Recipiency and peripheral participation in language brokering

Abstract

In a multilingual situation where some participants do not speak or understand one of the used languages, the participants need to balance between the language choice and the restrictions it creates for opportunities to participate. In this conversation analytic study, I examine how participants manage differentiated possibilities of participation in asymmetrically multilingual interactions in instances of language brokering and to what extent does brokering draw the recipient into the conversation. The paper concludes, first, that participants’ embodied displays of recipiency toward a main speaker, whose talk they cannot (fully) understand, as well as embodied displays of disengagement from the conversation, can serve to “recruit” linguistic assistance from others. Second, the broker’s orientations to the recipient’s participation status are reflected in the content of the brokering turns. The study thereby demonstrates how participants multimodally negotiate forms of peripheral participation and their accountability. The study argues that, although language brokering is done only occasionally and includes great variation in terms of how prior talk is translated, these practices are not random but result from a systematic interactional organization of action and participation.