Translanguaging and Trans-Semiotizing for Designing Scaffolding in Content and Language Integrated Learning

• In Event: Translanguaging, Trans-Semiotizing, and Social Semiotic Rehabituation in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education

Abstract

In this article, the significance of translanguaging and trans-semiotizing in facilitating Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) are examined in secondary schools in Hong Kong. Classroom interaction data were collected to analyse the classroom processes in English-medium Integrated Humanities classrooms. Discourse analysis shows that translanguaging and trans-semiotizing naturally emerge in the dynamics of feeling-meaning making and the teacher and students have challenged the dominance of English via orchestrating Cantonese and English, formal and social languages and physical items in the immediate environment. It is therefore suggested that translanguaging and trans-semiotizing should not only be seen as a spontaneous, naturally occurring process but can also be incorporated in multilingual CLIL classrooms as planned systematic scaffolding.

Author

• Yiqi Liu, The Education University of Hong Kong