Translanguaging: A bridge too far in higher education?

The demands of academic reading and writing seem to exact a high toll on students’ expressive abilities and comprehension of academic texts. Academic writing in particular, does not seem to allow much space for individual agency, which has implications for students’ willingness to take risks when composing and presenting their work, particularly where the use of languages other than the language of learning and teaching is concerned. In multilingual higher education contexts, where the majority of the students use a language that is not their school or home language, translanguaging is often presented as a way in which to develop biliteracy and strengthen cognitive academic language proficiency. Although the term translanguaging is used widely in multilingual education contexts, there does not seem to be a unified understanding of the term, with some authors focusing on what individuals do when they use multiple languages and others who see it as referring to a set of pedagogical tools. In this paper translanguaging will be used to refer to coping strategies that students use when faced with academic writing tasks that they perceive as challenging. In the context of the status of English, student attitudes and composing strategies will be reported on to problematize the perception of translanguaging as a possible solution to the challenges of academic writing. Using a self-report questionnaire and an analysis of written texts, the question will be asked whether a more modest expectation of the role that school and home languages (that differ from the academic language) play, may not be more appropriate in higher education. The paper will conclude by considering the limits of translanguaging in multilingual contexts where high- and low-status languages exist alongside English.