Not a First Language but One Repertoire: Translanguaging as a Decolonizing Project

Abstract

Translanguaging has opened up spaces to recognize the dynamic multilingualism of students in classrooms taught in dominant languages, and problematized concepts such as ‘additive bilingualism’. This article aims to further explore two issues that remain little understood. First, translanguaging is often seen as simply the acknowledgement or use of multilingual students’ ‘first language’. This article clarifies that this is a misunderstanding, for the trans- in translanguaging connotes the transcendence of named languages, the going beyond named languages as have been socially constructed. Second, in going beyond named languages, translanguaging is also intended as a decolonizing project, revealing how bilinguals inhabit a world with different knowledge bases and linguistic/cultural practices. We use two bilingual students, in London and New York City respectively, to show how they are viewed and listened to by their teachers as bilinguals with two ‘incomplete’ linguistic systems because each element in their language/semiotic repertoire is seen as a separate entity. We then weave all the elements together to provide a fuller picture of these students. In doing so, we reject raciolinguistic ideologies that have enregistered them as deficient and instead regard them through a translanguaging lens. The article emphasizes the importance of understanding translanguaging as a unitary repertoire, as well as its decolonial potential in education as teachers abandon the focus on named standardized languages and engage fully with their students’ full repertoire of features and meanings.

Integrating Indigenous epistemologies into mainstream foreign language teaching

“…Language educators and researchers are advised to reorient their attention to the fact that the boundaries between named languages do not exist. According to Li and García (2022), the holistic view of one's linguistic resources and knowledge systems can enable teachers and learners to abandon the traditional view of L1 and L2 as contradictory entities and challenge the logic of the dominant order that seeks to maintain the static, binary, and instrumentalist views of language and knowledge. While previous studies centre on promoting a plurilingual stance in language teaching (Cenoz & Gorter, 2021), this study moves the discussion forward by bringing the role of the two concepts, translanguaging and the new materialism, in the context of curriculum decolonisation.…”

Towards a critical translanguaging biliteracy pedagogy: the ‘aha moment’ stories of two Mandarin Chinese teachers in Canada

“…Just as some teachers in mainstream classrooms classify the languages of the Chinese people as one language simply based on the ideographic Chinese writing (Li & Zhu, 2021), I realised that I held a similar mindset: I overlooked the complexity of Chinese languages and dialects, as well as the students' home language environments. Li and García (2022) remind me that I should ‘keep an eye in the particularities of each student, in how they [engage] affectively and through their own sociocultural contexts with learning and language’ (p. 320).…”

“…Mandarin Chinese teaching and learning in the Canadian context is a nuanced intersectionality that embraces language acquisition and maintenance, biliteracy development, cultural identity recognition, racial discrimination, decolonisation of language and so on. Moreover, since we are now at a place and time in literacy where we are shifting away from depolitical and dichotomous depictions of languaging and literacies, we decided to shift to critical literacy (Janks, 2010;Luke, 2018) and translanguaging (García, 2009;García et al, 2017García et al, , 2021Li & García, 2022) to critically interpret our stories and find new possibilities for future Chinese teaching.…”

An overview of the “Protecting Cantonese Movement” in Guangzhou (2010–2021)

“…To avoid similar situations from happening again in the future, the most important thing is to cautiously protect the social and ecological environment of the regional dialect areas. It is essential to acknowledge how named language, such as Cantonese, is important for identity and social purposes (Li, 2022 ). Zhang and Chen ( 2012 ) believe that in addition to the legal basis and language identity, a good language ecological environment is required to build a harmonious language life in the process of urbanization.…”