Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Commons^™

Youth-Sized Lab Coats: When Children Become Doctors Through Adolescent Healthcare Brokering, Lindsey Russell

Social Sciences

Child language brokering refers to the practice of children acting as linguistic and cultural mediators in general settings like school, stores, banks and other personal uses. The primary focus of this paper is “adolescent healthcare brokering,” a term coined in 2016 by researchers Jennifer R. Banas, James W. Ball, Lisa C. Wallis and Sarah Gershon, to refer to the use of children as interpreters for family and community members, specifically in the healthcare setting; these cross-lingual communications may occur during regular physician appointments, trips to the emergency department or at specialized visits in fields such as obstetrics or oncology.

This …