Translanguaging And Epistemological Decentring In Higher Education And Research

Using data from multilingual settings in universities and adjacent learning contexts in East Asia, North Africa, Central and North America and Europe, this book provides examples of the heuristic value of translanguaging and epistemological decentring. Despite this and other theoretical and empirical work, and ever stronger calls for the inclusion of other languages, epistemologies and constructions of culture in higher education, decentring and translanguaging practices are often relegated to the margins or suppressed in research and education because of the organisational structures of education institutions and prevailing language norms, policies and ideologies. The authors draw on research on pluri- and multilingualism within education studies, as well as post- and decolonial theoretical contributions to the research on the role of language in education and knowledge production, to provide evidence that decentring cannot happen until learners have been given the tools to identify which sorts of centring dynamics and conditions are salient to their learning and (trans)languaging.

This volume of Theory and Method in Higher Education Research explores theories such as student development theory, critical race theory applied to international students, critical language theory and linguistic approaches to higher education research.

This book examines translanguaging in higher education and provides clear examples of what translanguaging looks like in practice in particular contexts around the world. While higher education has historically been seen as a monolingual space, the case studies from the international contexts included in this collection show us that institutions of higher education are often translingual spaces that reflect the multilingual environments in which they exist. Chapters demonstrate how the use of translanguaging practices within the context of global higher education, where English plays an increasingly important role, allows students and professors to build on their linguistic repertoires to more efficiently and effectively learn content. The documentation of such practices within the context of higher education will further legitimatize translanguaging practices and may lead to their increased use not only in higher education but also in both primary and secondary schools.

This Element presents and critically discusses video-mediated communication by combining theories and empirical methods of multimodal studies and translanguaging. Since Covid-19 gained momentum, video-based interactions have become more and more ingrained in private and public lives and to the point of being fully incorporated in a wide range of community practices in personal, work and educational environments. The meaning making of video communication results from the complex, situationally based and culturally influenced and interlaced components of different semiotic resources and practices. These include the use of speech, writing, translingual practices, gaze behaviour, proxemics and kinesics patterns, as well as forms of embodied interaction. The Element aims at unpacking these resources and at interpreting how they make meanings to improve and encourage active and responsible participation in the current digital scenarios.

In light of increasing globalization, this collection makes the case for global citizenship education as a way forward for transforming foreign language learning and teaching to better address current and future global challenges in times of unprecedented change. The volume maps a multi-dimensional approach within foreign language pedagogy to take up the challenge of "educating the global citizen". Drawing on sociocultural, pedagogical, cosmopolitan, digital and civic-minded perspectives, the book explores the challenges in constructing epistemological frameworks in increasingly global environments, the need for developing context-sensitive educational practices, the potential of linking up with work from related disciplines, and the impact of these considerations on different educational settings. The collection reflects an international range of voices, attuned to global and local nuances, to offer a holistic compilation of conceptual innovations to showcase the relevance of global citizenship issues in foreign language education and encourage future research. This book will be of interest to scholars in intercultural education, foreign language education, and language teaching, as well as policymakers and foreign language teachers. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

This edited collection explores the immense potential of translanguaging in educational settings and highlights teachers and students negotiating language ideologies in their everyday communicative practices. It makes a significant contribution to scholarship on translanguaging and considers the need for pedagogy to reflect and embrace diversity. The chapters provide rich empirical research and document translanguaging in varied educational contexts, with studies from pre-school to adult education in different, mainly European, countries, where English is not the dominant language. Together they expand our understanding of translanguaging and how it can be applied to a variety of settings. This book will be of interest to students and researchers, especially in education, language education and applied linguistics, as well as to professionals and policymakers.

This book examines translanguaging as a resource which can disrupt the privileging of particular voices, and a social practice which enables collaboration within and across groups of people. Addressing the themes of collaboration and transformation, the chapters critically examine how people work together to catalyse change in diverse global contexts, experiences and traditions. The authors suggest an epistemological and methodological turn to the study of translanguaging, which is particularly reflected in the collaborative, arts-based and action research/activist approaches followed in the chapters. The book will be of particular interest to scholars using ethnographic, critical and collaborative action and activist research approaches to the study of multilingualism in educational and creative arts contexts.

This book brings together a broad, interdisciplinary group of leading scholars to critically assess a recent proposal within translanguaging theory called deconstructivism: the view that discrete or ‘named’ languages do not exist. Contributors explore important topics in relation to the deconstructivist turn in translanguaging, including epistemology, language ideology, bilingual linguistic competence, codeswitching, bilingual first language acquisition, the neurolinguistics of bilingualism, the significance of language naming to Indigenous language reclamation efforts, implications for bilingual education and language rights, and the effects of translanguaging on immersion programs for endangered languages. Contributing authors converge on support for a multilingual perspective on translanguaging which affirms the pedagogical and conceptual aims of translanguaging but rejects deconstructivism. The book makes a valuable contribution to the development of translanguaging theory and will be required reading for scholars and students interested in one of the most vibrant and vital debates in contemporary applied linguistics.

This edited volume explores diverse translanguaging practices in multilingual science classrooms in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Luxembourg, South Africa, Sweden and the United States. It presents novel opportunities for using students’ home, first or minority languages as meaning-making tools in science education. It also invites to explore the use of language resources and other multimodal resources, such as gestures and body language. In addition, it discusses and problematizes contingent hindrances and obstacles that may arise from these practices within various contexts around the world. This includes reviewing different theoretical starting points that may be challenged by such an approach. These issues are explored from different perspectives and methodological focus, as well as in several educational contexts, including primary, middle, secondary levels, higher education, as well as in after-school programs for refugee teenagers. Within these contexts, the book highlights and shares a range of educational tools and activities in science education, such as teacher-led classroom-talk, language-focused teaching, teachers’ use of meta-language, teachers’ scaffolding strategies, small-group interactions, and computer-supported collaborative learning.

This volume provides six distinct frameworks for integrating translanguaging and multimodality as pedagogical possibilities in today’s classrooms and beyond. It brings the two constructs together in investigating the language and literacy experiences of multilingual learners across a range of sociocultural and educational contexts. The book features contributions from scholars across the Global North and Global South who embrace the importance of validating scholarly experiences from the Global South as a way to transcend geographical boundaries in creating more equitable knowledge spaces. The contributing authors share their innovative theoretical and methodological orientations to translanguaging and multimodality, informed by their considerable expertise as scholars and educators. They address conceptual questions such as issues related to cultural flow, civic and professional identities, entanglement, materiality, “first-order languaging,” and raciolinguistic ideologies. Each chapter deals with these questions through integrated and innovative analyses of empirical evidence in: Chinese word instruction, teacher professional development, multimodal composition, online language tutoring, and online teaching videos in Global South societies or transnational interactions. Together, the chapters push against normative theoretical and applied boundaries to help us envision new dynamic intersections of translanguaging and multimodality for today's classrooms and societies. Provocative and disruptive, this book explores the possibilities of mixing and remixing definitions, epistemological standpoints, and methodological options and shows the continuing growth found in translanguaging and multimodality research worldwide. It will be a key resource for practitioners, researchers, and scholars of education and pedagogy, bilingual education, language and literacy education, applied linguistics, literacy studies, and language arts. It was originally published as a special issue of Pedagogies: An International Journal.