Anti-racist translingualism: investigating race in translingual scholarship in US Writing and rhetoric studies over the past decade

ABSTRACT

In this exploratory study, we adopt corpus linguistic methods to quantify, contextualize and investigate race in translingual scholarship in US writing and rhetoric studies over the past decade. Results indicate that while race is mentioned minimally in the corpus, in instances where it is mentioned many scholars pay attention to intersectionality, language, colonial history, and power relations. Additionally, while there is a large representation of international students and newly-arrived immigrants in translingual scholarship in US writing and rhetoric studies over the past decade, domestic multilingual writers of color remain underrepresented. Situating translingualism in greater anti-racist initiatives, we discuss research and pedagogical implications that call for joint efforts from translingual scholars and practitioners to strive for linguistic justice and anti-racist translingual practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Multilingualism
• US English
• linguistic imperialism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In this article, we adopt the term “multilingual” to refer to all communicators with diverse linguistic resources. In other words, “multilinguals” may include individuals who use multiple languages (e.g., Chinese, English, French) as well as those who communicate in different varieties of one single language (e.g., African American Vernacular English).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Qianqian Zhang-Wu

Qianqian Zhang-Wu is an Assistant Professor of English and Director of Multilingual Writing at Northeastern University. Her research focuses on multilingual writing, translingualism and transnational students' languaging experiences.

Cherice Escobar Jones

Cherice Escobar Jones is a PhD candidate at Northeastern University studying rhetorics of race at the intersection of language, writing, and health. Her research explores how rhetorics of race within medical writing have historically and continue to impact our notions of difference with special attention to representations of Black women in science.