Abstract Summary
I raise the question whether the concept of “translanguaging” has become prone to effects of “overshooting”? I will focus on its “exchange value” (sociolinguistically, language pedagogically, morally-politically, etc.). What might one learn from a “disentanglement” of the concept’s interlocking currencies (sociolinguistically, language pedagogically, morally-politically, etc.)?
Abstract :
The notion of “translanguaging” has been promising, its use expanding rapidly and enthusiastically. Undeniably, its mobilizing appeal has its origins in important sociolinguistic, linguistic pragmatic and language educational observations about the nature of contemporary experiences of bi/multilingualism, in particular, the need for these to be recognized in their own terms, in an user-based perspective, as well as that such a recognition comes with the promise of a considerable return in bridging several educational gaps when TL is put into practice.
In my presentation, I raise the question whether the concept of “translanguaging” has subsequently become prone to effects of “overshooting”? I want to concentrate on the concept’s “exchange value” as a sociolinguistic theory of contemporary bi/multilingualism, as a pedagogical model for language and learning, as a stake in a paradigmatic struggle between cognitive psychological and social approaches to language and learning, and as a moral-political stake in a contemporary world ridden by far-reaching inequalities. What might one gain from attempts to “disentangle” the concept’s interlocking currencies, e.g. by insisting on a historical reading, mapping practices empirically and assessing the notion situationally – and doing so, particularly, in relation to some of the “uncomfortable questions” that are raised by earlier conceptual frameworks which the notion of TL is believed to have superseded.
