By using conversation analysis under the SETT (self-evaluation of teacher talk) framework, this paper addresses how EFL teachers’ use of translation varieties, along with other prosodic cues and/or speech devices, is assimilated to a translanguaging pedagogical frame in alignment with the dynamic second language classroom modes.
As a result of monolingualism constraints, translanguaging has been under-embraced in second/foreign language (L2) classroom practice and research (Li and García, 2016). Based on the impossibility of completely excluding translanguaging when different languages are used in L2 classrooms (Canagarajah, 2011), and the empirical evidence of teachers’ translanguaging effort in L2 classroom context mode (the author, 2019), this paper examines EFL teachers’ translanguaging effort by scrutinising their use of translation. Translation tends to feature the linear temporal succession of two separated languages, and this does not fit satisfactorily with the view on translanguaging as one repertoire. However, by dynamically and functionally understanding and conceptualising translation, an overlapping sphere with translanguaging can be established (Baynham and Lee, 2019). Accordingly, this paper considers translation as a language practice and mediation tool to make sense of meaning for flowing interaction (Colina and Lafford, 2017). Based on a detailed research study in Chinese universities, this paper illustrates how conversation analysis (CA) and the SETT (self-evaluation of teacher talk) (Walsh, 2006; 2011; 2013) model were assimilated in an effort to examine how teachers use translation to construct meaning within dynamic modes. Findings illustrate that all translation patterns weaken or interrupt the traditionally viewed language A → B schema via different translation varieties, such as partial translation or translation with extensive explanation or reformulation, along with the assistance of using other prosodic cues and/or speech devices. Additionally, it is found that sequentially developed translation patterns demonstrate that the translanguaging effort varies from mode to mode. The findings add a granular understanding of how translation is fused into a translanguaging pedagogical frame (Baynham and Lee, 2019), and highlights how it can be considered as appropriate translanguaging within certain contexts (Canagarajah, 2011). In doing so, this research further informs translanguaging-in-translation and translation-in-translanguaging studies (Baynham and Lee, 2019).
