Alongside the challenge of empirically and conceptually mapping the spectrum of translanguaging practices, we address its multiple functions-in-context and its interactional manifestations. We concentrate on data in ‘prohibitive’ educational contexts in multilingual Brussels. The analysis highlights the importance of role identifications, which are not free from paradoxes and internal contradictions.
Research into the educational efficacy of translanguaging practices (whether understood in terms of identity needs, efficient learning, social justice, etc.) raises questions of empirical and conceptual validity. Alongside the challenge of empirically mapping the spectrum of practices, “from bounded to hybrid” and “from monolingual to multilingual”, both in situations where translanguaging is being encouraged or prohibited, there is the question of its multiple functions-in-context and its interactional manifestations (incl. multi-modally and dovetailed with body actional behavior). This paper concentrates on translanguaging data in educational contexts with “one language only”-policies in multilingual Brussels (Belgium). It is observed how, despite restrictive language policies, specific translanguaging moments occur in interaction. We will present data from two diverse Dutch-medium schools, one primary and one secondary. Data are based on linguistic-ethnographic fieldwork: audio and video recordings and interviews with pupils and teachers. In both classrooms,pupils speak e.g. Turkish, Arabic, Dutch, French and have various migration backgrounds. Classroom practices are mostly, though not exclusively, caught between the use of Dutch (the official medium of instruction) and French (the locally dominant language outside the school context and an important lingua franca for a considerable part of the learner population). Whereas the primary school’s “Dutch only”-policy only prescribedpupils not to use their total linguistic repertoire, the secondary school language policy was punitive: teachers should issue ‘language tickets’ when pupils speak other languages that the school language. Translanguaging is being recorded, even in prohibitive contexts, for a range of functions: e.g. guarantee understanding, showing off knowledge, inclusion in the task, repair of communication problems, classroom management, exploration of cognate language relationships, etc. In addition, practices turn out to be intimately connected to a range of role identifications, which are not free from paradoxes and contradictions.
