New Perspectives on Translanguaging and Education 9781783097821

Table of contents :
Contents
Contributors
1. Translanguaging as an Everyday Practice
2. Perspectives on Translanguaging in Education
3. Translanguaging and Ideology: Moving Away from a Monolingual Norm
4. Spaces for Translanguaging in Swedish Education Policy
5. Multilingual Young People as Writers in a Global Age
6. Pedagogies to Challenge Monolingual Orientations to Bilingual Education in the United States
7. Translanguaging and Social Justice: The Case of Education for Immigrants who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
8. From Silencing to Translanguaging: Turning the Tide to Support Emergent Bilinguals in Transition from Home to Pre-school
9. Translanguaging Space and Spaces for Translanguaging: A Case Study of a Finnish-language Pre-school in Sweden
10. Unravelling Translanguaging: The Potential of Translanguaging as a Scaffold among Teachers and Pupils in Superdiverse Classrooms in Flemish Education
11. Negotiating Concepts and the Role of Translanguaging
12. Agency and Affordance in Translanguaging for Learning: Case Studies from English-medium Instruction in Swedish Schools
13. Ideology Versus Practice: Is There a Space for Pedagogical Translanguaging in Mother Tongue Instruction?
14. Epilogue
Index

Citation preview

New Perspectives on Translanguaging and Education

BILINGUAL EDUCATION & BILINGUALISM Series Editors: Nancy H. Hornberger, University of Pennsylvania, USA and Wayne E. Wright, Purdue University, USA Bilingual Education and Bilingualism is an international, multidisciplinary series publishing research on the philosophy, politics, policy, provision and practice of language planning, Indigenous and minority language education, multilingualism, multiculturalism, biliteracy, bilingualism and bilingual education. The series aims to mirror current debates and discussions. New proposals for single-authored, multiple-authored or edited books in the series are warmly welcomed, in any of the following categories or others authors may propose: overview or introductory texts; course readers or general reference texts; focus books on particular multilingual education programme types; school-based case studies; national case studies; collected cases with a clear programmatic or conceptual theme; and professional education manuals. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

BILINGUAL EDUCATION & BILINGUALISM: 108

New Perspectives on Translanguaging and Education

Edited by BethAnne Paulsrud, Jenny Rosén, Boglárka Straszer and Åsa Wedin

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Blue Ridge Summit

DOI: 10.21832/PAULSR7814 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Paulsrud, BethAnne, editor. | Rosén, Jenny (Language teacher) editor. | Straszer, Boglárka, editor. | Wedin, Åsa, editor. Title: New Perspectives on Translanguaging and Education/Edited by BethAnne Paulsrud, Jenny Rosén, Boglárka Straszer and Åsa Wedin. Description: Bristol; Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters, [2017] | Series: Bilingual Education and Bilingualism: 108 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016054519| ISBN 9781783097814 (hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781783097807 (pbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781783097845 (kindle) Subjects: LCSH: Language transfer (Language learning) | Education, Bilingual. | Language and languages—Study and teaching (Higher education) | Languages in contact. | Multilingualism. Classification: LCC P118.25 .N59 2017 | DDC 418/.02071—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016054519 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78309-781-4 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-78309-780-7 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK. USA: NBN, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2017 BethAnne Paulsrud, Jenny Rosén, Boglárka Straszer, Åsa Wedin and authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Nova Techset Private Limited, Bengaluru and Chennai, India. Printed and bound in the UK by Short Run Press Ltd. Printed and bound in the US by Edwards Brothers Malloy, Inc.

Contents

Contributors

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1

Translanguaging as an Everyday Practice Angela Creese

2

Perspectives on Translanguaging in Education BethAnne Paulsrud, Jenny Rosén, Boglárka Straszer and Åsa Wedin

3

Translanguaging and Ideology: Moving Away from a Monolingual Norm Carla Jonsson

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Spaces for Translanguaging in Swedish Education Policy Jenny Rosén

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Multilingual Young People as Writers in a Global Age Joke Dewilde

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Pedagogies to Challenge Monolingual Orientations to Bilingual Education in the United States Susan Hopewell

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Translanguaging and Social Justice: The Case of Education for Immigrants who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing Karin Allard and Åsa Wedin

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From Silencing to Translanguaging: Turning the Tide to Support Emergent Bilinguals in Transition from Home to Pre-school Latisha Mary and Andrea S. Young

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1 10

20

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New Perspec t ives on Transl anguaging and Educat ion

Translanguaging Space and Spaces for Translanguaging: A Case Study of a Finnish-language Pre-school in Sweden Boglárka Straszer

10 Unravelling Translanguaging: The Potential of Translanguaging as a Scaffold among Teachers and Pupils in Superdiverse Classrooms in Flemish Education Kirsten Rosiers 11 Negotiating Concepts and the Role of Translanguaging Anna Slotte and Maria Ahlholm 12 Agency and Affordance in Translanguaging for Learning: Case Studies from English-medium Instruction in Swedish Schools Jeanette Toth and BethAnne Paulsrud 13 Ideology Versus Practice: Is There a Space for Pedagogical Translanguaging in Mother Tongue Instruction? Natalia Ganuza and Christina Hedman 14 Epilogue BethAnne Paulsrud, Jenny Rosén, Boglárka Straszer and Åsa Wedin Index

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148 170

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208 226 231

Contributors

Maria Ahlholm PhD (Docent), is a university lecturer in the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is a teacher trainer, training teachers of Finnish as a second language. Dr Ahlholm’s ongoing research focuses on newly immigrated children’s second language learning. Karin Allard, a senior lecturer with a PhD in education, teaches at the University of Örebro, Sweden, in the advanced level of the teacher training programme and in special education. Her research interests include multilingualism and translanguaging as pedagogical tools in special schools for the Deaf and hearing impaired. Angela Creese is Professor of Educational Linguistics at the School of Education, University of Birmingham. She is a researcher in the fields of sociolinguistics, multilingualism and linguistic ethnography, and currently leads the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project, ‘Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities’ (TLANG). Joke Dewilde is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oslo, investigating recently arrived young people as writers inside and outside school. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at Hedmark University of Applied Sciences. Her research interests include bilingual teachers, linguistic ethnography and sociolinguistics in educational settings. Natalia Ganuza is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University. Her research interests include urban multilingualism, sociolinguistics and educational perspectives on multilingualism. Dr Ganuza is active in the project ‘The Role of Mother Tongue Instruction for the Biliteracy Development of Somali-Swedish Speaking Students’ (with Dr Hedman). vii

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Christina Hedman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Language Education, Stockholm University. Her current research interests encompass educational perspectives on biliteracy development including the role of mother tongue instruction (with Dr Ganuza), as well as literacy practices in minority languages outside formal school contexts. Susan Hopewell is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado. She is interested in issues of language, culture, equity and identity for elementary-aged bilingual children. Dr Hopewell has 12 years of experience as a teacher and literacy coach in bilingual elementary schools. Carla Jonsson is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University. Her research interests include multilingualism in education and in the workplace, minority languages, and translanguaging. Dr Jonsson currently works with the research project ‘Professional Communication and Digital Media: Complexity, Mobility and Multilingualism in the Global Workplace’. Latisha Mary has worked in the area of language and teacher education in France since 2001. Currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Education (ESPE), University of Lorraine, her research interests include teacher education for the support of second language acquisition, bi/plurilingual education and teacher self-efficacy and agency. BethAnne Paulsrud is an Assistant Professor of English at Dalarna University. She is currently on leave for a postdoctoral researcher position at the Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University, investigating multilingualism and interculturality in Swedish education. Dr Paulsrud’s research interests include linguistic ethnography, English-medium instruction, language policy and multilingualism. Jenny Rosén is an Assistant Professor of Language Education at Stockholm University and a postdoctoral researcher at Dalarna University. Her research interests include language, diversity and identity in educational settings and linguistic ethnography. Her current research projects involve mother tongue tuition and study guidance for newly arrived students. Kirsten Rosiers is a postdoctoral researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. As a former teacher, she is interested in teacher–pupil interaction. Her research focuses on multilingual classrooms in Belgian cities. In her PhD project, she investigated how pupils and teachers in multilingual classrooms engage interactionally with their linguistic repertoire.

Contr ibutors

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Anna Slotte is an Associate Professor and lecturer in teacher education at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research concerns learning and identity in multilingual settings inside and outside school, mostly with the use of video recordings. She is engaged in many research and development projects in multilingual practices. Boglárka Straszer is an Assistant Professor of Swedish as a Second Language at Dalarna University, with 20 years of experience teaching foreign languages, second languages, mother tongue and sociolinguistics. Her research interests include the sociology of language, linguistic ethnography, language identity and attitudes, and education in immigrant and minority language settings. Jeanette Toth is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Language Education at Stockholm University. Her research interests include bilingual education, multilingualism and second language acquisition, currently focusing on the policies, practices and perspectives of English-medium instruction for young learners in Sweden. Åsa Wedin holds a PhD in bilingualism and is a Professor in Educational Work at Dalarna University, Sweden. Her main research interests lie in multilingual education and literacy. She has worked in teacher education for many years and her publications include books for teacher education as well as research articles in the field. Andrea Young has worked as a lecturer/researcher in language education at the School of Education (ESPE), University of Strasbourg since 1998. Her research and teaching interests include teacher education for the support of second language acquisition, building educational partnerships between home and school, bi/plurilingual literacy, teacher language awareness and intercultural education.

1

Translanguaging as an Everyday Practice Angela Creese

Introduction The immense potential of the concept ‘translanguaging’ becomes strikingly apparent in reading the chapters of this book. Twelve individual studies provide rich empirical detail documenting translanguaging in various educational contexts, across national boundaries. Chapters bring to life teachers and students negotiating the difficult terrain of language ideologies and everyday communicative practices in teaching and learning contexts. The collection makes a significant contribution to scholarship on translanguaging and seeks epistemological overlaps to juxtapose indigeneity and homogeneity with superdiversity and heterogeneity. The authors persuasively argue that categories such as migrants, multilingual youth, national minority language speakers, Deaf children and foreign language learners are varied and complex, and with such diversity comes the need for a responsive pedagogy. Chapters consider the potential for translanguaging to deliver on this key objective. Below I summarize the richness of the individual chapters and highlight features that resonate in terms of their originality and significance. In the final section of this chapter I make some summary comments.

Translanguaging as Pedagogy The first chapter, by Paulsrud, Rosén, Straszer and Wedin, makes the argument that we need to move beyond the context of English-dominant educational environments to better understand the potentials and pitfalls of translanguaging in terms of both theory and practice. They suggest we expand our interest in language ecologies beyond North America and Great Britain. In their introduction we are introduced to key definitions and objectives which point forward to the rich variety of contexts, interpretations and understandings presented in the upcoming individual chapters. 1

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Jonsson, in her chapter, presents a clear argument for translanguaging in the everyday lives of multilingual people, across contexts and between classmates, friends and family. Drawing on García (2009), she describes translanguaging as a mode of choice for bilinguals. In her chapter, which explores the ideological implications of a translanguaging framework, a connection is made to the sociolinguistics of mobility with its orientation to languages-in-motion rather than language-in-place. Jonsson asks us to consider the relevance of translanguaging as a concept beyond the confines of education and consider its relevance in wider society. Drawing on recent sociolinguistic research, she describes language as an activity rather than a structure and explores the concepts of languaging and repertoire as means of countering ideologies of homogeneity. She discusses the importance of retaining the multiple voices of social diversity. In Rosén’s chapter, the focus is on the school as a social system which through its curriculum sets out to deliver on core functions such as qualification, socialization and subjectification (Biesta, 2006). Through a translanguaging lens, Rosén documents the hierarchizing of languages in the curriculum by taking us through how language-focused subjects (Swedish, Swedish as an additional language, English, ‘modern languages’, ‘mothertongue’ and sign language) are constructed differently in the system in relation to the others and what the consequences are for the young people learning them. Whereas Swedish, English and other modern languages are presented as countable units with political and economic value, mother tongue instruction tends to be focused on the individual and identity, feelings and communication across generations. Translanguaging is presented as means to challenge some of these hierarchizing demarcations. The chapter by Dewilde documents the literacy practices of a successful multilingual student in a Norwegian upper secondary school. Bahar, originally from Afghanistan and born into a Dari-speaking family, moved to Norway at the beginning of her teens. Using the concepts of transnational and translanguaging space, Bahar is presented as a creative and highly successful writer who achieves this through drawing on a biography shaped by migration, mobility and the movement of people. From this trajectory Bahar produces a creative literary effect which, Dewilde argues, illustrates a ‘disposition to difference’. This is exemplified in the analysis of a poem written by Bahar with peers. The poem’s central character is cast as multilingual and dialogic, and made to recite multilingual verse in the telling of the narrative. In a later interview Bahar describes how she grew up with poetry, which she describes as ‘fairly common in Afghan and Persian novels’. She also recalls her grandfather telling her stories and helping her with her homework. These histories created Bahar’s writer identity and added to her success in school. Overall Dewilde shows how pupils use translanguaging strategically as a rhetorical choice for literary effect. Hopewell’s chapter provides a historical context to the educational policy debates of the United States and argues convincingly that discussions about

