LINGUISTIC MEDIATION

WHAT IS LINGUISTIC MEDIATION?

Mediation is a fundamental part of everyday life in a multicultural and plurilingual
world. The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) states that linguistic
mediation activities play an important role in our societies.

Linguistic mediation can be defined as the indirect conveyance or communication

through an intermediary. The CEFR (2002: 87-88) defines mediation as a process where
“the language user is not concerned about expressing their own meanings, but simply
to act as an intermediary between interlocutors who are unable to understand each
other directly – normally, but not exclusively, speakers of different languages.” In the
LOMLOE, mediation competency is defined as the ability to explain short and simple
texts, concepts and messages in situations of linguistic, social and cultural diversity,
whilst showing respect and empathy for the interlocutors and for the languages used.

Linguistic mediation means bridging gaps in communication, creating meaning and

facilitating communication beyond linguistic and cultural barriers. The learner acts as a
social agent who creates bridges and helps another speaker to construct meaning. The
most obvious example of such a gap is when two speakers who do not know each
other’s language require one of them to mediate their message. The CEFR pays
particular attention to this cross-linguistic mediation – but in informal settings, as is
most likely to happen in real life, rather than the formal job of a translator or
interpreter.
In the English classroom, mediation implies that a student has to reformulate a certain
discourse to overcome a breakdown in communication or a lack of language proficiency
as there is another person who has a communication need that has to be tackled. This
implies that there is an input – a written, oral or multimedia text – that needs to be
reformulated, paraphrased or summarised, so that the other person can understand it.
English, in this context, is used as a tool to build bridges. In mediation activities, the
context plays a very important role as it is the mediator who needs to adapt to this
communicative situation.

Mediation can involve:

 Mediating a text – helping someone understand a text (written, spoken, a
video, an infographic, etc.) that they don’t have access to because of ‘linguistic,
cultural, semantic or technical barriers’
 Mediating concepts – ‘facilitating access to knowledge and concepts for others’
– we teachers do this every day!
 Mediating communication – facilitating successful communication where there
may be misunderstandings or disagreements
In conclusion, linguistic mediation is a type of interaction that takes place among
people that are unable to communicate, when speakers do not speak the same
language, or when speakers do speak the same language, but one of them has wider or
more specific knowledge of some concepts or of the common language.

WHY IS MEDIATION IMPORTANT IN THE ENGLISH CLASSROOM?

Mediation plays a crucial role in successful plurilingual and multicultural encounters. It is a
strategic process which requires agency at every stage and it develops linguistic and
cultural awareness. The ultimate aim of mediation practice is to make students aware
of the natural use of the language in both their mother tongue and English, to identify
language transfer and so, be able to prevent and overcome the fossilisation of mistakes
that it causes.
Some may argue that mediation can be a very artificial activity when the contexts created
are very detailed, and students are asked to play roles which are different from the ones
they have in real life. However, if it weren’t for dramatisation and simulation in the
classroom, functional language wouldn’t be practised meaningfully, like it is in real-life
situations.

HOW IS MEDIATION DIFFERENT FROM INTERACTION?

Sometimes, mediation is confused with interaction as in mediation there are usually
two speakers involved. However, in order for an activity to be considered a mediation
activity, speakers must have a different level of linguistic competency, or they must not
share the same cultural background or framework of knowledge. To sum up:

 The mediator is an intermediary between the oral or written input, and another
person that does not understand that input.
 The mediator has to consider the other’s person’s needs and not their own.
 The mediator adapts input into another language, another form (from image to
text, from video to text, etc.) or perhaps for another culture.
In interaction, speakers do not have to follow these conditions. In interaction, meaning
is shared and help is not needed as both speakers understand the information provided
because they share language and/or culture.
An example of an interactive activity can be when one person tells another how to
draw something as we do when we play Pictionary or when a person explains to
another person how to play a game. This is an interactive activity because help is not
needed: both speakers have a similar language knowledge, and there is no intercultural
misunderstanding because both speakers share the same background.

TYPES OF MEDIATION
Mediation tasks can be:

 monolingual (intralinguistic mediation): carried out within the same language,

for example English to English
 bilingual (cross-linguistic or interlinguistic mediation): carried out between two
different languages, for example Spanish to English.
Mediation can be oral or written depending on how the mediator transmits the
information. In both cases, there is a text (an infographic, a text, an ad, a video, a
listening, etc.) that has to be summarised, simplified, expanded or explained. The
mediator has to stick to the text without copying or translating. They don’t give their
opinion or refer to their previous knowledge, so no information is added.

STRATEGIES
When mediating a text, the mediator can use different strategies that need to be
practised in class. Some of them are:

 Identifying key information

 Simplifying a dense text
 Streamlining a text
 Breaking down complicated information
 Adapting language

Mediation tasks can help our students to widen their communicative strategies and to
foster essential competencies that they need to be able to live in a multicultural and
plurilingual 21st century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages