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

Introduction: towards plurilingualism and translanguaging

This special issue¹ has its origin in a two-day roundtable organized by the research group GREIP² in 2017 under the title ‘The Evolution of Language Teaching: Towards Plurilingualism and Translanguaging’, with participation from some of the most distinguished scholars currently working in the field of language education and bi/multi/plurilingualism. By the time of the roundtable, researchers, teachers and policy makers had long witnessed and been part of a notable shift in theoretical views concerning an understanding of languages, language use and speakers, along with perspectives on how language research and education should be approached. This change is based on the acknowledgement that multilingualism and plurilingual practices³ are not exceptions but are actually quite common around the world (Blommaert 2010; Lamb 2015). This reorientation about how we think of languages and multiple semiotic practices in diverse societies (what Blommaert has called a ‘post-Fishmanian⁴ paradigm shift’, 2013, 621) highlights the need to overcome persisting ideologies based on ‘monolingualism’ dogmas that can limit perspectives of speakers’ fluent and hybrid communicative practices into ‘one-language-only’ (OLON) parameters.

As discussed in the articles in this issue, OLON is often present in learning environments (both formal and informal). The impact of such perspectives is frequently interpreted as ‘only one appropriate language per context’; thereby rendering most crossing of ‘standard’ borders of language use and other communicative strategies (e.g. other semiotic resources) as a mark of deficiency. OLON also forms a significant part of the foundation for most standardized testing, both in language competences as well as other types of subject matter (McNamara and Shohamy 2008; McNamara 2011a). Assessment of an individual’s knowledge and competences is usually through ‘national’ or school curricular languages only (Zuniga, Olson, and Winter 2005; Dooly and Vallejo 2009), which not only limits the individual’s ability to fully engage with the content but also fails to evaluate what they know and does not allow them to display their full communicative repertoire. And while this is most often visible in school testing, it is also evident in other life-relevant contexts such as citizenship and higher education and employment access (Ntiri 2001; Zuniga, Olson, and Winter 2005; Ross et al. 2009; Ross, Dooly, and Hartsmar 2012).

In order to engage with due criticality of mono/multilingual tenets, we lean towards Mcnamara’s (2011b) interpretation (based loosely on Derrida’s 1998 account of monolingualism) which highlights ‘the socially, politically, and culturally conflicted context in which the possibility of multilingualism (or its denial) [is] located’ (433). Mcnamara argues for the need to ‘take a more complex and more critical stance toward issues in multilingual and monolingual practices in education’ (439). This critical stance encompasses awareness of the inherent risks of adopting ‘a power-free, neoliberal vision of globalization processes’ that does not ‘address the asymmetrical power relations and penetrations engendered by such flows’ (Jacquemet 2005, 261).

It is beyond the scope of this introduction to fully unpack and discuss the ideology of ‘one state, one culture, one language’; we refer instead to the abundant work already available regarding the impact of monolingual/one-language-only policies on society in general and in language teaching, learning and assessment in particular (cf. Baetens-Beardsmore 2003; Souto-Manning 2006; Unamuno 2008; Nussbaum 2008, 2009; Dooly and Unamuno 2009; Dooly and Vallejo 2009; García 2009; Shohamy and McNamara 2009; Blommaert 2010; García and Sylvan 2011; Ryan and McNamara 2011; Mondada and Nussbaum 2012; Nussbaum and Masats 2012; Lüdi and Py [1986] 2003, 2009, 2013; Lamb 2001, 2015; Moore and Nussbaum 2013; Moore, Borrás, and Nussbaum 2013; Vallejo and Dooly 2013; Blackledge and Creese 2014; García and Li 2014; García, Johnson, and Seltzer 2017; García and Kleyn 2016; Lüdi, Meier, and Yanaprasart 2016; Vallejo and Moore 2016).

The perspectives presented in this issue do not claim that we are looking at ‘new’ phenomenon. Studies regarding language contact have been carried out for decades; just as multilingual societies and plurilingual speakers have always existed (Franceschini 2009; Lamb 2015; Maher 2017). However, it can be argued that an increase in mobility of populations, goods and information in recent decades, along with the impact of the internet and social media on how humans interact in formal and informal contexts have helped put linguistic diversity and situations of language contact in a new spotlight. Nowadays, large portions of the world population are in contact with several languages on a daily basis, either face to face or digitally. ‘Multi­sited comparison across scales, mediating channels/agencies and institutional settings is likely to be indispensible in any account concerned with ideology, language and everyday life’ (Blommaert and Rampton 2011, 13).

