Engineering a ‘contact zone’ through translanguaging

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a pilot project which uses a translanguaging approach in order to subvert the power dynamics whereby language learners, refugees and migrants are positioned as defective or ineffective communicators of a target language. The project seeks to create a space, an engineered ‘contact zone’ in which the negative, mainstream media discourses of migration can be countered through dialogue and encounter. Through translanguaging we foster creative, communicative practices in which interactants can bring into play their linguistic and cultural repertoires in order to support mutual understanding.

Questo articolo presenta un progetto pilota che utilizza un approccio translanguaging per cercare di ribaltare le dinamiche con i quali rifugiati, migranti e apprendenti di una lingua vengono posizionati come comunicatori inefficaci o inadeguati. Tramite questo progetto si cerca di aprire uno spazio di dialogo e confronto, un ‘contact zone’, per contrastare i discorsi negativi dei media sulle migrazioni attraverso l’incontro e il dialogo. Attraverso un approccio translanguaging i partecipanti utilizzano i loro repertori linguitici e culturali per sostenere la comprensione reciproca.

KEYWORDS:

• Translanguaging
• refugees
• pedagogy
• contact zone
• languaging
• migration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Francesca Helm is an assistant professor of English language and translation at the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies at the University of Padova. Her research interests include intercultural dialogue, digital literacies, the use of technology in language learning and for ‘internationalization’.

Tejane Dabre is a plurilingual, Ghanaian teacher and activist involved with the association Razzismo Stop and was living in Casa dei Diritti Don Gallo at the time of writing the article. He worked as a maths and English teacher in Ghana and Libya and occasionally works as a cultural and linguistic mediator for the cooperatives and associations in Padova.

Notes

1 https://www.iom.int/news/mediterranean-migrant-arrivals-top-363348-2016-deaths-sea-5079.

2 http://openmigration.org/en/analyses/what-is-the-dublin-regulation/.

3 House of Rights Don Gallo http://casadeidirittidongallo.altervista.org/.

4 The authors have requested and been granted permission to use all the images in this text.

5 http://www.languagesoftheworld.info/geolinguistics/linguistic-diversity-in-africa-and-europe.html.

6 Pseudonyms have been used.

7 Reading from her mobile phone.