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the language of instruction should be moved to more fruitful and pragmatic discussions of pedagogies of bilingual instruction. She presents a case study in which a teacher and her students intentionally and explicitly challenged the ‘typical’ bilingual education mandate to keep languages strictly separated. This was achieved through a translanguaging approach which Hopewell shows had the potential to accelerate academic achievement. Her data consist of video-recordings which were analyzed in relation to two specific educational projects: thematic literacy boards and a home–school literary project. Hopewell argues that translanguaging is a strategy which is ‘humanizing’, sustaining and cultivates dignity and humanity’ and constitutes ‘a pocket of hope’. The next chapter by Allard and Wedin considers the possibilities of translanguaging for a different group of school children – those who are migrants and deaf or hard of hearing. The complexity of learning subject content and languages for Deaf children who have migrated to Sweden and are learning Swedish sign language and Swedish is described through the detail of a one particular case study – that of Emir, originally from Kosovo. The authors argue that Deaf multilingualism is more complex and varied than spoken bilingualism because of the simultaneity of media and modalities. For example, language and content learning for the Deaf child must move beyond oracy and literacy to signacy as well as across different languages. Translanguaging is presented as particularly appropriate because it challenges the traditional perceptions of language as discrete entities which in the case of deaf communication cannot be maintained when the complexity of different media and modalities are in play. Through in-depth listening to and analysis of Emir’s narratives, an argument is made that translanguaging broadens educational opportunity. Emir experienced schooling in Sweden positively because of his teacher’s ability to acknowledge his existing competence as a sign user. Her interest in his already extensive semiotic repertoire allowed him to adapt and learn. Mary and Young’s chapter takes us to Eastern France where translanguaging is used as both as a theoretical and an analytical tool in the study of young learners from a diversity of backgrounds. The authors focus on translanguaging as a pedagogic tool to make meaning, as well as the power of teachers as initiators of multilingual policies and practice. Preferring the emphasis on meaning-making in Baker’s (2011) definition of translanguaging over García’s (2009) orientation to the bilingualism of ‘multiple discursive practices’, the chapter focuses on Sylvie’s readiness to challenge orthodoxies of language separation to meet her students’ needs. Through the power of six Turkish words, Sylvie serves as a ‘translanguaging lynchpin’ to make connections between and transfer across languages to make meaning. Despite the teachers’ limited knowledge of Turkish, her willingness to learn from the children themselves showed she valued them and their linguistic and cultural resources.

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In Straszer’s chapter, consideration is given to how translanguaging contributes to producing safe spaces for the education of national minority language students. In a Finnish pre-school in Sweden we are presented with a careful analysis of the pre-school’s physical environment with its pictures, photographs and signs. These visual images are analyzed for their rich and diverse meanings in relation to translanguaging and what they might say about the visibility and salience of languages. Straszer uses the concept of translanguaging space (Li Wei, 2011) to understand how rules of interaction and interpretation are created. The concept of space is crucial in this chapter because the Finnish pre-school is in a building which also houses a Swedish pre-school. How different languages are documented in different spaces around the school is described. While Finnish is used almost exclusively in the Finnish section of the pre-school building, translanguaging serves an important symbolic function in the shared pre-school environment as a whole. The chapter is interesting in the way space is demarcated and opened up by different orientations to different languages. Rosiers describes how in the superdiverse setting of Belgium schools multilingualism and heterogeneity are daily practices which must coexist with monolingual policies and ideologies of homogeneity. Belgium’s education policy, like that of many countries in Europe, views linguistic diversity as ‘hindering’ the learning of the majority language rather than supporting it. Rosiers cites previous research which shows that teachers who translanguage, but who have not mastered all the languages present in the classroom, can create learner-centred environments that benefit the child. She argues for an understanding of how the micro context of interaction in the learning environments can be worked into pedagogies. This can be achieved through adopting a sociolinguistic view of translanguaging which is fundamentally interactional and, accordingly, can empower the teachers to engage in pedagogic scaffolding. Rosiers data come from two Belgium classrooms, one in Ghent and the other in Brussels. Both research sites focus on studying fourth grade 9–10 year olds in primary education. The author’s focus is pedagogic scaffolding and she shows how translanguaging is patterned along a continuum or graduation. She shows that this happens most effectively in peer frames when the interactional dynamics produce a change in footing which create supportive movement in the repertoire. Slotte and Ahlholm describe how translanguaging can be used in negotiating concepts which the students are learning. They understand concept formation not as static Saussurean dictionary definitions but as a process that develops information into a lexical unit. They view the conceptual lexical unit as a ‘small narrative’. The authors suggest that understanding the narrative structure of a concept reveals the way we learn, and they argue that translanguaging plays a crucial role in developing conceptual thinking. This chapter investigates a bilingual summer camp in Finland, predominantly set

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up for Swedish speaking young people. The summer camp teachers had attended a course on multilingual pedagogy. Overall they found that translanguaging extended and deepened the concepts about ‘Nature’ which they were studying. It also facilitated metalinguistic awareness. Of particular interest was the use of repetition and overlaps which the authors suggest fulfils two purposes: it ensures understanding and emphasizes important concepts. Translanguaging produced ‘a gliding pattern’ of two steps forward and one backward which gave space to the children to participate. They found that translanguaging allowed everyone to engage in and understand at least some part of the discussion. Toth and Paulsrud write about translanguaging in English-medium instruction (EMI) in primary and upper secondary schools in Sweden. They highlight two features of translanguaging – comprehension and communication. The authors focus on language choice in EMI content lessons and their interest is in how such choices facilitate content learning in an environment where teachers and learners have varying access to English and Swedish. Overall, they argue that students do not benefit from a strictly implemented English-only policy. The chapter compares Peter’s classroom with Sam’s classroom and finds two different language ecologies. While Peter does not speak Swedish, Sam does. In Peter’s class translanguaging functions as a mediating tool between the non-Swedish speaking teacher and the emergent bilingual students. It happens in an ad hoc way as the students speak with one another using ‘collective scaffolding’ to check their understanding of Peter’s input in English. In Sam’s classroom the teacher exercises agency over language choice, drawing on his bilingualism in a wider range of teaching and learning activities. The importance of Swedish in these EMI contexts for learning subject content and keeping future educational pathways open is persuasively argued. Ganuza and Hedman’s chapter challenges us to consider what is and what is not translanguaging in educational contexts. They present a persuasive argument that if translanguaging is to be useful for teachers and school systems, we must also determine what translanguaging is not. The authors argue that translanguaging should be used to describe deliberate planning where teachers aim to make the most of students’ repertoires rather than simply as a ‘fall-back’ position. Their study focused on mother tongue (MT) teachers in compulsory education and found that MT teachers upheld ideologies that the MT classroom should be a ‘MT only space’. The teachers believed the use of Swedish within their classrooms was ‘sloppy’ practice and should only be used as ‘a necessity’. This view was replicated by other teachers in the school who reprimanded young people for using languages other than Swedish in the hallways and lunch rooms. Ganuza and Hedman showed that language monitoring was a common feature across various school contexts, with teachers encouraging students to keep their languages separate and demarcated.

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Conclusions Pedagogy is of course an ideologically informed social practice. In our work on complementary schools (Blackledge & Creese, 2010) we have described how separate bilingualism and flexible bilingualism operate simultaneously in the classrooms, shifting rapidly depending on the activity in play, the questions being asked, and the social structures and hierarchies at stake. Whereas separate bilingualism is often evoked at times where the minority language appears challenged or under threat, flexible bilingualism is put into practice where speakers are concerned with the usual, mundane and often unnoticed classroom practices of teaching and learning. For many years now we have known that interactive processes shape the judgements and decisions made in school classrooms and, as Gumperz puts it, these ‘affect what knowledge is passed on from one generation to the next’ (Gumperz, 1986: 52). Classrooms, like any other institutional context, are fundamentally social spaces, and as sociolinguists our interest has been in the communication processes of our key participants at school, leisure and home and what these can tell us about people, relationships, networks, communities and society. One highly salient socializing feature in complementary schools is the conceptualization of multilingualism as a normal and everyday practice – a feature of institutional life in England which is rather uncommon. Thus, while ideological perspectives on language are continually contested by teachers and young people in complementary schools, they are environments which support a multilingual language ecology. Evidence collected over 15 years of research in complementary schools (Creese & Blackledge, 2015) shows that British bilingual teachers challenge the ‘two solitudes’ (Cummins, 2008), ‘parallel monolingualism’ (Heller, 1999) or ‘two monolinguals in one body’ (Gravelle, 1996) ideology. We found that much more common was ‘languaging’ practice which drew on the participants’ ‘trans’-national migratory backgrounds and ‘trans’ + ‘lation’ (translation) capabilities to make meaning across language boundaries. Through our detailed empirical ethnographies we observed that what counted as a language for teachers and young people was not easily definable, and that this could not be determined by the linguists’ notion of code but must emically be defined in participants’ practices and perspectives (Auer, 2005). García (2009: 5) puts this clearly and powerfully when she argues, ‘Bilingualism is not simply two separate monolingual codes, nor are languages bounded autonomous systems’. This reconceptualization of bilingualism as heteroglossic (Bahktin, 1981; Blackledge & Creese, 2014), teeming with signs from here, there and everywhere rather than straightforwardly language A plus language B, has begun to unsettle entrenched beliefs in education that languages should be kept separate in teaching and learning. The threat of ‘cross-contamination’ (Jacobson & Faltis, 1990: 4) long held in

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bilingual classrooms and various other language teaching contexts is giving way to more sophisticated equations and images, including the replacement of the bicycle metaphor with García’s all-purpose multi-terrain, multi-directional space vehicle. This has led to practices emphatically condemned in the multilingual classroom such as repetition, parallelism and concurrency getting a new lease of life. In this concluding note, I want to return to the importance of sociolinguistics in discussions of pedagogy, teaching and learning, as indeed several of the authors in this collection do. In particular I will refer to the work of Deborah Tannen ([1989] 2007), whose scholarship on interaction has not focused on the classroom but rather on talk in families (2010) or relational dyads such as spouses (2006a), mothers and daughters (2006b) and sisters (2008). Tannen’s work is relevant in our discussion of translanguaging because she works with the concept of ‘involvement strategy’. Tannen ([1989] 2007: 27) defines involvement as ‘an achievement in conversational interaction’ in which speaking and listening include ‘elements and traces of the other’. Listening, in this view, is an active not a passive enterprise, requiring interpretation comparable to that required in speaking, and speaking entails simultaneously projecting the act of listening. In Bakhtin’s sense, all language use is dialogic. (Tannen, [1989] 2007: 27) The ecological relationship between speaker and listener is at the heart of her work on interaction. Over several decades Tannen has identified and described a number of linguistic analytic tools to describe how people involve others in ‘pervasive’ and ‘spontaneous’ ways (Tannen, 2006a: 600). Three primary strategies are identified as repetition, dialogue and detail (Tannen, [1989] 2007). While it is not possible to summarize each here, I will point to ‘repetition’ in particular because Tannen presents it as a discursive feature absolutely necessary for creating involvement in listener sense making. Repetition from Tannen’s perspective is far from redundant, but is a means of creating shared memory and group (family) identity. As several of the chapters in this collection point out, a translanguaging approach shows that repetition is an important tool in learning new concepts in relationships between young people and between staff and students. We have argued that translanguaging is an involvement strategy (Creese & Blackledge, 2017). Translanguaging is a strategy used by people in contexts of linguistic, social and cultural diversity through putting their multilingual resources to work for them in communication. García (2009) argues that translanguaging is a languaging reality, a way of being, acting and languaging in a different social, cultural and political context, allowing fluid discourses to flow, and giving voice to new social realities. Translanguaging

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refers to language practices that make visible the complexity of language exchanges among people with different histories, and releases histories and understandings that had been buried within fixed language identities constrained by nation-states. That is, translanguaging is the enactment of language practices that use different features that had previously been independently constrained by different histories, but that now are experienced in speakers’ interactions as one new whole. But fundamentally, translanguaging is a communication strategy for involving others and is particularly relevant in contexts of social and linguistic diversity, of mobility and change. Translanguaging is a way to seek connections where miscommunication threatens. It puts the relational before the linguistic, it foregrounds meaning rather than code, and understanding more than ‘correctness’. It is therefore hugely relevant in the classroom for pedagogy, but also in the break times when young people and colleagues engage in ‘banter’ and chat. However, beyond the classroom it is also hugely relevant because, as we are seeing in our new project on translanguaging in other city contexts (http://www. birmingham.ac.uk/generic/tlang/index.aspx), it happens in a busy city market, cosmopolitan corner shops, public libraries, community centres, advice and advocacy offices and sports clubs. In our societies which are undergoing rapid change through new technologies and massive mobility it may be that translanguaging can serve as a new way of conceptualizing encounters as people continue to learn to live with difference and change, making social and linguistic diversity a resource for communication.

