Translanguaging and Multimodal Composition: Processes, Products, and Perspectives

• In Event: New Pathways in Multimodal and Multilingual Learning: Moving Beyond Normative Practices

Abstract

Purpose
For emergent bilingual students (EBs), multimodal composing practices—or the use of images, sounds and other modes–can foster multilingual identity expression and agency (Ajayi, 2015; Honeyford, 2013), engagement with social justice (de los Ríos, 2020) and students’ language and content learning. To understand how EBs engage in multimodal composing, we ask:
How do EBs leverage linguistic resources in their multimodal products?
How do EBs use linguistic resources during composing processes?

Theoretical framework
We use social semiotics (Kress, 2010) and translanguaging theory (García, 2009) to examine multimodal composition. Multimodality entails communicating through semiotic modes (e.g., image, sound, text) that are shaped by sociocultural factors (van Leeuwen, 2004) specific to composer, audience, genre, and purpose. We hold that translanguaging is an inherently multimodal process as one traverses their semiotic repertoire. In positioning multimodal composition as translanguaging, we seek to understand how students’ linguistic resources interact with their other semiotic resources and shape composing processes and products.

Methods & Data Sources
We explore our research questions through a systematic review (Risko et al., 2008). Inclusion criteria comprised peer-reviewed journal articles published until 2020, focusing on adolescent EBs (ages 11-19) in schools. 5,917 articles were reviewed at the abstract level. A subset of 246 articles were screened at the full-text level. 74 studies met inclusion criteria, of which 35 discussed the use of linguistic resources. To analyze these 35 studies, we applied an iterative analytic approach (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). Two authors coded ten studies to generate overarching themes. During axial coding, they applied six initial codes independently and then discussed and resolved discrepancies. They tested for inter-rater reliability (90%) and outlying discrepancies were resolved. In the final step, the third and fourth authors analyzed the remaining studies with the final codes.

Findings
During the composing process, EBs used varied linguistic resources to access information and use it for composing (47% of studies), collaborate with classmates (34% of studies), or engage with multilinguals outside the classroom (31%). This supported EBs in sharing their expertise in English and other languages (Lantz-Anderrson et al., 2016) and investigating language use in their everyday lives (D’warte, 2014).

Within the multimodal products, EBs leveraged linguistic resources in languages other than English to express identities (74% of studies) as competent composers (Cummins et al., 2015; Lotherington, 2010) and multilingual speakers (Honeyford, 2013). Additionally, varied linguistic resources helped to provide nuance and augment meaning within multimodal products (34%) and helped to engage multiple audiences in different times and spaces (23%) including local audiences (Cummins, 2015), immigrant audiences (Danzak, 2011), and younger students (Honeyford, 2013).

Scholarly Significance
The findings from this systematic review illustrate how multimodal composing provides opportunities to strengthen students’ knowledge about language and translingual competence, or understanding of varied resources and awareness of these resources’ relationships to a communicative situation (Canagarajah, 2014). Our review demonstrates how, when designing for audiences beyond the classroom, encouraging translanguaging can build a writing community shaped by the composer and their community (Graham, 2018).

Authors

• Mark B. Pacheco, University of Florida
  Presenting Author

• Blaine E. Smith, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author

• Natalie Amgott, Carnegie Mellon University
  Presenting Author

• Amber Deig, University of Florida
  Presenting Author