Translanguaging and named languages: productive tension and desire

Translingual practices at a Shanghai university

“…Pedagogically speaking, the case analyses also reveal that the uneven accessibility of Chinese and English repertoires among international students as mentioned by the student informants has resulted in uneven access to transcultural and trans‐epistemic awareness as well as relevant translingual negotiation strategies (Ou & Gu, 2018). It is hence important to develop and provide courses that aim at enhancing students’ critical awareness of the contested history of English and the historical and contemporary linguacultural practices of the local societal space (García & Lin, 2018; Turner & Lin, 2020). As an alternative, current courses on the Chinese language and/or English as an academic lingua franca (more commonly entitled as Academic English in most of the EMI programmes) need to emphasize raising students’ translingual and transcultural/trans‐epistemic awareness.…”

“…Meanwhile, recent critiques on translingual research have drawn attention to trans‐epistemic explorations in both the analysis of translingual practices and the design of translingual pedagogy, though the notion of the ‘trans‐epistemic’ has not been used (García & Lin, 2018; Kubota, 2016). Turner and Lin (2020, p. 431) argued that learning additional languages and intra‐linguistic registers is an important means to expand one's meaning‐making repertoire whereas it is equally significant to critically reflect on and critique ‘the strong interrelationship between culture and sociohistorically sedimented/codified language’. Lee (2018) also proposed that by recognizing translingual practices as inscrutable, analysts can become aware of the constraints and limitations of ‘legitimate’ epistemologies for interpreting and evaluating translingual practices and be motivated towards alternative epistemologies beyond conventional paradigms of analysis.…”

Translanguaging in L2 Arabic Study Abroad: Beyond Monolingual Practices in Institutional Talk

“…Consequently, the term translanguaging has been deployed to underscore the ways in which bilingual and multilingual practices can be used for the purpose of meaning‐making and for challenging monolingual ideologies that see languages as discrete and separate entities (e.g., García & Li Wei, ; Li Wei, ; Otheguy et al., ; Turner & Lin, ). Although the term ‘translanguaging’ is multifaceted and has been conceptualized and used by researchers and practitioners in various ways, the common theme has been the notion of linguistic repertoire, which includes “every bit of language we accumulate” throughout life (Blommaert & Backus, , p. 28).…”

“…RECENT SCHOLARSHIP IN APPLIED linguistics has challenged monolingual ideologies in second language (L2) learning contexts, and encouraged multilingual translanguaging practices that illuminate the fluidity of language boundaries to bring learners’ prior linguistic repertoires to the forefront of their interactions (see, e.g., Hawkins & Mori, ; Otheguy, García, & Reid, ; Turner & Lin, ). However, much of the research on the role of multilingual practices in L2 contexts has focused on exploring these practices between languages in the classroom (Thompson & Harrison, ).…”

‘English or Swedish please, no Dari!’ – (trans)languaging and language policing in upper secondary school’s language introduction programme in Sweden

“…What these definitions share is a main focus on the language user and on how languages are negotiated in interaction rather than language systems per se (Canagarajah 2011;García 2009). The tension between (trans)languaging and named languages and the difficulty of addressing languaging without labels have been discussed by many scholars (Gynne and Bagga-Gupta 2015;Turner and Lin 2017;Hult 2019). The present study is positioned in line with Turner and Lin who conclude that 'by virtue of the "trans", two or more […] positioned as central to translanguaging theory (2017, 9)'.…”