References Baker, C. (2011) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (5th edn). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bakhtin, M.M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays. In M. Holquist (ed.) Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Biesta, G. (2006) Beyond Learning: Democratic Education for a Human Future. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010) Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective. London: Continuum. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2014) Heteroglossia as practice and pedagogy. In A. Blackledge and A. Creese (eds) Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy (pp. 1–20). London: Springer. Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2015) Translanguaging and identity in educational settings. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35, 20–35. Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2017) The ‘other woman’ in a mother and daughter relationship: The case of Mami Ji. Language in Society, 1–22. Cummins, J. (2008) Teaching for transfer: Challenging the two solitudes assumption in bilingual education. In J. Cummins and N.H. Hornberger (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Vol. 5: Bilingual Education (2nd edn) (pp. 65–75). Berlin: Springer Science + Business Media. Derrida, J. (1967/1998) Of Grammatology. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.

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García, O. (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. García, O. and Li Wei (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism, and Education. London: Palgrave. Gravelle, M. (1996) Supporting Bilingual Learners in Schools. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. Gumperz, J. (1986) Interactional sociolinguistics in the study of schooling. In J. CookGumperz (ed.) The Social Construction of Literacy (pp. 45–68). New York: Cambridge University Press. Heller, M. (1999) Linguistic Minorities and Modernity: A Sociolinguistic Ethnography. London and New York: Longman. Jacobson, R. and Faltis, C. (eds) (1990) Language Distribution Issues in Bilingual Schooling. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Li Wei (2011) Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5), 1222–1235. Tannen, D. (2006a) Intertextuality in interaction: Reframing family argument in public and private. Talk & Text 26, 597–617. Tannen, D. (2006b) You’re Wearing THAT? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation. London: Virago. Tannen, D. ([1989] 2007) Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tannen, D. (2008) ‘We’ve never been close, we’re very different’: Three narrative types in sister discourse. Narrative Inquiry 18, 206–229. Tannen, D. (2010) Abduction and identity in family interaction: Ventriloquizing as indirectness. Journal of Pragmatics 24, 307–316.

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Perspectives on Translanguaging in Education BethAnne Paulsrud, Jenny Rosén, Boglárka Straszer and Åsa Wedin

Translanguaging … and Turkish Pizza? In a pre-primary classroom located in France in an area with low socioeconomic status, the children, aged three to four, are playing with the teacher and pretending to make and serve food, including lahmacun, a type of Turkish pizza. Consider the following exchange recorded in the observation made by Mary and Young (Extract 2.1; note that the bold text in the English translation is in Turkish).

Extract 2.1: Making lahmacuns (2 September 2014) English translation

01 02

Teacher:

03 04 05 06

Child 1: Teacher: Child 2: Teacher:

07

08

Child 2:

Now let’s make a lahmacun. You like lahmacuns don’t you? Yes. They’re good. Me too! You like them too, lahmacuns. You know what they are? … Ok, look here. [Teacher holds the lahmacun out for the child]. Lahmacun … Lahmacun istiyorsun? (Do you want a lahmacun) Do you want a lahmaçun? [Shakes head no] 10

Original data (French and Turkish) Maintenant, on va faire une lahmacun. Tu aimes les lahmacuns ? Non ? Si C’est bon. Et moi! Toi, tu aimes ça, les lahmacuns. Tu connais ça ? … Allez, regarde. [Tend la lahmacun à l’enfant]. Lahmacun … Lahmacun istiyorsun ? [Lahmcuun … Tu veux une lahmacun.] Tu veux une lahmacun ? [Fait non de la tête]

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Teacher:

010 Child 1: 011 Teacher:

You don’t want one? Mmm, lahmacuns are good. [Takes a piece of plasticine]. And this? What’s this? Ekmek. (bread) Bread? Yum yum. Your bread is good.

11

Tu veux pas? Mmm, c’est bon les lahmacuns. [Prend le morceau de pâte] Et ça, qu’est-ce que c’est ? Ekmek. [Du pain] Du pain? Miam, miam. Il est bon ton pain.

In this interaction, which is further explored in Mary and Young’s study (Chapter 8, this volume), the teacher incorporates linguistic and cultural elements from the children’s previous experiences (from their homes, their communities, and more) into the activities in the school in order to encourage their participation. The talk about lahmacun, a type of pizza which is often eaten in Turkish families, taking place between the teacher and the children illustrates the core of translanguaging in education: the integration of all of the child’s resources for learning. Such approaches are related to key questions in schools concerning issues such as social justice, linguistic rights, identity and learning. In the current chapter, we present the possibilities of translanguaging as a pedagogy and as a theoretical lens when studying multilingual practices in educational settings, such as the one above, providing a rationale behind the current volume. This chapter first introduces the initial development of translanguaging as a concept, including early views of languaging practices in multilingual classrooms. This is followed by an exploration of the potential of the concept as an analytical tool and as a lens for understanding linguistic repertoires. The concept of translanguaging as a term is deconstructed, followed by a discussion on translanguaging in relation to multilingual education – including policy making, social justice and identity positions in minority settings. The chapter closes with a brief discussion about why the concept of translanguaging is still useful and necessary as a theoretical perspective in education research in relation to ideology and pedagogy.

From Language to Translanguaging in the Classroom Traditionally, both bilingualism and bilingual students have been perceived as problems to be addressed and corrected by the education system (Cummins, 2000; García, 2009; García & Kleifgen, 2010). Likewise, the focus has been on the alleged importance of keeping languages apart, with codeswitching perceived as a sign of language deficiency (Gafaranga, 2007). However, researchers such as Cummins (e.g. 1981, 2000) and Grosjean (1982) had already begun challenging such deficit perspectives in the 1980s while

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others such as Hornberger (2003) began legitimizing the processes of multilingual students’ language use in the classroom. These perspectives may be considered to be early glimpses of what has later become known as the multilingual turn (Conteh & Meier, 2014; May, 2014). In Cummins’s research on language use in the classroom, he brought to attention the benefits of students using all their linguistic resources. Cummins’ (1981) concept of the common underlying proficiency (CUP), focusing on interdependence between languages that allows for transfer of linguistic practices, indicated a growing awareness of the repertoires of multilingual individuals. He suggested that the language systems of bilingual individuals should not be understood as separate entities, but rather as united through CUP. To illustrate this, he used the image of an iceberg with two visible peaks, each representing the different languages that were united below the surface, thus forming one entity. The iceberg served as a metaphor indicating one unified set of linguistic resources, what may be known as an individual’s linguistic repertoire. A similar approach was developed by Grosjean (1982) who argued that bilinguals were not just simply two monolinguals in one. Rather, research should focus upon what individuals do with their languages instead of their competences in each different language. Hornberger also recognized the complexity of multilingualism in the classroom in her development of the model of the continua of biliteracy, a ‘framework [that] uses the notion of intersecting and nested continua to demonstrate the multiple and complex interrelationships between bilingualism and literacy and the importance of the contexts, media, and content through which biliteracy develops’ (Hornberger, 2003: xiv). The model offered a tool for critically analyzing the complex nexus of power relations in which biliteracy practices takes place. The work of Cummins, Grosjean, Hornberger and others, such as García (2009), have all challenged a monolingual bias and deficit perspective in the research on bilingualism in school practices, and thus their work encompasses many of the core issues of translanguaging – a term they did not create but nonetheless developed implicitly in their own research. The term translanguaging was initially coined in Welsh as trawsiethu by Williams (1994), for educational practices where students were asked to alternate between English and Welsh. It was translated to translanguaging by Baker (2011: 288). In the Welsh context, the advantages of translanguaging in educational settings became clear: (1) a promotion of a deeper and fuller understanding of the subject matter; (2) an aid in the development of the weaker language; (3) a facilitation of home–school links and cooperation; and (4) an integration of fluent speakers with early learners (Baker, 2011: 289–290).While these advantages were clearly seen in the early research in Welsh classrooms, they were also easily transferred to other contexts. Translanguaging as a concept thus expanded to refer both to complex language practices and to educational approaches involving these practices

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(Blackledge & Creese, 2010; Canagarajah, 2011; García, 2009; Lewis et al., 2012a, 2012b). New definitions and applications also emerged. Focusing on the US education context, García and Kano (2014) offer the following definition of translanguaging for the classroom: […] a process by which students and teachers engage in complex discursive practices that include all the language practices of students in order to develop new language practices and sustain old ones, communicate appropriate knowledge, and give voice to new sociopolitical realities by interrogating linguistic inequality. (García & Kano, 2014: 261) García (2009) paints a dynamic picture of bilingualism using the image of an all-terrain vehicle in order to visualize how individuals use their entire linguistic repertoire in uneven and unequal interactive terrains.

Translanguaging as Theory and Pedagogy Translanguaging as a concept is now clearly a part of the ongoing multilingual turn toward an understanding of language with a focus on how individuals use and live with and in languages, rather than of language as separate structures (e.g. Conteh & Meier, 2014; García, 2009; May, 2014; Torpsten et al., 2016). As such, the concept has continued to gain relevance in educational settings across the globe. As a theoretical concept it illuminates the communicative practices and processes in which students simultaneously draw on different language registers and codes. A dynamic understanding of language in education enables a recognition of the varied linguistic competences among students, in the forms not only of formal language use as is commonly recognized in classrooms, but also of language in forms such as play, styling, snippets of different languages, mesh resources and bricolage (Douglas Fir Group, 2015). From its origins focusing on pedagogical methods that include students’ entire linguistic repertoires, translanguaging has developed into a concept that offers new theoretical perspectives on languages, language use and language pedagogy. A deconstruction of the term enables an understanding of the theoretical foundation, as the combination of the two parts that make up the concept – trans + languaging – contributes to an understanding of people’s ‘ways with words’ (Heath, 1983). The first part of the concept, trans-, offers a lens that is transdisciplinary, combining sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives (García & Li Wei, 2014). It enables a study of ‘trans-spaces and trans-subjects capable of transforming subjectivities, social and cognitive structures and the sociopolitical order’ and thus has the potential to liberate the idea of ‘language and bilingualism from the societal constraints in which it has been held by

