Not a First Language but One Repertoire: Translanguaging as a Decolonizing Project

Translanguaging has opened up spaces to recognize the dynamic multilingualism of students in classrooms taught in dominant languages, and problematized concepts such as ‘additive bilingualism’. This article aims to further explore two issues that remain little understood. First, translanguaging is o...

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Published in:RELC journal Vol. 53; no. 2; pp. 313 - 324
Main Authors: Wei, Li, García, Ofelia
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.08.2022
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects:
Academic language
American Indian Languages
Bilingual people
Bilingual Students
Bilingualism
Chinese
Classrooms
Code Switching (Language)
Cross Cultural Studies
Decolonization
Educational Practices
English (Second Language)
Foreign Countries
Language Attitudes
Language Dominance
Language Usage
Language Variation
Languages
Mandarin Chinese
Miscommunication
Multilingualism
Native Language
Race
Second Language Learning
Semiotics
Sino Tibetan Languages
Sociolinguistics
Spanish
Standard Spoken Usage
Student Characteristics
Students
Teacher Student Relationship
Teachers
Transcendence
Translanguaging
New York (New York)
United Kingdom (London)
decolonizing
bilingual learner
repertoire
academic language
translanguaging
ISSN:0033-6882, 1745-526X
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Translanguaging has opened up spaces to recognize the dynamic multilingualism of students in classrooms taught in dominant languages, and problematized concepts such as ‘additive bilingualism’. This article aims to further explore two issues that remain little understood. First, translanguaging is often seen as simply the acknowledgement or use of multilingual students’ ‘first language’. This article clarifies that this is a misunderstanding, for the trans- in translanguaging connotes the transcendence of named languages, the going beyond named languages as have been socially constructed. Second, in going beyond named languages, translanguaging is also intended as a decolonizing project, revealing how bilinguals inhabit a world with different knowledge bases and linguistic/cultural practices. We use two bilingual students, in London and New York City respectively, to show how they are viewed and listened to by their teachers as bilinguals with two ‘incomplete’ linguistic systems because each element in their language/semiotic repertoire is seen as a separate entity. We then weave all the elements together to provide a fuller picture of these students. In doing so, we reject raciolinguistic ideologies that have enregistered them as deficient and instead regard them through a translanguaging lens. The article emphasizes the importance of understanding translanguaging as a unitary repertoire, as well as its decolonial potential in education as teachers abandon the focus on named standardized languages and engage fully with their students’ full repertoire of features and meanings.
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ISSN:0033-6882
1745-526X
DOI:10.1177/00336882221092841