Translanguaging
[2][3] The term "translanguaging" was coined in the 1980s by Cen Williams (applied in Welsh as trawsieithu) in his unpublished thesis titled "An Evaluation of Teaching and Learning Methods in the Context of Bilingual Secondary Education".
[6] In addition, Vogel and Garcia argued that translanguaging theory posits that rather than possessing two or more autonomous language systems, as previously thought when scholars described bilingual or multilingual speakers, bilinguals and multilingual speakers select and deploy their languages from a unitary linguistic repertoire.
[7] However, the dissemination of the term, and of the related concept, gained traction decades later due in part to published research by Ofelia García, among others.
[8] It is a dynamic process in which multilingual speakers navigate complex social and cognitive demands through strategic employment of multiple languages.
The term is often employed in a pedagogical setting,[11] but also has applications to any situation experienced by multilingual speakers, who constitute most language communities in the world.
The beginnings of bilingual education in the United States asserted the primacy of speech and neglected written language learning.
[16] The second language instruction of the 1960s and 70s heavily utilized oral–aural drills, and written portions of the courses were mimetic and repetition oriented, and structure, form, syntax, and grammar were given priority status for learners.
Cen Williams' Welsh term trawsieithu was translated into English as translanguaging by their colleague Colin Baker.
[23] Therefore, he believed that the concept empowers multilingual speakers and writers to be modest, open minded, and aware of the language hegemony.
[24] Some compositionists view translanguaging is the communicative reality of global citizens and, as such, is essential to the investigative and pedagogical choices of composition scholars.
[3] Multiple models have been created to describe the cognitive processing of language and how multilingualism functions and manifests within an individual speaker.
It considers code-switching to be an aspect of translanguaging alongside other multilingual activities like translation, because an individual's internal linguistic systems are thought to be overlapping but not unitary.
[28] Linguistic postmodernists do not recognize code-switching as translanguaging because they call into question the very idea of discrete languages,[28] arguing them to be inventions created through various cultural, political, or social processes.
Translanguaging can be used prescriptively and descriptively and uses a speaker's entire linguistic range with disregard to the social and political sphere of languages.
[31] Translanguaging, as described by Dan Hoffman, helps deaf people understanding new concepts by connecting what someone already knows with what they're trying to learn.
They discovered a strong link between the readers' comprehension of English text and their skills in ASL, including vocabulary, language structure, and meaning.
For example, a university environment may provide a better translanguaging space due to the greater diversity of students in college than in a typical high school – and this is referring to the individual's life outside the classroom.
[36] Moreover, multilinguals can generate this social space where they are free to combine whichever tools they have gathered— ranging from personal history, experience and environment, attitude, belief and ideology, cognitive and physical capacity— to form a coordinated and meaningful performance.
[36] Multilinguals, in their translanguaging space, are continually coming up with new strategies to take advantage of their language knowledge to attain a specific communication effect in their day-to-day lives and experiences.
The variety among these spaces depends on the Latin country the speakers come from due to the difference in dialects that exist.
It is very common to hear "Spanglish" being spoken in Miami but if someone speaks both Spanish and English, it does not necessarily mean the usage of certain expressions, words, and sentences will be understood.
[22] The practice of natural translanguaging without the presence of direct pedagogical effort can lead to issues of competence and transfer in academic contexts for students.
[22] For students to be successful at translanguaging in academic and other varied contexts, they must exercise critical metacognitive awareness about their language practices.
Simultaneously, translanguaging can be implemented at home to allow students from multilingual families to connect words from another language to communicate better.
Translanguaging can also enhance lexical skills such as word naming and application[48] as some cognates support comprehension and morphological understanding in different languages.
García and Li [54] affirm that using translanguaging helps students from diverse backgrounds to understand and express their identities.
There is a burgeoning body of latino literature that features translanguaging acts as cultural markers and as aesthetic devices,[55] including literary fiction and children's books.
[56] Immigrant and second generation American authors feature translanguaging in their storyworlds, including Giannina Braschi, Susana Chavez-Silverman, and Junot Díaz.
(1998) offers many examples of translanguaging, code-switching, and liquidity,[59] as well as Puerto Rican and Nuyorican dialectalisms (dar pon, vejigantes, chinas; ¡Ay, bendito!
The narrator states that “somos bilingües” (when she speaks of “barreras lingüísticas") and resorts to pseudo phonetic writing to represent colloquialisms, in Spanish or English.