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monolingual and monoglossic ideologies’ (García & Li Wei, 2014: 136). This release of traditional understandings creates spaces for visible fluid practices between and beyond socially constructed languages. Both the transformative nature and the trans-disciplinary functions open for the construction of new educational structures, and in turn enable a focus on questions of empowerment, social justice and linguistic human rights. Finally, the transprefix emphasizes ‘the transdisciplinary consequences of re-conceptualizing language, language learning, and language use for linguistics, psychology, sociology, and education’ (Li Wei, 2016: 8). Going beyond disciplinary boundaries becomes essential in order to capture the complex processes of language and learning embedded in and transformative of social structures. The second part, languaging, was first used in the 1970s and defined by Mignolo as ‘thinking and writing between languages’ (Mignolo, 2000: 226). A development of languaging included other forms of communication such as oracy and signacy, expanding the earlier understanding of languaging to include the use of language to mediate cognitively complex ideas (see, for example, Swain, 2006). The shift from language to languaging captures the dynamics and complexity in people’s ways of using and being in language (Bagga-Gupta, 2012), highlighting ‘the simultaneous process of continuously becoming ourselves and of our language practices, as we interact and make meaning of the world’ (García & Li Wei, 2014: 8). This conceptualization enables a view of language as a mobile resource within social, cultural, historical and political contexts (Blommaert, 2010) and of language as an activity rather than a structure, of something that we do rather than material that we draw on (Pennycook, 2010). The focus on the agency of speakers and on language practices opens for a critique of nation-state language ideologies and for treating language as space for contesting dominant ideologies (Makoni & Pennycook, 2005, 2006). Although previous research emphasized linguistic stability and homogeneity, Mignolo (1996: 191), for example, had already noted in the 1990s that ‘border zones, diaspora and postcolonial relations are daily phenomena of contemporary life’. In response to changing realities, researchers acknowledge the roles of mobility, change and complexity in language use (Blackledge & Creese, 2014; Blommaert, 2010, 2013; Blommaert & Rampton, 2011) – all of which are relevant to educational contexts as well. Criticizing a monolingual bias, some have even argued that the idea of language in itself is a European construction, founded on the ideas of nationalism and colonialism (e.g. Auer & Li Wei, 2007; Gal, 2006; Makoni & Pennycook, 2005, 2006; Ortega, 2014), as illustrated below: Languages are not true linguistic entities because their boundaries are established on non-linguistic grounds. Rather, they are groupings of idiolects of people with shared social, political or ethnic identities hat, once so grouped, are described using linguistic terms that tend to give the

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mistaken impression that the grouping was based on linguistic grounds in the first place. (Otheguy et al., 2015: 291) Challenging traditional perceptions of languages as discrete, countable entities, the notion of translanguaging encompasses the simultaneous use of different kinds of linguistic forms, signs and modalities (Otheguy et al., 2015), with attention to how people make meaning and sense of their multilingual world and of who they are within it through ‘multiple discursive practices’ (García, 2009: 45). One of the key post-multilingual challenges highlighted by Li Wei (2016: 7) is ‘how to protect the identity and integrity of individual languages whilst recognizing and promoting the fluidity of linguistic diversity and contact between languages’. Questioning the idea of language as bounded and named does not automatically mean that such boundaries (although imagined) are not essential in the identity processes of individuals. Rather, researchers need to show sensitivity in order to understand how and why these constructed boundaries are essential in people’s lives and to critically analyze and highlight the power structures embedded in such constructs.

Translanguaging in Multilingual Education As seen in chapters in the present volume, inviting students’ whole linguistic repertoires into the classroom gives students opportunities to draw on their earlier knowledge and experiences in their developing of new knowledge in relation to different school subjects. According to Cummins (2000), this is a prerequisite for giving students with differing backgrounds possibilities for the necessary negotiation of identities and also for student engagement. As languages have meaning as embedded in social practices and conversations, Gee (2014) also emphasizes that communicative practices in classrooms should honour and allow for bridging across students’ and teachers’ multiple identities. Likewise, García and Li Wei acknowledge the role of translanguaging in relation to identity formation, seeing the process in ‘new language practices that make visible the complexity of language exchanges among people with different histories, and releases histories and understandings that had been buried within fixed language identities constrained by nation-states’ (García & Li Wei, 2014: 21, emphasis in original). In research in classrooms where students were invited to draw on their different linguistic resources by writing identity texts (Cummins & Early, 2011; Cummins et al., 2015), Wedin (2017) found that the inclusion of students’ different linguistic resources made relations between language and attitudes, ideologies and emotions visible. Students showed not only pride but also feelings of shame, and political ideologies regarding language choice among different groups came to light. The use of the students’ full linguistic repertoires also

16 New Perspec t ives on Transl anguaging and Educat ion

highlighted the different levels for language proficiency among the students that were visible to the teacher and increased the students’ linguistic curiosity. As highlighted above, translanguaging involves processes of transformation through the creation of spaces in which multilinguals can use and expand their linguistic repertoires and in which their experiences, identities and histories are acknowledged. The transformative aspect of translanguaging directs educators, policy makers and educational scholars to rethink how to organize education in ways that foster social justice, democracy and citizenship. Since language is related to power and to structures of dominance and opposition, translanguaging can offer ways to develop critical awareness among students and teachers, as both are consequently afforded a transformative potential – a potential that extends into education in general. Otheguy et al. (2015: 281) describe the concept of translanguaging as being ‘of special relevance to schools interested in the linguistic and intellectual growth of bilingual students as well as to minoritized communities involved in language maintenance and revitalization efforts’. While translanguaging may have developed mainly in relation to the field of bilingual education, the division between multilingual and mainstream education may no longer be beneficial. The theoretical and pedagogical dimensions of translanguaging involve all students and hence all teachers. As learning and languaging are deeply intertwined, all educators need a new theoretical and pedagogical foundation for how to approach their students. Translanguaging as pedagogy indicates that all students’ whole linguistic repertoires are invited, included, recognized and accepted in the learning act beyond a division into multilingual and monolingual students. To sum up, the transformative, empowering possibilities afforded by translanguaging are needed in this time of increased migration and globalization, as education systems are facing new challenges. Whereas the idea of languages as separate entities tied to specific geopolitical spaces and cultures has been questioned in current research in the field of multilingualism (e.g. Otheguy et al., 2015), most schools, especially in the Global North, are still providing schooling through the dominant language of the nation-state. Consequently, while most people live in and through multiple language varieties, they are deprived of these resources once they enter a formal educational arena. The idea of translanguaging has developed as a response to these changing social and linguistic realities in educational contexts. Moreover, translanguaging evokes questions about the skills used and needed for working as a teacher in the 21st century. Li Wei (2016: 2) aptly argues for the advantages of such a lens, noting the importance of ‘the recent advances of translanguaging as a theory of language and what it can contribute to the understanding of the Post-Multilingualism challenges that we face in the twenty-first century’. However, if national policies hold onto a monolingual norm, efforts by individual teachers will only become additional ordinary activities parallel to the ‘real monolingual schooling’.

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Conclusions The theme of the present chapter has been clear: the concept of translanguaging offers new perspectives on students’ and teachers’ language use in educational settings. But is it still necessary to study and develop translanguaging? We offer a resounding yes! Today, translanguaging is not ‘just’ about bilinguals or multilingual education, but an ideological and pedagogical shift for linguistic rights and social justice in education in an increasingly diverse world. Undoubtedly, ideology and pedagogy are not separate but intertwined. On an ideological level, translanguaging challenges the norms about how we understand and evaluate what language and languaging are. Such shifts also repaint linguistic maps of how we understand languages as tied to specific groups and nationstates (Mignolo, 1996). On a pedagogical level, the concept raises questions of how students’ language experiences and skills are recognized (or not) and supported in schools, and how teachers should organize learning environments that create opportunities for students to build upon and expand their linguistic repertoires. Extending discussions on translanguaging from sociocultural and sociopolitical contextualization, this volume returns to the origins of the term as effective pedagogy, understandings of curriculum content, effective classroom learning, raising achievements in school and social justice. We are just at the beginning of deconstructing and redefining relations between language use, learning and identities in educational arenas characterized by diversity and mobility. The different contributions in this volume take on this challenge as they empirically and theoretically explore the potential of translanguaging in today’s educational settings.

References Auer, P. and Li Wei (2007) Introduction: Multilingualism as a problem? Monolingualism as a problem? In P. Auer and Li Wei (eds) Handbook of Multilingualism and Multilingual Communication (pp. 1–12). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Bagga-Gupta, S. (2012) Privileging identity positions and multimodal communication in textual practices. Intersectionality and the (re)negotiation of boundaries. In A. Pitkänen-Huhta and L. Holm (eds) Literacy Practices Transition: Perspectives from the Nordic Countries (pp. 75–100). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Baker, C. (2011) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (5th edn). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010) Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective. London: Continuum. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2014) Heteroglossia as practice and pedagogy. In A. Blackledge and A. Creese (eds) Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy (pp. 1–20). New York: Springer. Blommaert, J. (2010) The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blommaert, J. (2013) Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

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Blommaert, J. and Rampton, B. (2011) Language and superdiversity. Diversities 13 (2), 1–21. Canagarajah, S. (2011) Translanguaging in the classroom: Emerging issues for research and pedagogy. Applied Linguistics Review 2, 1–28. Conteh, J. and Meier, G. (eds) (2014) The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (1981) Bilingualism and Minority Language Children. Toronto, Ont.: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Cummins, J. (2000) Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. and Early, M. (eds) (2011) Identity Texts: The Collaborative Creation of Power in Multilingual Schools. Stoke-on-Trent and Sterling, VA: Trentham Books. Cummins, J., Hu, S., Markus, P. and Montero, K.M. (2015) Identity texts and academic achievement: Connecting the dots in multilingual school contexts. TESOL Quarterly 49 (3), 555–581. Douglas Fir Group (2015) A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a multilingual world. Modern Language Journal 100 (Suppl. 2016). Gafaranga, J. (2007) Talk in Two Languages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gal, S. (2006) Migration, minorities and multilingualism: Language ideologies in Europe. In C. Mar-Molinero and P. Stevenson (eds) Language Ideologies, Policies, and Practices: Language and the Future of Europe (pp. 13–27). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. García, O. (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. García, O. and Kano, N. (2014) Translanguaging as process and pedagogy: Developing the English writing of Japanese students in the US. In J. Conteh and G. Meier (eds) The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges (pp. 292–299). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. García, O. and Kleifgen, J.A. (2010) Educating Emergent Bilinguals. Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Language Learners. New York: Teachers College Press. García, O. and Li Wei (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gee, J.P. (2014) Decontextualized language: A problem, not a solution. International Multilingual Research Journal 8 (1), 9–23. Grosjean, F. (1982) Life with Two Languages. An Introduction to Bilingualism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Heath, S.B. (1983) Ways with Words: Language Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hornberger, N.H. (ed.) (2003) Continua of Biliteracy: An Ecological Framework for Educational Policy, Research and Practice in Multilingual Settings. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Lewis, G., Jones, B. and Baker, C. (2012a) Translanguaging: Origins and development from school to street and beyond. Educational Research and Evaluation: An International Journal on Theory and Practice 18 (7), 641–654. Lewis, G., Jones, B. and Baker, C. (2012b) Translanguaging: Developing its conceptualisation and contextualisation. Educational Research and Evaluation: An International Journal on Theory and Practice 18 (7), 655–670. Li Wei (2016) New Chinglish and the post-multilingualism challenge: Translanguaging ELF in China. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 5 (1), 1–25. Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A. (2005) Disinventing and (re)constituting languages. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 2 (3), 137–156. Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A.D. (2006) Disinventing and reconstituting languages. In S. Makoni and A.D. Pennycook (eds) Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages (pp. 1–41). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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May, S. (2014) Introducing the ‘multilingual turn’. In S. May (ed.) The Multilingual Turn. Implications for SLA, TESOL and Bilingual Education (pp. 1–6). New York: Routledge. Mignolo, W.D. (1996) Linguistic maps, literacy geographies, and cultural landscapes: Language, languaging and (trans)nationalism. Modern Language Quarterly 56 (2), 181–196. Mignolo, W.D. (2000) Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ortega, L. (2014) Ways forward for a bi/multilingual turn in SLA. In S. May (ed.) The Multilingual Turn. Implications for SLA, TESOL, and Bilingual Education (pp. 32–53). New York: Routledge. Otheguy, R., García, O. and Reid, W. (2015) Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6 (3), 281–307. Pennycook, A. (2010) Language as a Local Practice. London and New York: Routledge. Swain, M. (2006) Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced language proficiency. In H. Byrnes (ed.) Advanced Language Learning: The Contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky (pp. 95–108). London: Continuum. Torpsten, A.-C., Reath Warren, A., Straszer, B., Lindahl, C., Siekkinen, F., Svensson, G., Rosén, J., Allard, K. and Wedin, Å. (2016) Transspråkande: En holistisk syn på språk, språkanvändning och språkdidaktik. Lisetten 2, 32–33. Wedin, Å. (2017) Arbete med identitetstexter: Flerspråkigt skrivande för identitetsförhandling och engagemang [Work with identity texts: Multilingual writing for negotiation of identities and engagement]. Nordisk tidskrift för andraspråksforskning 12 (1). Williams, C. (1994) Arfarniad o Ddulliau Dysgu ac Addysgu yng Nghyd-destun Addysg Uwchradd Ddwyieithog. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales, Bangor.

