(Trans)languaging-for-learning: A perspective from the South

Reading & Writing

 
 
Field Value
 
Title (Trans)languaging-for-learning: A perspective from the South
 
Creator McKinney, Carolyn Tyler, Robyn
 
Subject Applied Linguistics; Education translanguaging; multilingual education; language ideologies; Anglonormativity; languaging-for-learning
Description Background: While the concept of translanguaging has gained significant traction in education in multilingual contexts, it is also debated and contested. Claims are made about what translanguaging can and cannot do, how different it might be from code-switching, whether it arises from a single repertoire of language resources or from use of separate languages, and whether it is detrimental to or supportive of the development and inclusion of marginalised languages.Objectives: In this article we consider what these debates might mean in the South African context and how translanguaging might be different in South Africa with its particular racialised history of marginalisation of African languages. Drawing on epistemologies of the South, we align with the argument that there are multiple multilingualisms. We argue for (trans)languaging pedagogies that embrace both more fixed or monolingual uses of named languages as well as fluid, multilingual use of repertoires.Method: We will review early conceptualisations of translanguaging, showing how these are born out of different contexts as well as how translanguaging is taken up in South African research. We will draw on three examples of fixed and fluid pedagogical translanguaging to show what is possible within a South African classroom context.Results: The three examples show that (trans)languaging-for-learning goes beyond communicating bilingually in a classroom and involves planned meaning negotiation.Conclusion: In (trans)languaging-for-learning, the emphasis is on using one’s full linguistic and semiotic repertoire in order to develop and show understanding of learning, rather than to demonstrate mastery of the use of standard named languages.Contribution: The article expands translanguaging theory by theorising (trans)languaging-for-learning from a Southern perspective.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor
Date 2024-10-11
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Linguistic Ethnography
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/rw.v15i1.508
 
Source Reading & Writing; Vol 15, No 1 (2024); 11 pages 2308-1422 2079-8245
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/508/1177 https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/508/1178 https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/508/1179 https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/508/1180
 
Coverage South Africa Current —
Rights Copyright (c) 2024 Carolyn McKinney, Robyn Tyler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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