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Tri-generational family conversations: communication accommodation and brokering
Sik Hung Ng1, Anping He, Cynthia Loong
1City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. sikhung.ng@cityu.edu.hk
The British Journal of Social Psychology
|October 14, 2004
Summary
Middle-aged parents in Chinese immigrant families act as communication brokers to bridge generational language gaps. This brokering is most common in moderately acculturated families, facilitating intergenerational connection.
Area of Science:
- Sociolinguistics
- Family Communication Studies
- Cultural Adaptation Research
Background:
- Intergenerational communication, particularly between grandparents and grandchildren, often suffers from a lack of common ground.
- Linguistic and cultural differences pose significant barriers in immigrant families, such as Chinese immigrant families in New Zealand where grandparents may speak only Chinese and grandchildren only English.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of middle-aged parents as 'communication brokers' in facilitating intergenerational communication.
- To examine the relationship between acculturation levels and the frequency of communication brokering.
- To analyze the process and outcomes of brokered communication in a family context.
Main Methods:
- Identification and analysis of 35 instances (tokens) of communication brokering within 12 New Zealand Chinese families.
- Quantitative analysis correlating brokering frequency with family acculturation levels (low, moderate, high).
- Qualitative, turn-by-turn analysis of specific brokering interactions to understand their initiation, execution, and results.
Main Results:
- Communication brokering was found to be significantly more prevalent in families with moderate acculturation levels compared to those with high or low acculturation.
- Middle-aged parents predominantly served as the communication brokers.
- Detailed analysis revealed the mechanisms through which brokering occurs and its impact on communication flow.
Conclusions:
- The study validates the hypothesis that communication brokering is a key strategy for overcoming intergenerational communication barriers in immigrant families.
- The findings extend communication accommodation theory from dyadic (two-person) to group settings, introducing the concept of 'brokered accommodation'.
- The developed framework for brokered accommodation has implications for understanding and improving mediated communication in diverse group settings, including professional contexts like healthcare.
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