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Translanguaging and Ideology: Moving Away from a Monolingual Norm Carla Jonsson

Introduction Translanguaging offers a lens through which to analyze multilingual speech and writing. The concept translanguaging shifts the focus of the analysis from languages in contact to the speakers who are communicating, and from a view of languages as bound entities to a more fluid view of ‘languages’, acknowledging the linguistic repertoires of multilinguals. The translanguaging lens thus changes the perspective from a monolingually oriented approach to one in which the heteroglossic nature of multilingual practice is recognized. Furthermore, it highlights the cultural knowledge that is conveyed in the linguistic practices of multilinguals (García, 2009: 45–47). In this chapter, the concepts bilingualism and multilingualism are used nearly synonymously to refer to bilingual/multilingual languaging. ‘Languages’, languaging and translanguaging are often inextricably linked to language ideologies, to language norms and to power, as well as to the identities and feelings of speakers. The central aim of this chapter is to explore and describe translanguaging as a theoretical concept by linking it to language ideologies and language norms in society. The chapter begins with a section on translanguaging, followed by theoretical discussions of how translanguaging relates to concepts such as languaging (Jørgensen, 2003a, 2003b, 2008), language ideologies (Blackledge, 2008; Krotskrity, 2004; Woolard, 1998), language norms (Jørgensen, 2008) and heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981). Thereafter, the transformative functions of translanguaging and the relationship between translanguaging and codeswitching (e.g. Auer, 1998, 1999; Meeuwis & Blommaert, 1998) are analyzed by focusing on the significantly different viewpoints that these terms entail. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of the value of translanguaging as a theoretical concept to linguists/researchers and educators. 20

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Translanguaging Translanguaging has been described by Otheguy et al. (2015: 281) as ‘the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually national and state) languages’ (original emphasis). In addition, Canagarajah accentuates the integratedness of linguistic repertoires – which is in line with an integrated bilingualism norm (Jørgensen, 2008) in the description of translanguaging as ‘the ability of multilingual speakers to shuttle between languages, treating the diverse languages that form their repertoire as an integrated system’ (Canagarajah, 2011: 401). This suggests that translanguaging can be viewed as a skill that, similarly to other skills, can be further developed through education. In their discussion of the term, García and Li Wei also move away from a definition that separates languages. They write: … translanguaging does not refer to two separate languages nor to a synthesis of different language practices or to a hybrid mixture. Rather translanguaging refers to new language practices that make visible the complexity of language exchanges among people with different histories, and releases histories and understandings that had been buried within fixed language identities constrained by nation-states. (García & Li Wei, 2014: 21, original emphasis) The word ‘releases’, in the quote above, suggests that translanguaging has a transformative potential, an aspect that will be discussed further below. Furthermore, since García and Li Wei (2014: 24) argue that translanguaging ‘goes beyond hybridity theory’, the emphasis of ‘new’ language practices differentiates translanguaging practices from, for instance, so-called hybrid language practices. Hybridity is a problematic term as it infers that there could be ‘pure’ cultures or languages. Rather than viewing translanguaging as a hybrid language practice, García and Li Wei (2014: 21) wish to see translanguaging as ‘one new whole’. However, hybridity can, according to Bhabha, be defined as ‘the “third space” which enables other positions to emerge. This third space displaces the histories that constitute it, and sets up new structures of authority, new political initiatives’ (Bhabha, 1990: 211). Based on Bhabha’s interpretation of third space and hybridity, there is not necessarily opposition between translanguaging as ‘one new whole’ and hybridity, as seen in his explanation: ‘The process of cultural hybridity gives rise to something different, something new and unrecognisable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representation’ (Bhabha, 1990: 211, emphasis added). This ‘something new’ is in line with the ‘new whole’ that García and Li Wei describe. Thus, despite ascribing to a view of ‘languages’ as fluid,

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and as ideological constructs, the concept of third space is analytically useful in understanding the processes that underlie translanguaging. García and Li Wei (2014) draw their inspiration from Mignolo, who writes about a bilanguaging epistemology in which he intends to ‘draw in something that is beyond sound, syntax, and lexicon, and beyond the need of having two languages’ (Mignolo, 2000: 264). Mignolo writes that whereas bilingualism is ‘a skill’, bilanguaging is a ‘life-style’ (Mignolo, 2000: 264) and ‘existentially and politically dramatic’ (Mignolo, 2000: 264). He concludes that bilanguaging is ‘life between languages: a dialogical, ethic, aesthetic, and political process of social transformation rather than energeia emanating from an isolated speaker’ (Mignolo, 2000: 265). Again, the focus is on the integratedness of languages in the daily lives of speakers. Translanguaging practices form a central part of multilinguals’ languaging practices. Translanguaging is used in speech and in writing, in personal communication, in educational settings and in the workplace (e.g. Jonsson, 2015), in advertisements, music, literature (e.g. Jonsson, 2012a), drama (e.g. Jonsson, 2005, 2010, 2014), menus at restaurants, street/school signs, informal writing in notes, and tattoos. Translanguaging can be ‘the discursive norm in bilingual families and communities’ (García & Li Wei, 2014: 23). For example, studies of students reveal that translanguaging practices are used extensively in their everyday lives with classmates, friends and family, both in school settings, e.g. during some lessons and breaks, and as in other settings, e.g. during leisure-time activities such as sports and digital communication in social media (Jonsson, 2013; Jonsson & Muhonen, 2014). Additionally, many teachers employ translanguaging practices inside and outside the classroom, as well as in different school meetings (Jonsson, 2015). Translanguaging is ‘increasingly a mode of choice for bilinguals’ (García, 2009: 48). Other terms that can be linked to the concept of translanguaging are, for instance, codemeshing (Canagarajah, 2011), translingual practice (Canagarajah, 2013), polylingual languaging (Jørgensen, 2008) and flexible bilingualism (Creese & Blackledge, 2010). Terms such as these have in common that they shift the focus from languages to speakers and open up the possibility for a multilingual analysis, rather than a monolingual one. They also represent ‘a view of language as a social resource without clear boundaries, which places the speaker at the heart of the interaction’ (Blackledge & Creese, 2014: 2). In sum, translanguaging emphasizes the integratedness of speakers’ linguistic repertoires and represents a view where these linguistic resources can be used in a dialogic and fluid manner.

Languaging Languages are often seen by laypersons as separate, stable linguistic systems that change as time passes. Additionally, language is often

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represented in modern linguistics as a ‘bounded, nameable and countable unit, often reduced to grammatical structures and vocabulary’ (Blommaert, 2010: 4). This view, however, does not succeed in describing the fluidity of real-life language practices, particularly not in a global, postmodern world where mobility and transcultural flows (Pennycook, 2007) add to the complexity of these practices. Blommaert (2010: 5) proposes a paradigm he calls a ‘sociolinguistics of mobility’ in which the focus is on ‘language-in-motion’, as opposed to ‘language-in-place’, and where languages are viewed as mobile resources. In line with this, he argues that ‘globalization forces sociolinguistics to unthink its classic distinctions and biases and to rethink itself as a sociolinguistics of mobile resources, framed in terms of trans-contextual networks, flows and movements’ (Blommaert, 2010: 1). Makoni and Pennycook go as far as ‘disinventing’ ‘language’ by arguing that ‘languages do not exist as real entities in the world’ and that ‘languages’ are merely ‘the inventions of social, cultural and political movements’ (Makoni & Pennycook, 2007: 2). This is in line with Blommaert and Rampton (2011: 4), who see language as an ideological construction and as an ‘ideological artifact’, and Jørgensen et al. who claim that: ‘“Languages” are abstractions, they are sociocultural or ideological constructions which match real-life use of language poorly’ (Jørgensen et al., 2011: 23; see also Blackledge & Creese, 2010). Pennycook suggests a view of language as a practice, by emphasizing ‘language as an activity rather than a structure, as something we do rather than a system we draw on, as a material part of social and cultural life rather than an abstract entity’ (Pennycook, 2010: 2). In keeping with this view of language as an ideological and social construct, Blackledge and Creese (2014: 1) suggest that ‘The idea of “a language” … may be important as a social construct, but it is not suited as an analytical lens through which to view language practices’. Blommaert and Rampton (2011: 4) also argue that ‘it is far more productive analytically to focus on the very variable ways in which individual linguistic features with identifiable social and cultural associations get clustered together whenever people communicate’ (original emphasis). As linguists/researchers and as educators, it is important that we move away from inflexible labels and concepts that signal a static and simplistic view of ‘language’ and, instead, attempt to replace these with terms that more accurately account for language practices in the daily lives of people. Languaging becomes useful as an analytical concept since it acknowledges that people draw on multifaceted and complex repertoires, including ‘languages’, varieties, and other multimodal resources. In the discussion of translanguaging, this becomes especially relevant since languaging constitutes part of the term translanguaging. Although multifaceted repertoires are already acknowledged in the term languaging – as described by Jørgensen in the quote below – the ‘trans’ in translanguaging further emphasizes this aspect.

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The advantages of the term translanguaging will be further discussed in the section ‘Translanguaging – not just another term’. … language users employ whatever linguistic features are at their disposal with the intention of achieving their communicative aims. Language users language with all their skills and knowledge which may involve detailed knowledge […]. Or the speakers may know very little about each feature, except what to use it for under given circumstances. Language users who have access to features from a wide range of different sets of features of course also use features from a larger number of different sets than those who have access to less. The behaviour is fundamentally the same, we are all languagers. (Jørgensen, 2008: 169) In this description, Jørgensen places emphasis on the fact that language users may use all the different ‘linguistic features’ they have access to, irrespective of how deep a knowledge the speaker has of these features, and that speakers may also use features from different ‘languages’. What he calls polylingual languaging may include ‘the integration of features from many different sets of features’ (Jørgensen, 2008: 170). By focusing on ‘sets of features’ instead of on ‘languages’ and by arguing that ‘it may be difficult to determine where features employed in polylingual language use originate, i.e. to which linguistic set of features they “really” belong’ (Jørgensen, 2008: 169), Jørgensen contributes vastly to the discussion of the fluidity of ‘language’. According to García and Li Wei (2014: 38), the concept of polylingual languaging ‘comes close’ to the notion of translanguaging due to its focus on features and because it does not insist on the separation of such features. The concept of languaging emphasizes the fluidity inherent in people’s language use and, as a consequence, moves away from a static view of bilingualism and monolingualism. Jørgensen (2003a: 8) writes that ‘it is meaningless to consider the speakers “bi-lingual” as opposed to “mono-lingual”, as if one could count the number of languages or varieties available to them’. Instead he argues that, as people and speakers, ‘We are all first and foremost “lingual”, we are languagers … who possess the uniquely human quality of language, a species-specific phenomenon that we use to maintain mankind as a social species’ (Jørgensen, 2003b: 146). Despite subscribing to such a view, the terms bilingualism and multilingualism are used in this chapter to refer to bilingual/multilingual languaging, for instance when referring to central literature. Languaging also fits well with the notion of repertoires, since this term encompasses ‘all the “means of speaking” i.e. all those means that people know how to use and why while they communicate’ (Blommaert & Backus, 2011: 3). Such ‘means of speaking’ can ‘range from linguistic ones (language varieties) over cultural ones (genres, styles) and social ones (norms for the production and understanding of language)’ (Blommaert & Backus, 2011: 3).

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Similarly to the term languaging, the notion of (linguistic) repertoires allows us to regard people’s linguistic practices ‘as a whole … thus enabling a move away from thinking languages and codes as bounded entities’ (Busch, 2012: 521). Concepts such as languaging and repertoires contribute to our understanding of the complexity of communication in global contexts where everyday language practices are fluid and characterized by mobility. These terms therefore serve as useful analytical concepts in our discussion of translanguaging.

