An Integrative Review of Translanguaging Scholarship: Unsettling Colonial Perspectives and Raciolinguistic Ideologies in Educational Research

• In Event: Critical American Language Praxis: Teaching, Navigating, and Resisting Global English

Abstract

The final paper draws together the conceptual threads of the symposium to further contextualize the studies within the context of decolonial and translanguaging theory. In recent years, researchers have become increasingly interested in investigating the benefits of translanguaging practices for promoting language acquisition and content learning, but also for affirming language identity. In discussions of the value of translanguaging practices, a controversial issue has been whether languages should be kept separated in the classroom to avoid confusion and allow students to focus on developing the target language. On the one hand, critics of translanguaging practices argue that students’ languages develop separately, insisting that there is an L1 and an L2. On the other hand, some argue that translanguaging is a way of understanding and using the full linguistic repertoire of bi/multilinguals to promote language and content learning, and it is an equitable and liberatory practice conducive to social justice. The integration of translanguaging practices into the classroom has been accompanied by challenges; some claim that even if teachers wanted to incorporate translanguaging practices in their lessons, current school policies urge against using students’ full language repertoire for language and content learning.
From this perspective, there are other fundamental issues that interfere with the implementation of translanguaging practices at schools, namely existing raciolinguistic ideologies deriving from a persistent colonial mentality or coloniality that reinforces racial stereotypes and diminishes students’ rich linguistic heritage to their detriment. The ultimate aim of this article is to systematically review and outline the conceptual and empirical contributions of existing literature centered on translanguaging, addressing, in particular, the raciolinguistic ideologies that impede their full implementation. We examine how decolonial theory and its analytical concepts inform the literature in terms of curriculum, pedagogy, theory, and methodology. We put each of the preceding papers into conversation with the concepts reviewed in this paper with the purpose of bridging the justice-oriented projects of translanguaging and decoloniality with theories, approaches, and frameworks for language teacher preparation in the Americas.

Authors

• Aixa Avila Mendoza, Texas Tech University

• Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores, Texas Tech University

• Arun Ramasubramanian

• Karina O. De Paula, Texas Tech University