Writing Toward a Decolonial Option: A Bilingual Student’s Multimodal Composing as a Site of Translingual Activism and Justice

Abstract

Drawing on discussions of (de)coloniality and translanguaging, this article reports findings from a classroom-based ethnographic study, focusing on how a self-identified Latina bilingual student resists colonial constructs of language and literacies in her multimodal project. Based on an analysis of the student’s multimodal composition, other classroom writings, and a semistructured interview, I examine how she creatively and critically draws on her entire language and literacy repertoire in her multimodal composing. More specifically, I demonstrate how she draws from and builds on her lived experiences of linguistic injustices and racialization and transforms such experiences into embodied knowledge making and sharing through her multimodal composing. I argue that students’ engagement with multimodality can and should be cultivated, sustained, and amplified as a site of translingual activism and justice with decolonial potential, and I suggest, further, that such a shift requires a change in approaching, reading, and valuing students’ multimodal meaning making.

Power dynamics in translingual practices for Chinese as a Second Language writing education

“…Since Horner et al's (2011) pioneering proposition of a translingual approach to writingwhich highlights writer agency, considers heterogeneity as the norm, and advocates for a challenge to monolingualismtranslingual practices have made their mark as an area of investigation within writing education. With the increasing interest in translingual practices, a crucial element has surfaced that encompasses the inherent power dynamics and their ramifications for a decolonial agenda in the field of writing education (Canagarajah, 2024;Cushman, 2016;Lee, 2023). This decolonial initiative arises as a response to the enduring legacy of English hegemony in global communication, which is inextricably linked with the residues of colonialism.…”

Digital multimodal composing in L2 classrooms: A research agenda

“…At the same time, there are ongoing crises of disinformation, online misconduct, and new invisible forms of social exclusion and marginalisation (Cope & Kalantzis, 2023;Dooly & Darvin, 2022). Such crises lay bare problems in students' critical digital literacies with not only discerning the veracity of what they read and write online but also creating counter-narratives of marginalised communities who are often misrepresented in social media (Lee, 2023;Mirra & Garcia, 2020). To tackle these problems, scholars have highlighted critical digital literacies as an essential goal in L2 classrooms.…”

Introducing “Trans~Resistance”: Translingual Literacies as Resistance to Epistemic Racism and Raciolinguistic Discourses in Schools

“…They perceive their transliteracies as much more than a mere tool for communication. They represent a means to survive, to keep oneself safe, to get along, to encourage each other and to build community, and a weapon to fight back against vicious attacks against the very core of who they are [97,98].…”