Language Ideologies The concept of language ideology resists a straightforward definition. Instead, varied definitions of the term often focus on different aspects of the concept. Blackledge, for example, describes language ideology as ‘the values, practices and beliefs associated with language use by speakers, and the discourse that constructs values and beliefs at state, institutional, national and global levels’ (Blackledge, 2008: 29). This is in line with Krotskrity’s (2004: 498) definition of language ideologies as ‘beliefs, or feelings, about languages as used in their social worlds’. Such implicit or explicit beliefs may be about multilingualism or about ‘the superiority/inferiority of specific languages’ (Krotskrity, 2004: 497–498). Speakers use language ideologies in their communication with others, and to construct ‘linguistic evaluations’ (Krotskrity, 2004: 497). Language ideologies are not merely about languages but are tied to questions of identity and to social, cultural, political and economic power positions and contexts (Street, 1984; Woolard, 1998), and can therefore be viewed as ‘ideas, discourse, or signifying practices in the service of the struggle to acquire or maintain power’ (Woolard, 1998: 7). Language ideologies affect attitudes toward languages, dialects, registers, languaging and translanguaging practices; they affect values, norms, standards, language loyalty, prestige or stigmatization, as well as language politics. Language ideologies have a strong impact on linguistic, social, and discursive practices (Woolard, 1992: 235) and, as such, constitute a link between social and linguistic theory (Woolard, 1998: 27). Bourdieu (1991: 167) highlights that ‘ideologies serve particular interests which they tend to present as universal interests’. Therefore, language ideologies can be used as tools by dominant groups in society (Woolard, 1992: 238). Through dominant ideologies in society, dominant cultures can model institutions, public life and social processes, as expressed in Johnson: Dominant ideology guides conceptions of reality through repetition of preferred, privileged practices treated as though they were ‘natural’. This

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control of meaning relegates other cultural systems to the margins by making their meaning systems seem wrong, deviant, unimportant, primitive, or even invisible. (Johnson, 2000: 62) Language ideologies are often covert and tacit, working under the surface, sometimes against official language policies. The official language policies in Sweden, for instance, endorse the use of various languages by emphasizing citizens’ right to use and develop and enhance their linguistic repertoires in various ways (Ministry of Culture, 2009: 600), whereas underlying monolingual ideologies, on the other hand, contribute to monolingual norms in schools where, for instance, mother tongue instruction – which is an educational right for students who use a language other than Swedish at home – is not offered to all eligible students (e.g. Länsstyrelsen i Stockholm (2016); Swedish National Agency for Education (2016); see also Ganuza & Hedman, this volume, for more on mother tongue instruction). According to Blackledge (2008: 30), language ideologies are frequently contested and function as ‘symbolic battlegrounds on which broader debates over race, state and nation are played out’. He writes that although multilingual societies may on the surface appear to accept, or even officially promote, heterogeneity they may in reality ignore, or not sufficiently value, the linguistic diversity that exists, concealing ‘an ideological drive toward homogeneity, a drive which potentially marginalises or excludes those who either refuse, or are unwilling, to conform’ (Blackledge, 2008: 36). Such ideologies of homogeneity can clearly be detected in dominant monolingual language norms in society, as seen in the next section. Translanguaging works against ideologies of homogeneity in that it represents ideologies in which different linguistic resources are acknowledged and valued. Language ideologies can be transformational in the sense that they can ‘transform the material reality they comment on’ (Woolard, 1998: 11). This suggests that translanguaging can have a transformative potential in society. For instance, speakers may feel empowered by acknowledging and by using their linguistic repertoires in a fluid manner in translanguaging practices together with other speakers. Speakers can also feel that reading translanguaging practices in a book or hearing such practices in a movie or in a stage play may legitimize and elevate the status of their linguistic repertoires (see, for example, Jonsson, 2005). Translanguaging can thus legitimize different linguistic repertoires as well as a fluid use of these repertoires, and possibly lead to the empowerment of speakers.

Language Norms Jørgensen outlines four different language norms that are apparent in society: the monolingualism norm, the double monolingualism norm, the

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integrated bilingualism norm, and the polylingualism norm (Jørgensen, 2008: 163; see also Spindler Møller & Jørgensen, 2009). In both the monolingualism norm and the double monolingualism norm, monolingual linguistic behaviour is seen as the ‘ideal’ and the speakers are expected to ‘use only one language at a time’ (Jørgensen, 2008: 168; cf. the monolingual bias, Block, 2003). This section presents examples of these four different norms and relates them to translanguaging. Monolingual norms prevail in many modern societies (cf. Blackledge, 2008): in language policies; in schools, where languages tend to be treated as separate units in planning (Jonsson, 2013); in schedules; and in everyday practice; as well as in discussions about bilingualism, where bilinguals are often envisioned as two monolinguals in one body who, consequently, are expected to have equal knowledge in both (or all) their languages. For example, in his study of a bilingual school in Wales, Musk found that teachers sustain and impose a monolingual norm and that academic success was partly determined by the students’ ‘ability to maintain language boundaries’ (Musk, 2010: 195). Musk further concludes that maintaining boundaries between languages is ‘in line with the entrenched monolingual nationalist ideology of the European nation-state’ (Musk, 2010: 196), which reiterates the link between languaging and ideologies discussed above. According to monolingual norms in society, speaking one language at a time is considered to be ‘natural’ and ‘correct’, whereas translanguaging practices are often regarded as incorrect or deviant. Monolingual orientations are based on the belief that ‘languages have their own unique systems and should be kept free of mixing with other languages for meaningful communication’ and that ‘for communication to be efficient and successful we should employ a common language with shared norms’ (Canagarajah, 2013: 1). Monolingual language use is often regarded as the legitimate way in which to communicate, in speech and in writing (cf. legitimate language, Bourdieu, 1977, 1991). Ironically, monolingual norms/double monolingual norms are also present in research about bilingualism/multilingualism, where these phenomena are at times described through a monolingual lens. This can, for instance, be noted in more dated discussions about code-switching, such as ‘The ideal bilingual switches from one language to the other according to appropriate changes in the speech situation […], but not in an unchanged speech situation, and certainly not within a single sentence’ (Weinreich, 1968: 73), but also in other more modern depictions and definitions. Double monolingualism norms are common in bilingual schools, noted, for instance, by Heller (1999) in her discussions about parallel monolingualism, and by Creese and Blackledge (2010) in their discussions of separate bilingualism in complementary schools. Jonsson (2013) describes an international bilingual school that reflects a double monolingualism norm in which language separateness is emphasized in policy and practice, while the students

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of the school subscribe to an integrated bilingualism norm, as illustrated, for instance, through their use of translanguaging practices. Ideologically then, the students subscribe to a different view of language from that of the school. In school settings where double monolingualism norms are dominant, translanguaging is generally not preferred or encouraged in education. This is perceived by students who – aware of the negative values often associated with translanguaging – choose to separate their languages in settings such as these (Jonsson, 2013). However, translanguaging practices can still be used in such a milieu by some teachers as part of their pedagogy (Jonsson, 2012b; see also Toth & Paulsrud, this volume). The other two language norms described by Jørgensen depart from the monolingual assumptions and embrace a more bilingual behaviour. Both the integrated bilingualism norm and the polylingualism norm emphasize that ‘features from different languages’ may be used in the same production (Jørgensen, 2008: 168). The main difference between these norms is that according to the integrated bilingualism norm these languages are limited to the ‘two (or three or more) languages which the speaker commands’ (Jørgensen, 2008: 168), whereas the polylingualism norm allows the use of any languages that the speaker commands, to a greater or lesser extent. According to the polylingualism norm: Language users employ whatever linguistic features are at their disposal to achieve their communicative aims as best they can, regardless of how well they know the involved languages; this entails that the language users may know – and use – the fact that some of the features are perceived by some speakers as not belonging together. (Jørgensen, 2008: 163) By including the use of linguistic features from languages that the speakers do not necessarily know well or regard as forming part of their linguistic repertoires (cf. crossing, Rampton, 1995), the polylingualism norm allows for more inclusive language practices, which in turn can result in the possibility of maximizing communication through the use of cultural connotations associated with words and phrases from different languages. Integrated bilingualism norms and polylingualism norms can be encountered in, for instance, what Creese and Blackledge (2010) refer to as flexible bilingualism in translanguaging pedagogies (see also García, 2009; García & Li Wei, 2014; Jonsson, 2012b, 2013), and in everyday practices of multilinguals (Jonsson, 2013). We have here discussed how different language norms relate to translanguaging. According to the first two norms – the monolingualism norm and the double monolingualism norm – which are both based on ideologies of homogeneity, translanguaging practices are generally not preferred. On the contrary, the other two language norms – the integrated bilingualism norm and the polylingualism norm – embrace the integratedness of linguistic

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repertoires that translanguaging represents. Polylingual language practices, as well as integrated bilingual practices, challenge and contest monolingual norms in a society based on language ideologies that emphasize the separateness of languages. Ideologically, such a contestation of norms is significant. Translanguaging can thus be seen as a powerful ideological statement since it does not emphasize the separateness of languages, but instead adheres to the fluidity of multilingual language practices.

Translanguaging: Not Just Another Term The term translanguaging has been criticized of being ‘just another term’ for code-switching. How the concept translanguaging contributes to the field of linguistics and how it differs from code-switching will be discussed in this section which focuses on the advantages of translanguaging as a term/concept, and in the following section which offers a comparison between the terms translanguaging and code-switching. The concept of translanguaging has several advantages in describing multilingual languaging (Jonsson, 2012b). First, it moves the focus from the languages or codes in contact to the speakers communicating (García, 2009: 45–47). Secondly, it moves away from a view of languages as bound entities to a more fluid view of ‘languages’ that acknowledges the linguistic repertoires of multilinguals and the cultural knowledge conveyed through linguistic practices (García, 2009: 45–47). Thirdly, as a consequence of this shift, translanguaging represents a move away from studying bilingual or multilingual languaging from a monolingual perspective. Instead, the term contributes to the recognition of the heteroglossic nature of multilingual practice and translanguaging as a heteroglossic practice (Blackledge & Creese, 2014; Busch, 2014). Heteroglossia highlights the different voices inherent in languaging and ‘the multiple ideologically infused discourses that intersect in all utterances and forms of language use’ (Cummins, 2000: 237), and therefore becomes relevant in the discussion of translanguaging. Heteroglossia is described by Bakhtin as: The base condition governing the operation of meaning in any utterance. It is that which ensures the primacy of context over text. At any given time, in any given place, there will be a set of conditions – social, historical, meteorological, physiological – that will ensure that a word uttered in that place and at that time will have a meaning different than it would have under any other conditions. (Bakhtin, 1981: 428) Communication is thus seen as intrinsically contextual. Blackledge and Creese (2014: 1) propose heteroglossia ‘as a lens through which to view the social, political, and historical implications of language in practice’. They

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argue that translanguaging as practice and pedagogy ‘gives voice to speakers in ways which allow them to activate the full range of their linguistic repertoires’ (Blackledge & Creese, 2014: 13, original emphasis) and that heteroglossia as a theoretical lens contributes to an understanding of ‘voice as filled with social diversity’ (Blackledge & Creese, 2014: 13, original emphasis). Heteroglossia as a lens thus has the potential to contribute to the recognition of different voices in society, for instance in schools and in the workplace, and to allow for the representation of these voices (cf. Lakoff, 1992). A fourth advantage of the term translanguaging is that it emphasizes that these practices can be used both to facilitate communication and to ‘construct deeper understandings’ (García, 2009: 45). Compared to monolingual language practices, multilingual languaging offers ‘greater choices, a wider range of expression than each monolingual separately can call upon’ (García, 2009: 47). In addition, multilingual languaging conveys both linguistic and cultural knowledge of the involved ‘languages’ (García, 2009: 47). As a result, translanguaging offers speakers a rich possibility to exploit subtle linguistic and cultural nuances both within and across ‘languages’. Fifthly, the concept of translanguaging opens up for a new understanding of core concepts in linguistics, such as language and bilingualism, and thus contributes to an ideologically significant epistemological change in linguistics. García and Leiva (2014: 204) write that translanguaging ‘changes the locus of enunciation and resists the asymmetries of power that “bilingual codes” often create’. They argue that in accordance to traditional views of bilingualism bilingual speakers should ‘perform two “codes” in additive ways, according to “standards” created by powerful agencies such as schools, or nations’ (García & Leiva, 2014: 204). The notion of translanguaging, on the other hand, ‘resists the historical and cultural positionings of monolingualism or of additive bilingualism, releasing speakers from having to conform to a “parallel monolingualism”’ (García & Leiva, 2014: 204; see also Heller, 1999). Furthermore, translanguaging is ‘transformative, attempting to wipe out the hierarchy of languaging practices that deem some more valuable than others’ (García & Leiva, 2014: 200; cf. Li Wei, 2011) and thus has the potential to make different voices heard and to contribute to social justice (García & Leiva, 2014: 200; see also Hopewell, this volume). In sum, translanguaging as a concept has the advantage of focusing on speakers rather than on codes or languages, of acknowledging the fluidity of linguistic repertoires, of moving away from a monolingual norm and instead recognizing heteroglossia in multilingual practice, of emphasizing and taking advantage of both linguistic and cultural knowledge in communication, and of resisting and transforming power asymmetries by contributing to an ideologically significant epistemological change in linguistics.