The current multilingual shift has given way to the emergence of a wide spectrum of nomenclatures: plurilingual modes, heteroglossia, languaging, translingual practices, translanguaging, transglossia, crossing, codemeshing, polylanguaging, metrolingualism and transidiomatic practices, to name a few. This terminological profusion reflects a generalized interest – and excitement even – for acknowledging and theoretically operationalizing the complexity of language use in an increasingly connected and globalized world. There is also growing awareness of the manifold implications and potential transformations that these complex practices can hold for our understanding of language and language use, for current models of bi/multilingual education, and for educational research, policy and practice.

At the same time, these developments (and the plethora of new terminology) have also given rise to some criticism and dissent. In mainland Europe, with its long tradition of studies of plurilingualism (see Lüdi’s chapter, this volume, for a detailed account of his 30-year trajectory on the study of bi/plurilingual practices), some voices have been sceptical regarding the originality of the theoretical contribution of these new terms to scholarly work, their epistemological ambiguity as well as questioning the ‘transformative potential’ (Jaspers 2017) brought about by these frameworks, and in particular translanguaging, the term that seems to have gained the most attention and adherents.

The term Translanguaging seems to have captured people’s imagination. It has been applied to pedagogy, everyday social interaction, cross-modal and multimodal communication, linguistic landscape, visual arts, music, and transgender discourse. The growing body of work gives the impression that any practice that is slightly non-conventional could be described in terms of Translanguaging. There is considerable confusion as to whether Translanguaging could be an all-encompassing term for diverse multilingual and multimodal practices, replacing terms such as code-switching, code-mixing, code-meshing, and crossing. (Li 2018, 9)

Scholars who align themselves within the domain of translanguaging have readily addressed these criticisms (e.g. Otheguy, García, and Reid’s 2015 article on clarifying translanguaging; García and Otheguy in this volume). It is not within the scope of this article to delve into the differences and commonalities of all of the terms mentioned above. For the sake of brevity, we centre our discussion on just two: plurilingualism and translanguaging. These are arguably the two concepts with the most resonance in European and North American contexts (from which all of the authors of this issue are writing) and the ones that are increasingly used to describe new understandings of multilingual practices in language education. It is the aim of this issue to promote dialogue between these two approaches, which at times are seen as oppositional and other times, seemingly fused into one similar framework. We also hope to encourage educational agents to reflect on how they can transform these emergent approaches into pedagogical practice (in both formal and informal learning situations), and hopefully generate innovative educational advances in the field.

This special issue contributes to this ongoing dialogue in numerous ways. Several of the articles provide clarification of epistemological aspects (see for example García and Otheguy, or Lüdi), others analyze pedagogical interventions and school practices (Dooly and Vallejo, Llompart et al.) while two of the texts explore the possibilities afforded by a multimodal, plurilingual semiotic perspective in different non-school settings (Moore and Bradley, Zhu Hua et al.). These articles underscore the many ways in which interaction can be mediated through multiple resources, nudging our understanding of communication beyond a conceptualization that is ‘spoken and written language-based only’.

In the next sections we outline the predominant features, evolution, criticisms and educational interpretations and positionalities related to the notions of plurilingualism and translanguaging. We then explore points of tension and overlap between the two concepts to finally reflect on some potential areas of research and practice for the near future.

Salient features of plurilingualism

As a point of departure, we begin with an examination of how plurilingualism has been defined and historically understood. For the sake of clarity, a distinction should be done between a political approach, as framed by the Council of Europe (CoE), at the level of policy guidelines and assessment criteria, and a theoretical and research framework, as developed by a long, mostly European tradition of interactional studies of plurilingual practices. Politically, plurilingualism has been promoted by the CoE for some decades now; it was framed in the European language education policy documents as key policy orientations and recommendations for the promotion of linguistic diversity, intercultural dialogue and social cohesion in the 1990s. According to CoE’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, a plurilingual approach underscores the individual’s multiple linguistic experiences and sociocultural interactions across the wide spectrum of her everyday life (home, school, work, leisure, etc.). As these concentric circles of interaction widen, so too the individual’s communicative repertoire expands.

