This study examines interlocutors’ orientations to, and use of, multidialectal and multilingual practices during L2 Arabic conversations-for-learning beyond the classroom in a study abroad program. Recorded interactions show such practices can work as a valuable interactional resource that multilinguals draw upon to enhance meaning-making, identity negotiation, and knowledge construction.
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 (e.g., Hawkins & Mori, 2018; Leung and Valdés, 2019; Otheguy, Garcia, & Reid, 2015; Turner & Lin, 2017). 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. Few studies have explored multilingual practices in interactions outside the classroom, while virtually no studies have investigated multidialectal and multilingual practices in study abroad contexts. In light of these issues, the current study investigates multidialectal and multilingual translanguaging in dyadic conversations-for-learning conducted between L2 Arabic learners and their Arabic conversation partners outside the classroom during a study abroad language program in Morocco. In so doing, the study examines how participants orient to and employ such multidialectal and multilingual practices in their communicative interactions in the presence of a monodialectal and monolingual language policy. The study demonstrates how bottom-up sociolinguistic dynamics of multidialectal and multilingual participants should be the point of departure for language policy in study abroad programs, rather than subscribing to top-down ideologies that seem to neglect these sociolinguistic realities. The recorded dyadic interactions between L2 Arabic learners and their native speaker conversation partners show how multidialectal and multilingual practices can work as a valuable interactional resource that multilinguals draw upon for productive interactions to enhance meaning-making, identity negotiation, and knowledge construction.
