Translingual approaches to reading and writing: Centering students’ languages and cultures within reflective practices of translation

Abstract

This collaborative project examines the challenges to reading and writing that surround international students who enroll in U.S. first-year-writing courses, with the goal to both query and enhance the students' ability to read and write in their target language, while drawing on their home languages and cultures as translingual and transcultural resources. Specifically, we discuss the reading and writing practices of multilingual students in the context of a translation assignment. This assignment is unique in its use of learner-centered pedagogy to place the students' translingual movement among languages as a site for inquiry and a subject of analysis in their development of L2 reading and writing skills.

Enactment of a Translingual Approach to Writing

“…Generally, these studies manifest the theoretical principles for which a translingual approach advocates. Specifically, the central tenets of a translingual approach to writing (i.e., writer agency; language as synergistic, contingent, and emergent; languages and modalities as resources; heterogeneity as the norm; and a challenge to monolingualism) have been enacted in writing courses through translingual strategies such as envoicing, recontextualization, interaction, and entextualization (Canagarajah, 2011(Canagarajah, , 2013a(Canagarajah, , 2013bCavazos, 2017;Flores & Aneja, 2017;Pacheco et al, 2019) and activities, including translating (Hanson, 2013;Kiernan et al, 2017), multimodal composing (Gonzales, 2015;Pacheco & Smith, 2015;Smith et al, 2017), cross-cultural collaborating (Kulavuz-Onal & V asquez, 2018; J. W. Lee & Jenks, 2016;Panos, 2017), and reflective writing (Hartse, Lockett, & Ortabasi, 2018;Wang, 2017).…”

“…Second, a translingual approach attempts to break or blur the traditional understandings of language difference (no matter whether it is a linguistic, social, or cultural difference); however, the “traditional” concepts that show the differences between languages—such as between Kiswahili and English (Kiramba, 2017) and between Spanish, Korean, and English (Velasco & García, 2014)—and between language users (e.g., L1 and L2 writers [Gonzales, 2015], ELLs [Smith et al, 2017], ESL writing students [Jain, 2014; Zapata & Laman, 2016], EFL writers [Fraiberg, 2017]), and between research areas in writing (e.g., ESL writing [Jain, 2014], composition [Kiernan et al, 2017], basic writing [Krall‐Lanoue, 2013], L2 writing [Severino, 2017]) help specify how a translingual practice, pedagogy, or ideology functions in different contexts with different writer groups and in different research areas. Without these concepts to identify the differences and similarities between languages, language users, and contexts, a translingual approach might lose its descriptive and illustrative powers.…”

“…Among these 16 studies, two (Hanson, 2013, andPanos, 2017) concentrate on the teaching of Canagarajah, 2011Canagarajah, , 2013cGonzales, 2015;Hanson, 2013;Hartse et al, 2018;Jain, 2014;Krall-Lanoue, 2013; J. W. Lee & Jenks, 2016;Malcolm, 2017;Mart ınez et al, 2015;Mendoza & Parba, 2018;Pacheco et al, 2019;Panos, 2017;Velasco & Garc ıa, 2014;Wang, 2017;Zapata & Laman, 2016 Writer agency (5) Ayash, 2016;Canagarajah, 2006;Canagarajah & Matsumoto, 2017;Lorimer, 2013;Tannenbaum, 2014 Writing practice (7) Fraiberg, 2017;Kaufhold, 2018;Kiramba, 2017;E. Lee & Canagarajah, 2019;Pacheco & Smith, 2015;Severino, 2017;Smith et al, 2017 Teacher training (3) Arnold, 2016;Flores & Aneja, 2017; Writer identity (3) Milu, 2018;Schreiber, 2015;Zheng, 2017 Writing and reading (4) Dur an, 2017; Hwag & Hardman, 2014;Kiernan et al, 2017;Sohan, 2014 Digital writing (4) Albawardi, 2018;Canagarajah & Dovchin, 2019;…”

“…With more discussion on writing practice and pedagogy from a translingual approach, an increasing number of empirical studies have been conducted to explore the possibilities and challenges of a translingual approach to writing. Some studies (e.g., Kiernan, Meier, & Wang, 2017; Smith, Pacheco, & De Almeida, 2017) employ a translingual approach as a theoretical lens to understand and analyze writing practices and then provide their pedagogical implications; others (e.g., Canagarajah, 2013a; Pacheco, Daniel, Pray, & Jiménez, 2019) discuss translingual pedagogies adopted in their teaching and research. To provide an overview of a translingual approach to writing practice and pedagogy and see how it implies the teaching of EAL writing, in the present study we review and discuss 42 empirical studies in terms of the contexts, participants, and research foci on which these studies concentrated.…”

Toward a Transnational University: WAC/WID Across Borders of Language, Nation, and Discipline

“…See. for example,Fraiberg et al (2017),Gonzales (2015Gonzales ( , 2018,Kiernan (2015Kiernan ( , 2017Kiernan ( , 2021 Kiernan et al ( , 2017Kiernan et al ( , 2018,Meier (2018),Meier et al (2018),Milu & Gomes (2021),Wang (2017Wang ( , 2019aWang ( , 2019bWang ( , 2021…”