[The individual] does not keep these languages and cultures in strictly separated mental compartments, but rather builds up a communicative competence to which all knowledge and experience of language contributes and in which languages interrelate and interact. (CoE 2001, 4)

According to CoE, this perspective has significant consequences on language education, both in terms of policy and practice (this impact is discussed in further detail in the next section). Language teaching and learning are no longer seen as

simply [a means to] achieve ‘mastery’ of one or two, or even three languages, each taken in isolation, with the ‘ideal native speaker’ as the ultimate model. Instead, the aim is to develop a linguistic repertoire, in which all linguistic abilities have a place. (Ibid., 5)

Plurilingualism has also been framed by the same sources as a key attribute for mobility and competitiveness, thereby mixing social and utilitarian interests. CoE (2007) states that along with promoting ‘mobility, intercomprehension and economic development’, language education should also aim to maintain ‘the European cultural heritage’ and advance ‘respect for the languages of others and linguistic diversity’. (Council of Europe 2007, online document⁵).

Following these European orientations and recommendations, interest has emerged in promoting plurlingualism in policy and practice at supranational, national and local levels; in government, business, service and educational contexts, in and beyond the European Union’s borders.

At the same time, it must be noted that the understandings of plurilingulism that have emerged from the Council of Europe are somewhat ambivalent. For instance, the promotion of ‘the development of a unique individual linguistic competence’ is inconsistent with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL)’s language level descriptors (2001, and extended in 2018), which seem to reinforce the very ideologies and practices of language separation and assessment based on language nativeness or purity that they wish to transform (Blommaert and Backus 2012).

Critical voices have also pointed out that CoE’s approach to plurilingualism and its focus on colonial European languages (in particular English as a foreign language) runs the risk of uncritically promoting neoliberal agendas, linking language education and plurilingual competence to market values such as efficiency, productivity and flexibility of labour force (cf. Irvine 1989; Pennycook 1994, 1998, 2000; Phillipson 1992, 2003; Heller 2010; Block, Gray, and Holborow 2012; Flores 2013; Ricento 2015; Codó 2018; Codó and Patiño 2018). These critical voices advocate for alternative approaches to plurilingualism and language education that put language sustainability and social justice at the forefront, and that acknowledge the value of all languages and varieties. It should be noted that many of these questions are also at the basis of arguments posed by translanguaging scholars who advocate for a different approach that emerges from a holistic vision of languages and that supports more transformative practices (see García and Otheguy, this volume).

A second approach to plurlingualism emerges from a long interactionist research tradition on studies of plurilingual practices from a socially engaged perspective. This theoretical and methodological approach has been developed by sociolinguists, linguistic ethnographers and sociocultural educational researchers from mostly EU bi/multilingual contexts in which concerns for the protection and promotion of local and heritage minority languages are articulated with the promotion of sustainable plurilingual practices through innovative and collaborative pedagogical approaches (see for example the prolific work by Jasone Cenoz, Jim Cummins, Laurent Gajo, Dirk Gorter, Monica Heller, Georges Lüdi, Lorenza Mondada, Luci Nussbaum, Bernard Py, Virginia Unamuno, among many others).

This research has produced a conceptual shift in sociolinguistic research and theory, bringing a greater emphasis on micro-analysis of plurilingual interactions in different settings (Llompart and Nussbaum 2018). Empirical studies on plurilingualism (especially ethnographic documentation and fine-grained analysis of interactional practices in linguistically diverse classrooms) have contributed to a move away from conceptualising hybrid language practices as ‘deficiency’ markers or a ‘lack’ of communicative competence towards an acknowledgement of creative processes that draw from sophisticated communicative competences and which are inherent to language learning (see Llompart et al., and Lüdi, this volume). These conceptualizations imply placing the speaker at the centre of the learning process and recognizing her as a creative agent who can draw from diverse, albeit partial and dynamic competences in different semiotic resources. Key to this vision is the concept of repertoire as proposed by Gumperz (1972, 1982; see also Mondada 2001; Lüdi 2006; Lüdi and Py 2009) wherein repertoire is understood as the set of resources available for a person to act socially, through production and interpretation of meanings. These resources include linguistic varieties, dialects, discursive genres, and common speech acts in a given community (Gumperz 1972, 155), as well as multimodal forms of expression (gestures, movement, facial expressions, etc.) that are discursively and culturally embodied in and among social groups (Goodwin 2000; Mondada 2004; Goodwin 2007; Nussbaum 2012).

