The role of translation as an accommodation technique in migration contexts

Abstract

One major source of language variation is contact. Contact linguistics investigates stable contact settings, conversely, sociolinguistic research on variation mostly focuses on monolingual speech communities (Léglise & Chamoreau, 2013). However, these approaches seem slightly limited, since they do not manage to account for the super-diversity that characterises speech communities nowadays. Language contact is also relevant in migration studies since it is through language that migrants construct their life in the new place. Migration is part of our life, institutions continuously struggle to cope with the many issues it raises, among which is the language one. Most migrants do not speak the language of the place they live in, hence, they are not able to access services or follow procedures dedicated to them. To overcome communication problems, very often English is thought to be the solution. Still, the frequent requests for help put forth by migrants disclose a problematic situation as far as the ‘variety’ of English employed. In this context, the role of translation as “a form of social practice” ( Ji & Laviosa, 2021, p. xv) comes into play and in the paper, the role of translation as an accommodation practice in specific domains will be investigated employing a corpus of interactions, and interviews to expand the scope of study which has, until recently, mainly focused on analyzing how English is used in those contexts