ABSTRACT
This chapter builds on prior ethnographic research investigating the ways in which bi-/multilingual youth from ‘immigrant background’ use at least two different languages to cross-linguistically mediate for their families and ethnic community members. By resorting to my own personal experience as a cross-linguistic mediator in my familial environment and in work contexts, I attempt to synthesize the research findings about how bi-/multilingual youngsters effectively harness their plurilingual repertoire, negotiate meanings and channel their sociocultural knowledge and cognitive skills to facilitate communication across language barriers and to cross-linguistically mediate for others, in a purposeful manner.
Some of the mediation actions that the bi-/multilingual youth of the aforementioned studies perform are, to a certain degree, comparable to the mediation activities described in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages Companion Volume (CEFRCV) (Council of Europe, 2020). However, essential factors such as situational context, domain of mediation performance and the power dynamics among mediation encounter participants and the communities in which they operate are seriously considered. The results offer important insights into the mediation practices of bi-/multilingual youth, who have had no prior training as mediators but use the linguistic and cultural knowledge, as well as a variety of social and cognitive skills they have developed outside school to navigate through complex social encounters and mediate for others when circumstances demand it.
The ‘lessons learned’ from the research carried out are considered useful for formal educational contexts and it is proposed that cross-linguistic mediation is included in the school curriculum, with a view to developing students’ plurilingual and pluricultural competence which is necessary for communication in multilingual spaces in school and the wider society.