Impact of plurilingualism on language education

The abovementioned scholars have contributed a great deal to current views on plurilingual speakers’ practices and contributed to an important shift in the way in which language contact and language learning are understood by strongly advocating the need to overcome an ‘additive’ approach to plurilingual users’ repertoires: that is, language learning conceived as a process whereby subsequent languages are learnt as additions to the learner’s existing language repertoire. This additive approach is principally based on the concept of separate language systems (Weinreich 1953) and lies at the basis of persistent ‘one-language-only’ and ‘one-language-at-a-time’ diglossic ideologies (Ferguson 1959; Fishman 1967; Llompart and Nussbaum 2018). These ideologies have also informed a vision of bi/plurilinguals’ repertoire as a sum of ‘parallel monolingualisms’ (Heller 1999), or what Cummins (2008) has referred to as ‘two solitudes’ and Gogolin (1994, 2002) as a ‘monolingual habitus’. Subsequently, these diglossic perspectives have also contributed to a negative perception of hybrid language, perceived as interferences and as indicators of bi/plurilingual speakers’ lack of competence. The strict language separation, along with an idealized model of the ‘native’ language speaker as the referent against which L2/FL learners’ linguistic competence should be assessed has led to educational practices that validate specific standardized varieties and registers. At the same time, other varieties, vernacular registers and hybrid productions are devalued as markers of ‘deficient’ use by speakers/learners of the target language.

This, in turn, has led to considerable studies and applied work in opposition to this position, calling for more equitable educational opportunities for historically marginalized language learners (see work by Ajit Mohanty, Robert Phillipson, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas). By proposing a new definition of the plurilingual speaker as ‘a free and active subject who has amassed a repertoire of resources and who activates this repertoire according to his/her need, knowledge or whims, modifying or combining them where necessary’ (Lüdi and Py 2009, 157), it is argued that a more inclusive approach can be promoted. This approach highlights plurilingual speakers’ communicative competence and their multiple, complex, hybrid, multimodal languaging practices, while moving away from the ‘ideal native speaker vs. deficient L2 learner’ binomial.

In summary, there is a considerable body of work related to plurilingualism that stems from a deep commitment for social and educational justice and the promotion of bi/plurilingual minority speakers’ well being, especially as societies and classrooms become more and more diverse and traditional formulas of bi/multilingual education fail to attend to this diversity. This is a concern shared by scholars working within the domain of translanguaging.

Probing into translanguaging

Translanguaging was first coined in Welsh as ‘trawsieithu’ (Williams 1996) and was later expanded as a theoretical, analytic concept and pedagogical practice (García 2009; Blackledge and Creese 2010; Creese and Blackledge 2010; Canagarajah 2011a, 2011b, 2013; Li 2011, 2018; García and Li 2014; among many others). These theorizations have often derived from Anglophone contexts with highly multilingual and multicultural populations where bilingual education and the empowerment of linguistic minorities have been long pursued objectives (e.g. the UK, Canada, bigger cities in the USA). Use of the concept has become widespread, a popularity that might be due to its position ‘at the crossroads of several lines of study: on languages, on models of bilingual education, on educational policies, and on the recognition of linguistic minorities’ (Fontich and Moore 2018, 3). This multivariant positioning creates challenges for finding a single, standard definition of what it is and how it can be applied (as a theoretical framework, an ideological positioning, an analytical lens or a pedagogical stance, or all of the above). In this sense, Jaspers has argued that its many applications render the term ambiguous, likening it to ‘a house with many rooms’ that can lead to ‘discursive drift’ (2017, 3).

In terms of language use, translanguaging has been explained as ‘the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually national and state) languages’ (Otheguy, García, and Reid 2015, 283). Vogel and García (2017, 6) argue that a bilingual individual does not ‘shuttle’ between ‘two interdependent language systems’; instead they have ‘one semiotic system [that integrates] various lexical, morphological, and grammatical linguistic features in addition to social practices’.

