WP286 “We explain”: Interaction and becoming a family in migration

This paper uses the lens of language brokering to explore parent-child interaction as a migrant family re-grounds itself in the new linguistic and social context. Whereas brokering is often seen as children’s translating, this ethnographic study shows that children contribute with explaining, rather than only translating. These explaining activities introduce occasions for children and their parents to re/define their own role relations, and for parents to display their family ideologies while communicating the quality of family relations to self and relevant others, conveying that this family works and is putting down roots.