“Please, Not Translanguaging Again. I Hate That Word”: Examining Educators’ Resistance to Translanguaging Discourse

• In Event: Translanguaging Across Educational Settings: Affordances and Tensions

Abstract

Translanguaging (TL) theory has garnered attention in educational linguistics research, challenging traditional beliefs about language separation and linguistic diversity in instruction. This study investigated why educators supporting multilingualism resist TL’s call for linguistic fluidity in pedagogical design. Findings suggest novice and seasoned teachers hesitate to support TL based on educational context, politics, and power struggles shaping language discourse as an institutional object. Participants also expressed concerns about TL as an expression of elite multilingualism that researchers impose as an aesthetic regime, which is canceled by schools’ testing and monolingual policies. This presentation concludes with some notes about the role context plays in the phenomenality of heteroglossic pedagogies in mainstream classrooms.

Authors

• Sandro Barros, Michigan State University

• Kasun Gajasinghe, Michigan State University