Translanguaging takes a contrastive stance to other approaches that exclude the everyday experiences, identities and language uses of bi/plurilingual speakers. In this sense, translanguaging has had, since its origins, an explicit political agenda (Flores 2014) that is strongly related to the social and linguistic circumstances of minoritized bilingual or multilingual communities. With this social agenda in mind, the ‘trans’ prefix alludes to transgression and transformation in a wide sense and as a means of destabilizing ‘language hierarchies [and expanding] practices that are typically valued in school and in the everyday world of communities and homes’ (García and Li 2014, 68). Hawkins (2018) places translanguaging as part of the ‘trans-’ turn in language and communication studies, in reference to ‘the current era of globalization in which communication occurs with ever-increasing rapidity among ever-expanding audiences, through rapidly changing semiotic means and modes’ (55). This ‘trans-’ turn also highlights ‘the significant increase of attention to the ways in which language is enmeshed with other semiotic resources in constructing meanings in communication’ (ibid) in fluid and unpredictable ways.

This transformative endeavour includes expanding our understanding and consideration of the ‘trans-semiotic’ nature of repertoires and practices, allocating language as only one of many more available resources for communication. This has opened the door to exploration of the complex arrangements across multisemiotic modalities – including embodiment, performativity and re-semiotization – that take part in communication and meaning-making processes, thereby overcoming what Block (2014) has called the ‘lingual bias’ in applied linguistics (see Blackledge and Creese 2017; Pennycook 2017; Zhu, Otsuji, and Pennycook 2017; Callaghan, Moore, and Simpson 2018; Zhu et al. this volume among others). Furthermore, the emphasis on linguistic creativity –and creativity in general, as a product of people’s free and original ensembles of their myriad of semiotic resources–- has also resulted in expanding transdisciplinary approaches that engage applied linguistics and artistic practices. These practices can be explored for their potential for sociolinguistic research and language education (cf. Bradley and Moore 2018; Bradley et al. 2018; Moore and Bradley this volume). Arguably, translanguaging has helped foreground the role of creative-inquiry in applied linguistics, however, the use of creative visual and multimodal methods such as poetry or language biography portraits in bi/multi/plurilingualism research has a rich tradition (cf. Busch 2006; Prasad 2014), underscoring the difficulties in extricating one term from the other at times.

As with plurilingualism, there have been criticisms regarding translanguaging. Kubota (2016) underscores the prevalent Western focus of much of the work done in this field and she and others have remarked on the inherent risk of aligning with neoliberal ideals (Canagarajah 2017; Jaspers 2017), thereby drifting away from its original critical perspective and becoming conflated with the objectification of languages by placing emphasis on its exchange value (Block, 2017). Cenoz and Gorter (2017) have posed the question of whether a translanguaging pedagogy is a ‘threat or opportunity’ for minority languages in contexts where these have historically been in a vulnerable situation and whose main context of social use is usually the classroom. The authors have coined the term ‘sustainable translanguaging’ to accentuate both the limitations and potential of the framework once applied within a particular socio-political context. They also point out the need to implement specific measures in bi/plurilingual education that articulate the more desirable features of translanguaging with the protection and promotion of minority languages.

Scholars working within the domain of translanguaging have engaged with these concerns (see Otheguy, García, and Reid 2015; Vogel and García 2017; Li 2018), resulting in increasingly refined and deeper understanding of translanguaging as a pedagogical and theoretical framework, as is evidenced in the articles in this issue.

Impact of translanguaging on language education

The focus of translanguaging on ‘full’ use of an individual’s unitary repertoire (linguistic, gestural, mediated through other external artefacts such as technological devices) confronts many mainstream approaches to bi/multilingualism and bi/multilingual education based on ‘named’ languages, that is, languages conceptualized as discrete systems with socially and politically defined boundaries (see Otheguy 2016; García and Otheguy, this issue). As discussed above, more restricted understandings of language have given rise to pedagogical positionings of ‘one-language-only’, ‘one-language-at-a-time’, the teaching of separate communicative competences (e.g. speaking, reading, writing, listening), the suppression of hybrid productions, and restriction of using other potential modes and resources for communication in the class (e.g. technology such as cellphones, etc.).

