Plurilingualism and translanguaging: emergent approaches and shared concerns. Introduction to the special issue

ABSTRACT

This special issue includes texts by some of the most currently prominent scholars in the fields of plurilingualism and translanguaging. Coming from diverse geographical and cultural contexts, the authors were invited to share their perspectives on the evolution of plurilingualism, translanguaging and their relation to language teaching and learning. The articles in this special issue illustrate the varied and exciting possibilities that can be afforded by these approaches that aim to locate speakers’ fluent, hybrid, multimodal and creative communicative practices at the centre of research and practice. The texts also underscore key commonalities and divergences which demonstrate that these frameworks are best analysed, compared or applied after first acknowledging that they emerge from different research traditions and socio-political backgrounds. Perhaps most importantly, the articles demonstrate that as long as socioeducational inequalities persist there is need for reflection, expansion and complementary actions, especially since both approaches share an interest in social and educational transformation of current models of bi/multilingual education around the globe.

KEYWORDS:

• Plurilingualism
• translanguaging
• language education
• didactics of plurilingualism
• translanguaging pedagogy

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Claudia Vallejo is a PhD candidate, adjunt lecturer and member of GREIP: Grup de Recerca en Ensenyament i Interacció Plurilingües (Research Centre for Teaching & Plurilingual Interaction) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where she teaches subjects on plurilingualism for pre-service teachers. She has participated in local and international projects on plurilingualism and social inequalities in education. Her PhD research analyzes an after-school program for children classified as being ‘at-risk’ of not meeting established curricular objectives, and the transformative potential of their plurilingual practices and pluriliteracies for creating more inclusive educational environments.

Melinda Dooly holds a Serra Húnter fellowship as researcher and senior lecturer in the Department of Language & Literature Education and Social Science Education at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She teaches English as a Foreign Language Methodology (TEFL) and research methods courses, focusing on telecollaboration & technology-enhanced teaching at both undergraduate and graduate levels. She has taught on short-term stays in different countries worldwide, including an honorary lectureship at the Institute of Education University College London. Her principal research addresses technology-enhanced project-based language learning, intercultural communication and twenty-first century competences in teacher education. She has published widely in international journals and authored chapters and books in this area of study. She is lead researcher of GREIP: Grup de Recerca en Ensenyament i Interacció Plurilingües (Research Centre for Teaching & Plurilingual Interaction).

ORCID

Claudia Vallejo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1920-4623

Melinda Dooly http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1478-4892

Notes

1 Aquest treball ha estat realitzat en el marc del programa de Doctorat en Educació de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. [This text has been elaborated within the framework of the PhD programme on Education from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona].

2 Research Centre for Plurilingual Teaching & Interaction: http://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/greip/en

3 Following the lead of the Council of Europe (CoE), in this article we use multilingualism to refer to contexts or situations where multiple languages exist side-by-side (e.g. in a community or society) and plurilingualism to refer to individuals who have knowledge of and use diverse linguistic resources; often in the same interaction. It should be noted however, that in 2001 the CoE referred to plurilingualism and multilingualism as both societal and individual traits, and it began to make a distinction in latter documents, referencing linguistic competence of an individual as plurilingualism and the linguistic diversity of a geographical region as multilingualism. It hardly seems surprising that there is consistent debate about the correct use of the two words.

4 Blommaert is referencing Joshua Fishman, one of the founders of the study of language contact, and his work on disglossia, a concept originally coined by Ferguson (1959) and extended by Fishman (1967) to refer to situations where two or more languages or varieties are used within a community –and usually by the same speakers- for different purposes and in different contexts. Disglossia implies the social attribution of different functions and values to the languages or varieties at play, where one is considered ‘high’ (e.g. for ‘educated’ use), and the other ‘low’, (e.g. for everyday, ordinary contexts). Disglossia has been associated with ideologies of language separation (e.g. privileging ‘one-language-only’ and ‘one-language-at-a-time’ according to the context) and the belief that bi/plurilingual speakers possess separate language repertoires and are able and should keep them separate in their interactions.

5 ‘Guide for the Development of Language Education Policies in Europe: From Linguistic Diversity to Plurilingual Education’