Abstract

There are numerous varieties of English spoken in Italy today, each associated with one or more of the various migrant communities living in the country. These manifestations of World Englishes reflect a wide range of lexical, syntactical, phonetic, pragmatic, interpersonal and cultural features. This paper argues that an interpreter or language mediator trained in standard English may not necessarily be able to comprehend or make him/herself understood adequately in other varieties of English. Thus, the recruitment of mediators/interpreters requires a certain amount of caution in terms of language choice. In order to investigate accommodation in the context of the use and interaction of English L2, and the challenges this poses for interpreters, we have analysed qualitatively a small corpus of language-mediated communication in English between migrants and institutional representatives. From these data a number of interesting findings emerged, the most significant of which was a high degree of context-governed accommodation strategies.