In contrast, a translanguaging agenda actively seeks to debunk traditional monolingual ideologies about languages and language teaching and learning processes that still permeate social and educational policies and practices, aiming to endorse full recognition, visibilisation and promotion of the fluent languaging practices bi/plurilingual language learners engage in everyday, thus opening ‘translanguaging spaces’ (Li 2011, 1223) for creativity and multimodality in and beyond the classroom.

Divergences and points of tension between the frameworks

While the two terms plurilingualism and translanguaging have emerged from different contexts, and in many cases appear to have socio-political and epistemological differences, there are several commonalities that are sometimes explicitly foregrounded and other times are less visible. They both emerge from a recognition of the widespread presence of bi/multi/plurilingual practices and speakers around the globe and of a lack of acknowledgement of their uses and competences. Both terms have in common a Baktinian sense of heteroglossia in the regard that any language, any utterance for that matter, is stratified or sedimented with many voices that interact and are often even conflictive, consisting of:

social dialects, characteristic group behaviour, professional jargons, generic languages, languages of generations and age groups, tendentious languages, languages of the authorities, of various circles and of passing fashions. (Bahktin 1981, 262)

Building from this, both plurilingualism and translanguaging argue that individuals have a unique, integrated repertoire of semiotic resources that they strategically and creatively combine and put into place according to the context and participants of their interactions. Consequently, research in both plurilingualism and translanguaging share the aim of overcoming conceptualizations of ‘languages’ as discrete systems with clear boundaries, and endeavour to move towards the acknowledgement of dynamic and multimodal ‘languaging’ practices. However, the focus on debunking languages as bounded systems which underlies much of the translanguaging theories seems to open a gap between both approaches when trying to describe hybrid language use. Code alternation, for instance, which has been widely documented from a plurilingual perspective, becomes seemingly dispensable from a translanguaging lens, given that:

translanguaging questions the very existence of the boundaries between named languages and promotes any effort that aims at breaking those boundaries. (Li Wei, private correspondence, 2019)

From this perspective, translanguaging ‘encourages mixing, switching and anything that breaks the boundaries between named languages’ (ibid).

For researchers on plurilingualism, however, concepts such as code-switching or code-mixing (Auer 1984, 1998, 1999), which from a translanguaging lens might seem to signal accommodation to a language-separation ideology, remain useful emic categories in the analysis of plurilingual practices, as they might signal language users’ own orientations, contextualization and co-construction of roles in interaction (see Lüdi, and Llompart et al., this volume). Seen as a tool for analysis, even if languages are not considered bounded social entities, they can be ‘made relevant’ by participants during interaction. Quoting Ustunel and Seedhouse (2005), analysing speakers’ hybrid communicative practices from an interactionist, emic perspective – that is, from the perspective of the participants – implies trying to elucidate the question ‘why that, in that language, right now?’ (302).

The discussion around the conceptualizations of languages has other relevant repercussions for research and teaching practice. For the moment it seems that it is still problematic as to how to refer to what are widely known as ‘languages’. Certainly the concept of a unique and complex repertoire made up of diverse semiotic and multimodal resources, some of which are socially attributed to separate ‘languages’, is key to understanding the resources, strategies and uses of plurilinguals. But even when aiming to analyse and describe the complex repertoire of plurilingual speakers, there are few alternatives for referring to the different linguistic resources they know or ‘display’, and how creatively and strategically they ‘combine’ them. Challenges also emerge when attempting to describe the highly plurilingual contexts of ethnographic research (i.e. schools or classrooms where ‘more than 30 languages are present’, or children who, according to records or teachers, ‘know 3, 4 or 5 languages’, or who speak a language(s) at home that is different from the language or languages of instruction at school).

It seems ineluctable that documenting plurilingualism and translanguaging requires the use of the very categories these concepts seek to debunk. Also, from a pedagogical perspective, ‘named’ languages are still a strong, salient entity and must be taken into account when contextualizing research in the classroom. Many educators’ work is uni-lingually produced and focuses on specific academic varieties and content while students’ assessment is often principally focused on monolingual proficiency. As long as these socioeducational norms of scientific production and monolingual curricular organization and assessment prevail, transforming our understanding of language learning and language use will remain a challenging undertaking.

