Audiovisual Translation: A Reception Study on Bilingual Child Language Brokers’ Linguistic and Cultural Competences.

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical pilot study conducted from July through September 2019 at César Chávez Elementary School, a public, bilingual English/Spanish primary school in the city of San Francisco (California, USA). The research was based on the hypothesis that children enrolled in such bilingual educational programs are exposed to linguistic and cultural content in English and Spanish and will therefore differentiate the contents of the bilingual audiovisual products they consume both linguistically and culturally. The aim was to assess the possible impact of audiovisual translation as a didactic tool on the acquisition of linguistic and cultural competences by bilingual child language brokers. For this purpose, we developed a qualitative and quantitative research method built upon a set of interviews and experimental tests, respectively, which may be applicable to the study of similar situations in other educational systems. The results obtained after data collection and analysis will allow us to test the initial hypothesis and draw relevant conclusions on the role that audiovisual products, original and translated, can play in the development of linguistic and cultural competences of bilingual child language brokers.