Translingual practices as spatial repertoire for teaching and learning in an EMI multilingual university

With the growth of international higher education adopting English as the medium of instruction (EMI), linguistic tensions have been widely reported, problematizing teachers' and students' insufficient English language competence for EMI learning (e.g., Doiz, Lasagabaster, & Sierra, 2012). Nonetheless, recent research challenges the lingua bias and the static view of multilinguals as (incompetent) L2 users of English in such transnational contexts (Minakova & Canagarajah, 2020). Drawing upon the recent scholarly discussion of translanguaging (Li, 2018) and spatial repertoire (Canagarajah, 2018), this study explores the lived experiences of language use in teaching and learning activities in an EMI international university in China, and unravels the hybridity, fluidity and complexities of classroom interaction. Linguistic ethnographic data (observation notes, video/audio-records, interviews, course materials, and photos) were collected from a multilingual guqin (a traditional Chinese musical instrument) class in the investigated university over two months. 

Through a multimodal conversation analysis of the classroom interaction between a Chinese instructor and a group of students with diverse linguistic backgrounds, we argue that individuals' situated 'language ability' for intercultural academic communication can go beyond the official language of instruction. Multiple linguistic, semiotic and material resources from both the physical and virtual spaces of classroom interaction were found to assemble in situ to enable effective communication, teaching and learning. The findings problematize several discourses that prevail international university policies, including English monolingualism and the linguistic and individual-oriented bias of language. This study is hoped to contribute to a reconceptualization of competence for interaction by identifying the ways in which individuals' capability in making use of the features traditionally relegated to the context of communication could be built up.