Child Language Brokering in a bilingual region : how does it reflect and affect language use and attitudes?

Children and young people from migrated families often learn host languages faster than their parents might do and, therefore, from very young ages they help their parents, families or members of their community translating or interpreting, which is known as Child Language Brokering (CLB). Most studies about CLB have been developed in the USA and the UK, and have focused on aspects such as the impact of this practice on children's welfare, family dynamics or school performance, among other. The aim of this paper is to describe the linguistic reality of these language brokers and their families in the province of Barcelona, considering the official bilingualism status of Catalonia and, more specifically, to explore how CLB affects language use and attitudes. For this purpose, a mixed method is used: questionnaires have been distributed among teachers of secondary education, key agents have been interviewed (young adults who are former child language brokers, as well as parents who have used CLB) and a focus group with current language brokers (aged 14-15) has been conducted. Based on this data, we will first present the situation of CLB in Barcelona in the context of education. We will pinpoint data regarding CLB's extent and frequency, which will be compared to the frequency professional public service interpreting is resorted to. We will then analyse language use during CLB interactions (i.e., preferences towards Spanish or Catalan), as well as the impact of this practice on young people's attitudes towards their own heritage language and the two host languages (Catalan and Spanish) they are required to learn as part of the compulsory education. Finally, we will discuss how CLB is perhaps one of the few times plurilingualism is truly reflected in secondary schools, but seems to have little effect on young people's linguistic skills in the host languages