Dissent has also emerged around the conceptualization of plurilingual speakers’ competence. From a translanguaging perspective, given that there are no boundaries between ‘named’ languages (at least as psycholinguistic entities) it can be understood that a bilingual speaker’s language competence is ‘always and at every stage complete’ (see García and Otheguy, this volume), as opposed to the widespread definition of plurilingual competence as emergent, situated and in constant evolution and change (Coste, Moore, and Zarate 1997; CoE 2001). From a plurilingual perspective, it is precisely by deploying their emergent competence and plurilingual resources in creative and strategic ways that speakers expand their repertoire and develop their communicative competence, which includes developing the ability, over time, to participate in interactions both in plurilingual and unilingual modes (Grosjean 1985, 2001; Nussbaum and Unamuno 2006; Masats, Nussbaum, and Unamuno 2007; Lüdi and Py 2009; Moore 2014; Lüdi and Llompart et al. this volume). García and Otheguy (this volume) warn that these different perspectives on speakers’ communicative competence might imply divergent approaches to language education policy and practice, for example in terms of teaching/learning objectives and assessment criteria.

All in all, perhaps key factors of the divergences between a translanguaging approach and the interactionist approaches to plurilingualism lie in their different epistemological and methodological perspectives. Translanguaging studies have focused on reflecting, from a more sociological / sociolinguistic orientation, how bi/plurilingual speakers language and communicate, through the activation of a wide range of semiotic resources. Translanguaging seeks social and political recognition of these practices within and beyond the classroom, advocating for pedagogical transformations in the way bi/plurilingual children are taught, valued and assessed. Studies of plurilingualism have mostly developed within an interactional sociolinguistics approach, largely building on Gumperz’ work, adopting an emic perspective to analyse, often through Conversation Analysis (CA), the sequential occurrence of plurilingual practices in interaction in order to track, describe and understand what plurilingual speakers ‘do’ with their communicative resources. A large number of these studies also focus on how plurilingual learning takes place, particularly from an emic perspective of the individual(s) engaged in the process.

Perhaps it is in the domain of teaching practices where plurilingualism and translanguaging connect the most. Both refer at the same time to a sociolinguistic reality – spontaneous language use – and to a pedagogical stance, and both advocate the need for its ‘didactization’ (see Llompart et al. this issue) into classroom teaching methodology, in an effort to deeply transform the way language practices are understood, made visible, valued, taught and assessed in school contexts. Recently, work has been done that aims to articulate the principles of translanguaging and plurilingualism in order to explore potential gains of a complementary focus. Both concepts, for example, are articulated in Moore and Vallejo’s analysis of the plurilingual and pluriliteracy practices of children and volunteers in an out-of-school literacy programme and the affordances of these practices for promoting a translanguaging space (2018).

Pedagogical application and points of overlap

Both a didactics of plurilingualism (cf. Duverger 2007; Gajo 2007; Masats, Nussbaum, and Unamuno 2007; Masats 2008; Noguerol 2009; Candelier 2012; Nussbaum 2013, 2014, 2017; Moore 2014; Dooly 2016; Llompart and Nussbaum 2018; Moore 2018; Moore and Vallejo 2018; Llompart et al. this volume; Dooly and Vallejo, forthcoming) and translanguaging pedagogies (cf. García 2009; Creese and Blackledge 2010; Canagarajah 2011a, 2011b; García and Li 2014; García and Kleyn 2016; García, Johnson, and Seltzer 2017; Moore, Bradley, and Simpson 2019) build on a Vygotskyan sociocultural perspective that asserts that knowledge is socially produced and acquired in interaction and collaboration. Both defend that promoting pupils’ hybrid languaging practices can enhance knowledge acquisition and students’ confidence as it enables them to interact in fluent ways, develop metacognitive aspects, manage tasks, mediate understandings and co-construct meaning (García and Li 2014). Transforming educational practices implies that emergent plurilingual speakers move from being positioned as deficient to adept users of a wide ranging semiotic repertoire. Adopting a plurilingual / translanguaging lens allows pupils to display competences that are not usually validated in educational environments and to enact practices that allow them to position themselves and be positioned as active agents and competent readers and language users (Vallejo and Moore 2016).

