The concept of translanguaging is clarified, establishing it as a particular conception of the mental grammars and linguistic practices of bilinguals. Translanguaging is different from code switching. Under translanguaging, the mental grammars of bilinguals are structured but unitary collections of features, and the practices of bilinguals are acts of feature selection, not of grammar switch. A proper understanding of translanguaging requires a return to the well known but often forgotten idea that named languages are social, not linguistic, objects. Whereas the idiolect of a particular individual is a linguistic object defined in terms of lexical and structural features, the named language of a nation or social group is not; its boundaries and membership cannot be established on the basis of lexical and structural features. The two named languages of the bilingual exist only in the outsider’s view. From the insider’s perspective of the speaker, there is only his or her full idiolect or repertoire, which belongs only to the speaker, not to any named language. Translanguaging is the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually national and state) languages. In schools, the translanguaging of bilinguals tends to be severely restricted. In addition, schools confuse the assessment of general linguistic proficiency, which is best manifested in bilinguals while translanguaging, with the testing of proficiency in a named language, which insists on inhibiting translanguaging. The concept of translanguaging is of special relevance to schools interested in the linguistic and intellectual growth of bilingual students as well as to minoritized communities involved in language maintenance and revitalization efforts.

Two conceptions of the linguistic system of bilinguals are in contention. The translanguaging approach supports what we call a unitary view, arguing that bilingualism and multilingualism, despite their importance as sociocultural concepts, have no correspondence in a dual or multiple linguistic system. In our view, the myriad lexical and structural features mastered by bilinguals occupy a cognitive terrain that is not fenced off into anything like the two areas suggested by the two socially named languages. But a strong critique of this view by Jeff MacSwan adopts the familiar position that, while allowing for some overlap, the competence of bilinguals involves language specific internal differentiation. According to this view, which we have called the dual correspondence theory, bilinguals possess two separate linguistic systems whose boundaries coincide with those of the two named languages. Several interdisciplinary considerations point to the lack of initial plausibility of the dual correspondence theory. And the main argument offered by MacSwan in defense of the theory, namely restrictions on code switching, lacks descriptive adequacy and theoretical coherence. The dual correspondence theory has had pernicious effects in educational practices. A much healthier educational climate is created by teachers who adopt the unitary view sponsored by translanguaging.

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This paper argues that William Diver’s signal-meaning pair is Saussure’s signe linguistique in all basic respects, and that Diver’s innovation of a grammatical system is the functional equivalent of Saussure’s langue. Thus Columbia School linguistics rests squarely on a Saussurean foundation. In the course of making this case, this paper proposes a resolution of the apparent contradiction between Saussure’s definition of the linguistic sign in terms of substance – the union of concept and acoustic image – and his dictum that “la langue is a form not a substance”.