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Translanguaging versus Code-switching As will be discussed below, translanguaging includes language contact phenomena such as code-switching. Translanguaging has been described as ‘bilingualism without diglossic functional separation’ (García, 2007: xii). García explains the relationship between language contact and translanguaging as follows: … translanguaging includes but extends what others have called language use and language contact among bilinguals. Rather than focusing on the language itself and how one or the other might relate to the way in which a monolingual standard is used and has been described, the concept of translanguaging makes obvious that there are no clear-cut boundaries between the languages of bilinguals. What we have is a languaging continuum that is accessed. (García, 2009: 47) Translanguaging thus moves the focus from the language(s) being used in the interaction to the speakers who are communicating, while at the same time emphasizing a fluid view of languages. Furthermore, the concept includes but ‘goes beyond’ phenomena such as code-switching (García, 2009: 45). One main difference between the two terms is that whereas code-switching mainly refers to ‘a shift or a shuttle between two languages’, or two or more codes (e.g. languages, varieties), translanguaging encompasses the speakers’ construction and use of original and complex interrelated discursive practices that cannot be easily assigned to one or another traditional definition of a language, but that make up the speakers’ complete language repertoire. (García & Li Wei, 2014: 22) This is in line with Lewis et al. (2012: 659), who argue that ‘code-switching has associations with language separation while translanguaging celebrates and approves flexibility in language use and the permeability of learning through two or more languages’. The concept of translanguaging thus represents a significant ideological movement away from language separation. Multilingual speakers do not necessarily compartmentalize their linguistic repertoires into ‘languages’ at all times; instead they separate their languages when communicating with people who do not share their linguistic repertoires and/or who do not feel comfortable translanguaging (Jonsson, 2013). What then if the codes that we distinguish as linguists are not perceived as separate codes by the speakers? Auer (1998, 1999) tapped into this issue more than 15 years ago when he argued that one of the main limitations of the concept of code is that what linguists classify as codes are not necessarily regarded as codes by the speakers (Auer, 1998: 2, 1999: 312). According to Auer, some speakers may regard apparently distinct systems as non-distinct

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(Auer, 1998: 13, 1999: 312), and apparently similar codes as separate (Auer, 1999: 312). Auer therefore suggests an interpretative approach of bilingualism according to which we should not start from the assumption that codeswitching consists of two languages employed interchangeably and then move on to investigate the function of these switches, but that we instead should start by analyzing our data with two or more ‘sets of co-occurring variables’ and then, through the analysis, see whether they constitute separate codes or not (Auer, 1998: 13). Meeuwis and Blommaert (1998: 76) take this issue one step further in suggesting ‘a monolectal view of code-switching’ in which ‘the overall codeswitched variant used by speakers is not seen as a product of blending between two or more languages … but as one code in its own right. The concept of translanguaging now offers us this possibility. Below I suggest two images that may be useful in illustrating the different starting points of code-switching and translanguaging, while shedding some light on the ideologies that underlie these concepts, being aware that figures seldom do justice to the linguistic complexities of everyday life. Figure 3.1 uses boxes to show how languages are seen as separate bound entities, while the arrows symbolize possible code-switching between the different languages. The underlying assumption is that the speaker is in one language at a time, and when she/he code-switches there is a movement into another language, cf. the monolingualism norm and the double monolingualism norm. Figure 3.2, on the other hand, illustrates an integrated linguistic repertoire in which languages flow together until a speaker needs to separate her/ his languages (illustrated by the arrows) in order to communicate with

Figure 3.1 An illustration of code-switching Source: Jonsson (2013: 106). De Gruyter (2013) Translanguaging and Multilingual Literacies: DiaryBased Case Studies of Adolescents in an International School. Berlin and Boston, MA: Walter De Gruyter GmbH. Copyright and all rights reserved. Material from this publication has been used with the permission of Walter De Gruyter GmbH.

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Figure 3.2 An illustration of linguistic repertoires and translanguaging

someone who does not share the same linguistic repertoire, cf. the integrated bilingualism norm. The linguistic repertoire in Figure 3.2 may include elements of languages that the speaker commands, to a greater or lesser extent, thus allowing for the possibility of speakers using features of languages that they do not necessarily know very well (cf. the polylingualism norm above). Attempting to visualize a concept is always a risk because the image itself may raise new questions. With respect to Figure 3.2, it is necessary to specify that the letters are meant to represent, for example, different fluid ‘languages’, varieties and registers that together constitute the integrated linguistic repertoire of a speaker. The letters do not in any way represent a view of languages as stable units. Furthermore, the bag or container image is merely used to represent the different parts of the linguistic repertoire being an integrated whole; it does not in any way support a container view of knowledge. In sum, the concepts of code-switching and translanguaging have different ideological starting points and represent different views of ‘languages’. Whereas in code-switching language separation is emphasized (Figure 3.1), the integratedness of languages is the cornerstone in translanguaging (Figure 3.2). As mentioned, García (2009: 45) argues that translanguaging includes but ‘goes beyond’ phenomena such as code-switching, which means that in the translanguaging practices of a speaker, practices of code-switching – where languages are separated – also occur. As for the differences between translanguaging and code-switching, the most central issue is whether the ‘codes’ that we distinguish as linguists/researchers or educators are or are not perceived as separate codes by the speakers. Where speakers do not view their different languages as separate codes, the overall concept of

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translanguaging has the potential to offer more nuanced and accurate linguistic analyses.

Discussion Research on translanguaging has often focused on pedagogical contexts (e.g. Creese & Blackledge, 2010; García, 2007, 2009; Jonsson, 2012b), which has led to a view of the concept as being particularly useful in education, or even perhaps as being limited to education. However, this chapter illustrates that translanguaging is equally useful as a theoretical concept in linguistics in general, since the term strongly promotes a move away from monolingual norms and ideologies, and thus allows for a retreat from a monolingual focus in linguistics. The concept of translanguaging also contributes to a significant epistemological change in linguistics by not supporting a view of languages as bound entities, or by insisting on language separation. Ideologically, these are important changes that have the potential to lead to more nuanced analyses of language practices in a globalized world and that may allow us to come closer to the complex, vivid and heteroglossic multilingual reality that we as linguists are attempting to describe. In addition, translanguaging has a transformative potential since it recognizes the heteroglossic nature of languaging, and since it works against hierarchies between languages. Translanguaging, then, serves as a lens through which to analyze languaging in general, in speech and in writing, and in different sites, for instance, in education and in the workplace.

Acknowledgements The chapter builds on the research projects ‘Intercultural Pedagogy and Intercultural Learning in Language Education’ (Swedish Research Council, 2007-//-2011) and ‘Investigating Discourses of Inheritance and Identity in Four Multilingual European Settings’ (European Science Foundation via HERA – Humanities in the European Research Area, 2010–2012). The research team in the latter project comprised Adrian Blackledge, Jan Blommaert, Angela Creese, Liva Hyttel-Sørensen, Carla Jonsson, Jens Normann Jørgensen, Kasper Juffermans, Sjaak Kroon, Jarmo Lainio, Jinling Li, Marilyn Martin-Jones, Anu Muhonen, Lamies Nassri and Jaspreet Kaur Takhi.

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Jonsson, C. (2005) Code-switching in Chicano theater: Power, identity and style in three plays by Cherríe Moraga. PhD thesis, Umeå University, Umeå. Jonsson, C. (2010) Functions of code-switching in bilingual theater: An analysis of three Chicano plays. Journal of Pragmatics 42 (5), 1296–1310. Jonsson, C. (2012a) Making silenced voices heard: Code-switching in multilingual literary texts. In M. Sebba, S. Mahootian and C. Jonsson (eds) Language Mixing and CodeSwitching in Writing: Approaches to Mixed-Language Written Discourse (pp. 212–232). New York: Routledge. Jonsson, C. (2012b) Translanguaging as pedagogy for language learning in a bilingual school. Naldic Quarterly 10 (1), 19–24. Jonsson, C. (2013) Translanguaging and multilingual literacies: Diary-based case studies of adolescents in an international school. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2013 (224), 85–117. Jonsson, C. (2014) Power and resistance: language mixing in three Chicano plays. International Journal of Bilingualism. Special issue: Multilingualism and the Arts 18 (2), 118–133. Jonsson, C. (2015) Language policies in the workplace: English as the key to mobility. Unpublished paper presented at the Project Seminar: Processes and Practices below the Gaze of the Nation-State: (Im)mobilities, Multilingualism and Transnationalism, 23 October, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Jonsson, C. and Muhonen, A. (2014) Multilingual repertoires and the relocalization of manga in digital media. Discourse, Context & Media. Special issue: Superdiversity and Digital Literacy Practices 4–5, 87–100. Jørgensen, J.N. (2003a) Linguistic construction and negotiation of social relations among bilingual Turkish-speaking adolescents in north-western Europe. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 24, 1–11. Jørgensen, J.N. (2003b) Languaging among fifth graders. Code-switching in conversation 501 of the Køge Project. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 24, 126–148. Jørgensen, J.N. (2008) Polylingual languaging around and among children and adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism 5 (3), 161–176. Jørgensen, J.N., Karrebæk, M.S., Madsen, L.M and Møller, J.S. (2011) Polylanguaging in Superdiversity. Diversities 13 (2), 23–38. Krotskrity, P.V. (2004) Language ideologies. In A. Duranti (ed.) A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology (pp. 496–517). Oxford: Blackwell. Lakoff, R.T. (1992) The silencing of women. In K. Hall, M. Bucholtz and B. Moonwomon (eds) Locating Power: Proceedings of the Second Berkeley Women and Language Conference, 4–5 April (pp. 344–355). Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Women and Language Group. Länsstyrelsen i Stockholm (2016) Nationella minoriteter. Minoritetspolitikens utveckling år 2015. Barns rätt till sitt nationella minoritetsspråk inom förskola, förskoleklass och skola. [National Minorities. The Development of Minority Politics in 2015. Children’s Rights to their National Minority Language in Pre-school and Compulsory School.] Report No. 9. Stockholm: Länsstyrelsen i Stockholm. Lewis, G., Jones, B. and Baker, C. (2012) Translanguaging: Developing its conceptualization and contextualization. Educational Research and Evaluation 18 (7), 655–670. Li Wei (2011) Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive constructions of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43, 1222–1235. Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A. (2007) Disinventing and reconstituting languages. In S. Makoni and A. Pennycook (eds) Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages (pp. 1–41). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Meeuwis, M. and Blommaert, J. (1998) A monolectal view of code-switching: Layered code-switching among Zairians in Belgium. In P. Auer (ed.) Code-Switching in

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Conversation: Language, Interaction and Identity (pp. 76–98). London and New York: Routledge. Mignolo, W.D. (2000) Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ministry of Culture (2009) Language Act 2009:600. Stockholm: Government Offices of Sweden. Musk, N. (2010) Code-switching and code-mixing in Welsh bilinguals’ talk: Confirming or refuting the maintenance of language boundaries? Language, Culture and Curriculum 23 (3), 179–197. Otheguy, R., García, O. and Reid, W. (2015) Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6 (3), 281–307. Pennycook, A. (2007) Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows. New York: Routledge. Pennycook, A. (2010) Language as a Local Practice. London and New York: Routledge. Rampton, B. (1995) Crossing: Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents. London: Longman. Spindler Møller, J. and Jørgensen, J.N. (2009) From language to languaging: Changing relations between humans and linguistic features. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia: International Journal of Linguistics 41 (1), 143–166. Street, V. (1984) Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Swedish National Agency for Education (2016) Statistics about mother tongue instruction. See http://www.skolverket.se/statistik-och-utvardering/statistik-i-tabeller/ grundskola/skolor-och-elever (accessed 5 September 2016). Weinreich, U. (1968) Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems. The Hague: Mouton. Woolard, K.A. (1992) Language ideology: Issues and approaches. Pragmatics 2 (3), 235–249. Woolard, K.A. (1998) Introduction: Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In B.B. Schieffelin, K.A. Woolard and P.V. Kroskrity (eds) Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory (pp. 3–47). New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

