inhibition. The P300 is typically elicited in tasks that require stimulus discrimination or that entail inhibiting an automatic, pre-learned response. The N450 is thought to reflect shifting cognitive sets, in which an individual must select the correct response when competing responses are concurrently active.
Participants in the study were categorized as either active language brokers or non-brokers based on a survey where they were asked to report their brokering experiences. Following this, participants were invited into the lab to complete a series of computerized cognitive tasks while their brainwaves were recorded using electroencephalography (EEG) methods. One of the tasks that participants were asked to complete was the Color-Word Stroop task, which is used as a measure of two executive functions – inhibition and shifting. In this task, participants are asked to name the ink color of a color word, such as YELLOW. They perform congruent blocks, incongruent blocks, and mixed blocks (i.e., congruent and incongruent trials in same block). In the congruent trials, the ink color and the word are the same. In the incongruent trials, the ink color and the word are different. It is at this point that inhibition becomes necessary because participants must inhibit the automatic response to read the word and focus instead on the ink color. When a box is presented around the word, the rules are reversed, thus measuring the participant’s ability to shift cognitive sets.
While the study is ongoing, preliminary results have shown significant differences between the active language brokers and non-broker in the N200 component, where participants were detecting conflicting information that is present. The brokers had steeper amplitudes, initially recruiting more attentional resources. However, when it came to detecting conflict, language brokers required less effort to switch between more automatic processes (i.e., word reading) and inhibitory processes (i.e., identifying ink colors). Therefore, it can be inferred that language brokers may have developed a more automatic “switch” mechanism to monitor conflicting information more effectively.
Another benefit that has been found to being a language broker is in acculturation. A study conducted by Weisskirch et al. sought to explore the differences between active language brokers and non-brokers in terms of acculturation, ethnic socialization, and ethnic identity. Participants were recruited from 14 universities around the U.S., and completed surveys assessing their language brokering experiences, as well as their levels of acculturation, acculturative stress, ethnic socialization and identity, and cultural values.
The study reported significant differences between the active language brokers and non-brokers in cultural heritage values, ethnic identity, and levels of acculturation, with active language brokers scoring higher. Active language brokers reported a greater preservation of their heritage culture compared to non-brokers. Furthermore, the practice was found to be a contributor to the acculturation process. Individuals who broker are forced to not only learn the language more quickly but also the cultural contexts that are present in everyday social exchanges. Therefore, they have more exposure to the American culture and are able to acculturate more quickly. While there is still much research to be done with this population, there seem to be great benefits to serving as a language broker.


Weisskirch, R. S., Kim, S. Y., Zamboanga, B. L., Schwartz, S. J., Bersamin, M., & UmaƱa-Taylor, A. J. (2011). Cultural influences for college student language brokers. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17 (1), 43-51. doi: 10.1037/a0021665

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