Abstract Summary
Multilingualism in mainstream northern debates is neither a mirror of, nor a mirror for, southern multilingualisms. Southern and decolonial pedagogies that embed heterogeneity require a shift from language teaching and learning in isolation from knowledge exchange. The shift is to balance systematic use of translanguaging with multidirectional knowledge exchange (transknowledging).
Abstract :
The intersection of decolonial and southern thinking with renewed interest in multilingualism has significant implications for languages education. While ‘southern theory’ (Connell, 2007, 2012) and ‘southern epistemologies’ (Santos, 2012) were introduced to AILA 2014 in Brisbane, understanding these in relation to the ‘nature and purpose of languages education’ (Author, 2011) need more careful consideration.
Although attention has been directed towards interpretations of multilingualism and translanguaging as offering inclusion and social justice (e.g. García, 2009; Wei, 2017), applied linguists need to recall that these discussions have emerged in response to political and educational debates about bilingual education and recent migration in North America and Europe. They do not reflect the linguistic citizenship of Indigenous minority communities and they have not been generated from within a sociolinguistics of the south. Translanguaging pedagogies, developed in the context of in-migration to North Atlantic countries may have positive outcomes for urban and metropolitan students in these contexts, but they are either not portable to or do not necessarily meet the needs of students elsewhere.
The functions and purposes for which people use their multilinguality in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Australia have received animated debate for centuries (Franceschini, 2013; Agnihotri, 2014). Embedded in these debates is a recognition that knowledge exchange and translation of knowledge among communities with different ontologies, epistemologies and beliefs cannot be facilitated through universalist principles of monolingualism, views of language/s or education systems (e.g. Kusch 1970; Mignolo, 2010; Rivera Cusicanqui 2012; Author, 2017). Decolonial and southern approaches to languages education would benefit of a shift, from language as constrained by weak notions of intercultural understanding and social justice, towards robust pedagogies of functional multilingualism. These involve systematic use of code-switching and translation (systematic translanguaging); and multidirectional (south-north, south-south) exchanges of knowledge, being and believing (transknowledging).