Despite the popularity that these two approaches have gained in the academic world, they have not been as readily adopted in education as one might have hoped (Gorter and Cenoz 2017). Classroom-based research indicates that while teachers are generally favourable to opening spaces to students’ plurilingual practices -or what Lewis, Jones, and Baker (2012) have called pupil-directed translanguaging- to be used as scaffolding tools while carrying out school tasks, there is still extended resistance to adopting these practices as outright teaching resources. There are tangible barriers to teachers fully embracing a deliberate pedagogical stance based on plurilingualism or translanguaging. Their reticence can be traced to different motives but concerns about how to incorporate a plurilingual or translanguaging lens into lesson planning and assessment seems to play a significant role (see Dooly and Vallejo, forthcoming). Although García and Li (2014) argue that ‘assessments using a translanguaging mode would enable students to show what they know using their entire linguistic repertoire’, they acknowledge that such assessments have yet to be developed and would find strong resistance from policy makers and many teachers because ‘accepting translanguaging in assessment would require a change in epistemology that is beyond the limits of what most schools (and teachers) permit and value today’ (134-135). From a plurilingual didactics perspective, Llompart et al. (this volume) express similar concerns.

Adopting a plurilingual didactics /translanguaging approach inevitably puts into question a century-old general approach to language education, which suggests that teacher education and teacher support should emerge as key elements to overcome these resistances and promote educational transformation (Moore and Vallejo 2018; Dooly and Vallejo, forthcoming). This should be framed within the promotion of strong networks of critically engaged, action-research collaboration between researchers, pre-and in-service teachers and other educational and community agents (Vallejo et al. 2018). The focus of this framework should be on ‘collaborative co-construction of knowledge that is useful for educational transformation, while promoting practices that are more inclusive of children’s entire repertoires’ (Moore and Vallejo 2018, 12).

Final words

The articles in this special issue illustrate the diverse and exciting possibilities for research and teaching that can be found in the principles of plurilingualism and translanguaging. Both approaches hold the potential of social and educational transformation but at the same time it is important to stay grounded and maintain a critical perspective on the affordances, limitations and challenges they may pose. Theoretically, as with any terminology that becomes widespread, these terms risk losing their original critical stance as they become absorbed in mainstream discourse, a risk which may be exacerbated by the engulfing forces of neoliberalism. However, it must be recognized that conceptual transformations can also be a positive and inevitable element of dissemination and application to practice. As García and Otheguy point out, ‘Concepts do not remain static in a time and place, as educators and researchers take them up, as they travel, and as educators develop alternative practices’ (this volume). Furthermore, practitioners must acknowledge that change takes time and considerable effort; moreover the impact may not be immediately visible –in education in particular it may be years before evidence of change can be detected.

In general, literature and studies regarding these approaches focus on teachers’ perspectives and the challenges they face when endeavouring to integrate plural resources and new, transformative practices into education, including students’ everyday multimodal languaging and cultural practices. While this is important, it does seem to underscore that there is an apparent lack of research on the perspectives of the students. How do they feel about the appropriation of what is usually seen as their ‘out-of-school’ practices? Do they feel empowered enough to resist if they do not agree to bringing their use into the classroom? There needs to be more interrogation regarding how to use and when (if ever) to use these practices that in many cases have emerged as their voices of resistance to sociocultural and educational norms (Hill 1999; Canagarajah 2011b).

Answering these points requires including these same individuals in the decision-making process regarding how to best generate knowledge through these innovative pedagogical approaches. Their voices should be heard in both research and teaching practice. Lamb has proposed that

the interplay between power structures, historical experiences and current dispositions is endemic, producing a monolingual habitus (Gogolin 1994, 2002) that cannot be redressed by top-down language-in-education policy alone; for multilingualism to be normalised and valued by all, opportunities for deep and critical re-education both in formal educational structures and informal public spaces are required, drawing on research evidence regarding the benefits of multilingualism for all in order to challenge solidified beliefs and practices. (2015, 152)

We strongly believe that the transformative stances promoted by plurilingualism and translanguaging can defy ‘solidified beliefs and practices’ regarding a ‘monolingual habitus’. To do so implies rethinking our research and practices in ways that promote criticality and collaboration across multiple contexts and disciplines, in order to ensure that research outcomes that promote multilingualism are meaningful and beneficial for everyone involved. Hopefully this volume can be a cornerstone for such interdisciplinary and creative collaborative endeavours.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

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

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’