A Multilingual Perspective on Translanguaging. (February 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: MacSwan, Jeff
• Is Part Of: American educational research journal. Volume 54:Number 1(2017:Feb.)
• Page Start: 167
• Page End: 201
• Publication Date: 2017-02
• Subjects: bilingual/bicultural -- cognition -- Latino/a -- Hispanic -- sociolinguistics -- textual analysis; Education -- United States -- Periodicals; Education -- Research -- United States -- Periodicals; 370.97305
• DOI: 10.3102/0002831216683935
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-8312

Abstract

Translanguaging is a new term in bilingual education; it supports a heteroglossic language ideology, which views bilingualism as valuable in its own right. Some translanguaging scholars have questioned the existence of discrete languages, further concluding that multilingualism does not exist. I argue that the political use of language names can and should be distinguished from the social and structural idealizations used to study linguistic diversity, favoring what I call an integrated multilingual model of individual bilingualism, contrasted with the unitary model and dual competence model. I further distinguish grammars from linguistic repertoires, arguing that bilinguals, like monolinguals, have a single linguistic repertoire but a richly diverse mental grammar. I call the viewpoint developed here a multilingual perspective on translanguaging.