Emotional Repertoires: Translanguaging and the psychological costs of internalized whiteness

• In Event: Disrupting the Language of Power: Translanguaging, Whiteness, and Educational Futures

Abstract

Objectives:

This paper examines how translanguaging functions not just as an instructional tool but as a form of transnational resistance to whiteness as it manifests through dominant academic English norms. We ask: In what ways does the praxis of translanguaging intersect, commingle, and/or resist whiteness as a colonial project? Our aim is to conceptualize transnational code refusal, a framework describing how multilingual students assert epistemic agency and resist racialized linguistic demands within global educational systems. By theorizing these acts of refusal, we contribute to teacher education scholarship that seeks to dismantle white language ideologies and support pedagogies of linguistic justice.

Theoretical Perspective(s):

This paper is grounded in raciolinguistic theory (Alim, Rickford, & Ball, 2016), which examines how language ideologies uphold racial hierarchies in education. We also apply Critical Race Hermeneutics (CRH) (Allen, 2021), a communication-based framework that critiques how white supremacy distorts meaning-making in discourse. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s (2007) notion of whiteness as orientation, we theorize translanguaging as an embodied refusal to move toward whiteness. We also engage the emotionality of whiteness (Matias, 2016; Matias & Zembylas, 2014) to interrogate how academic English demands emotional and linguistic assimilation from racialized students.

Methods/Modes of Inquiry:

As a theoretical contribution, this paper does not rely on original empirical data collection but engages in close analysis of published counterstories and discourse examples. Using Critical Race Hermeneutics, we analyze narrative vignettes from Ali & Salam-Salmaoui (2024) and de los Rios & Seltzer (2017) to explore how racialized multilingual students resist the colonial fiction of standardized English. CRH allows us to examine how language functions as racialized violence and how students’ translanguaging practices become sites of counterhegemonic meaning-making.

Scholarly Significance:

This paper contributes to the growing body of literature that reimagines translanguaging beyond instructional efficacy, reframing it as a decolonial and affective praxis rooted in resistance to white language supremacy. By introducing transnational code refusal, we advance the discourse on linguistic justice in teacher education and transnational academic contexts. Our work encourages educators and researchers to recognize multilingual students' practices as forms of epistemic authority and challenges the racialized gatekeeping embedded in academic language norms.

Connection to Conference Theme:

This paper directly engages with the conference theme by unforgetting the colonial and racialized histories embedded in academic English and the global prestige economy of whiteness it sustains. We expose how white listening subjects evaluate linguistic “proficiency” based not just on grammar, but on racialized perceptions of tone, appearance, and identity. At the same time, we imagine new futures where translanguaging becomes a critical, embodied praxis for asserting legitimacy and reorienting education toward transnational linguistic justice. In doing so, we construct a vision of education research that centers resistance, affect, and equity.

Authors

• Nallely Gecik, University of San Diego

• Jennifer A. Chabriel-Amara, University of San Diego

• Cheryl E. Matias, University of San Diego