4

Spaces for Translanguaging in Swedish Education Policy Jenny Rosén

Introduction Despite the identification of a 21st-century multilingual shift, national school systems – especially in the Global North – seem reluctant to change from the monolingual norm that dominates education policies. Although school systems have encouraged language learning in terms of foreign (or modern) languages, the already existing language diversity of the students is often not used as a resource. Taking as the point of departure the concept of translanguaging, the aim of this chapter is to illuminate and discuss how ideas about language are constructed in national education policy, which governs compulsory education in Sweden. A number of scholars have criticized an understanding of language varieties as discrete, countable entities, arguing that such conceptualizations reflect a Eurocentric monolingual bias (Bagga-Gupta, 2012a, 2012b, 2013; Gal, 2006; Gal & Irvine, 1995; García, 2009; Makoni & Pennycook, 2005). Yildiz (2012: 2) argues that monolingualism is more than a quantitative term labelling the use of one language, as it ‘constitutes a key structuring principle that organizes the entire range of modern life, from the construction of individuals and their proper subjectivities to the formation of disciplines and institutions, as well as of imagined collectives such as cultures and nations’. However, the concept of translanguaging offers a holistic understanding of an individual’s linguistic experience and the simultaneous use of different kinds of linguistic forms, signs and modalities (García & Li Wei, 2014). Founded in a sociocultural understanding of meaning constructed through language, the notion of translanguaging illuminates how people use multiple discursive resources to make sense of and engage with their multilingual world. Moreover, translanguaging is transformative as it challenges the hierarchies of language practices and opens up new ways of being and languaging in a social, cultural and political context that embraces fluidity (Creese & Blackledge, 2015; García & Leiva, 2014). In other words, translanguaging

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concerns language ideology because it overturns the idea of language, strives to remove language hierarchies and gives voice to new ways of languaging. Viewing translanguaging in terms of language ideology, this chapter investigates how ideas about language are constructed in the national education policy that governs compulsory education in Sweden. The analysis of how language is constructed in the policy takes as its point of departure the criticism toward the idea and concept of language (Bagga-Gupta, 2012a, 2012b, 2013; Creese & Blackledge, 2015; García, 2009; Makoni & Pennycook, 2005, 2007). Further, it uses the distinction made by Otheguy et al. (2015) between, on the one hand, languages as countable entities with names such as Arabic, Swedish and Dari (which are sociopolitically constructed, maintained and regulated) and, on the other hand, the view of languages as entities without names, as sets of lexical and structural features that make up an individual’s repertoire and facilitate communication. Moreover, Li Wei (2011) uses the concept of a translanguaging space to describe both an arena for the act of translanguaging and a space created through the process of translanguaging. Translanguaging is transformative as ‘it creates a social space for the multilingual language user by bringing together different dimensions of their personal history, experience and environment, their attitudes, beliefs and ideology, as well as their cognitive and physical capacity into one coordinated and meaningful performance, which then becomes a lived experience’ (Li Wei, 2011: 1223; see also Straszer, this volume). Using the concept of cultural translation from the work of Bhabha (1994), translanguaging space is not only for the co-existence of different identities, languages and values – it is also a space in which identities, languages and values are combined in order to make new identities, languages, values and practices. Hence, by analyzing the way in which the idea of language is negotiated in the policy documents, this chapter illuminates the possibility of and the process by which Swedish education policy may enable the creation of such spaces in a formal school setting. The case of Sweden is of specific interest, as it has often been perceived as a country with a ‘relatively well-developed policy infrastructure and a policy tradition of equity, which lay good foundations for policy action for migrant education. Sweden has long acknowledged the importance of acquiring the language of the host country and has a long history of providing language support’ (OECD, 2015: 34). However, other scholars have perceived Sweden as a ‘multilingual polity with a monolingual image’ (Hult, 2004: 181). This contrast makes Swedish education policy an interesting case to investigate. This chapter starts by outlining research in the field of educational language policy and presenting the empirical material analyzed in the study. The following section illuminates translanguaging, as a concept and as a theoretical tool, in relation to education policy. The main results of the study are then presented in the subsequent sections, starting with an analysis of

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the linguistic landscape in Swedish education policy from 1962 to 2011. This is followed by an analysis of the contemporary 2011 curriculum used in compulsory education, pre-school classes and the recreation centre. Finally, the initial question of spaces for translanguaging in Swedish education policy and the relationship between policy and practice are addressed.

Why Policy? Formal education, including policy materials such as the national syllabi, is one of the components of the monolingualization process, which affects the way in which education is conceptualized and institutionalized. Individuals who are categorized as immigrants thus become objects of language programmes and/or vocational training in different European spaces. Children who are categorized as national minorities in Sweden (e.g. Sami), as functionally disabled (e.g. deaf, educationally delayed) or as immigrants also become the objects of specific language programmes in order to compensate for perceived disabilities. The dominating discourse is that proficiency in the dominating language/s is the essential key to normalization, integration and employment through, for example, specific language programmes (Rosén & Bagga-Gupta, 2013). The development of specific language programmes or language-focused subjects highlights questions concerning the function of education in society. In the field of language policy, researchers have traditionally focused on language planning from a macro, top-down perspective, with an interest in national language planning (Fishman, 1974, 1994; Haugen, 1972; see Ricento, 2000 for an overview). Hence, a large body of research has addressed the relationship between language policy and social inequality (e.g. Phillipson et al., 1994; Tollefsson, 1991). In his analysis of the field, Ruiz (1984) presented three orientations in language planning in terms of language as a problem, language as a right and language as a resource; he argued that these orientations were essential because they delimit the ways in which we discuss language and the relationship between language and society. The view of language as a resource has been developed by scholars advocating various critical approaches toward language policy, evoking understandings of languages as dynamic and fluid resources such as translanguaging, and emphasizing language use or languaging rather than language as an object (García, 2009; Pennycook, 2001; Shohamy, 2006). As highlighted above, formal education may be regarded as a central arena for the implementation and interpretation as well as the negotiation and defiance of language policy. Thus, language policies are interpreted, negotiated and implemented at different levels of the educational system, stretching from the national Ministry of Education to the classrooms (McCarty, 2011; Menken & García, 2010). Shohamy argues that educational

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staff (teachers, principals, inspectors) can be seen as ‘soldiers’ of the system, as they carry out orders by internalizing the policy ideology and its agendas in the school and classrooms (Shohamy, 2006: 78; see also Toth & Paulsrud, this volume). However, Hult and Hornberger (2008) raise issues regarding the multidimensional character of multilingual language use and the dialogicity between language policy and language use; these issues call for analyses that include the interrelationships between speakers, social contexts and language varieties. This chapter draws on an analysis of the curricula used in compulsory education in Sweden from 1962 to 2012. The documents analyzed have all emerged from the national political system and are published by the Swedish National Agency of Education (SNAE, 2011). The analysis presented here places a specific focus on the 2011 Curriculum for Compulsory School, Preschool Class and the Recreation Centre. This 2011 curriculum begins with two general chapters: ‘Fundamental Values and Tasks of the School’ (five pages) and ‘Overall Goals and Guidelines’ (eight pages). After these two chapters, the syllabi for 20 school subjects are presented. Of special interest for this chapter are the syllabi for English, Swedish, Swedish as a Second Language (SSL), Mother Tongue Tuition (MTT), Modern Languages and Sign Language for the Hearing. It is important to bring attention to the fact that, in the Swedish educational context, mother tongue [modersmål] refers to languages other than the dominant language, Swedish. Since 1977, students who speak a language other than Swedish at home have the right to MTT and, according to the Swedish law of education (SFS, 2010: 800), students have the opportunity to study their mother tongue (MT) as a subject in school, under certain conditions (see Ganuza & Hedman, this volume, for more on MT instruction in the Swedish school). Students who speak one of the official minority languages (Finnish, Meänkieli, Romani chib, Sami, Yiddish and Swedish Sign Language) have even stronger rights to MTT.

Translanguaging as a Theoretical Lens Using a monolingual norm to understand language use, language development, meaning-making and identity among multilingual individuals has often resulted in a deficit perspective, in which individuals are expected to be ‘doubly monolingual’ with two separated and complete languages (Grosjean, 1982). Jørgensen (2008) highlights the importance of seeing monolingualization as a process, since it ‘opens up for a more dynamic understanding rather than monolingual versus multilingual’. From this perspective, monolingualization can be understood as a continuum of ways of being both with and in languages (Bagga-Gupta, 2014). Jørgensen (2008) suggests four ways of understanding linguistic behaviour: the monolingualism norm, the double monolingualism norm, the integrated bilingualism norm and the polylingualism

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norm (see Jonsson, this volume). A polylingualism norm opens up an understanding of language use in which individuals employ whatever linguistic feature is at their disposal to achieve their communicative aims, regardless of how well they master the language. Like polylingualism, translanguaging emphasizes the transformative aspect: a speaker is ‘situated in a space where alternative representations and enunciations can be generated because buried histories are released and alternative, conflicting knowledge is produced’ (García & Leiva, 2014: 204). Challenging and transforming postcolonial border thinking creates spaces for new voices. Thus, translanguaging concerns all of the students in a school, and accounts for every linguistic experience. It is ‘a process by which students and teachers engage in complex discursive practices that include all the language practices of students in order to develop new language practices and sustain old ones, communicate appropriate knowledge, and give voice to new socio-political realities by interrogating linguistic inequality’ (García & Kano, 2014: 261, emphasis in original ). Furthermore, in criticizing a monolingual bias, a number of researchers have claimed that the concept of language in itself is a European construction, founded in the ideas of nationalism and colonialism (Gal, 2006; Makoni & Pennycook, 2005, 2007). Makoni and Pennycook (2007: 2) argue in favour of disinventing languages because ‘languages do not exist as real entities in the world and neither do they emerge from or represent real environments; they are, by contrast the invention of social, cultural and political movements’. Otheguy et al. (2015: 291) also suggest that ‘languages are not true linguistic entities because their boundaries are established on nonlinguistic grounds. Rather, they are groupings of ideolects of people with shared social, political or ethnic identities that, once so grouped, are described using linguistic terms that tend to give the mistaken impression that the grouping was based on linguistic grounds in the first place’. Replacing language with languaging captures the dynamic and complex ways in which people use and live in language(s). From one perspective, translanguaging can be seen as part of this poststructuralist shift toward understanding language – not seeing it as composed of separate structures, but rather focusing on how individuals use and live with and in language. Moreover, as clarified by Canagarajah (2011), translanguaging is a social accomplishment, since participants negotiate meaning in dialogue; therefore, it should not be seen as an individual skill. Thus, he argues that ‘we have to go beyond studying the strategies of translanguaging production to studying strategies of negotiation’ (Canagarajah, 2011: 5). Similarly, García and Li Wei (2014) point to the importance of including multilingual meaning-making and experiences in the analysis. García and Levia (2014: 204) write that ‘translanguaging refers to social practices and actions that enact a political process of social and subjectivity transformations, which in turn produces translanguaging’. Hence, we cannot view translanguaging in terms of individual skills, but rather as a social as well as an ideological practice.

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In an educational context, Creese and Blackledge (2010: 113) called for further research to ‘explore what “teachable” pedagogic resources are available in flexible, concurrent approaches to learning and teaching languages bilingually’. Taking into account the points made by García and Leiva as well as those by Canagarajah, we should first question what we understand the purpose of education to be in an era of globalization. Biesta (2006, 2011) argues that there are three functions of education, which he defines as: (a) qualification, which provides participants with knowledge, skills and dispositions that allow them to ‘do something’; (b) socialization, which concerns integrating participants into existing cultural and political orders through the transmission of norms and values; and finally (c) subjectification, which concerns identity work in terms of the processes of becoming a subject of action and responsibility. If we regard these three functions as intersecting and as a part of education, we also need to consider them when analyzing both the idea and the practices of translanguaging in educational contexts. In other words, translanguaging in an educational context is not only about acquiring skills (qualification); it is equally about participation, including socialization and identity work. Hence, the transformative aspect of translanguaging works on different and intersecting scales, from national policies (as analyzed in this chapter) to individual identity work.

Orienting the Linguistic Landscape of the Swedish Curriculum As a result of a long debate regarding the status of the Swedish language in the 1990s, the Swedish government passed the official Swedish Language Act in 2009, declaring that ‘Swedish is the main language in Sweden, i.e. the common language in society that everyone must be able to access and that the Swedish language can be used in all sectors of society’ (Ministry of Culture, 2009, emphasis added). However, as several scholars have pointed out (Hult, 2004; Milani, 2007), the lack of an official language act did not mean that there had been a lack of language policy. Questions regarding status, standardization and education played out in other arenas, with formal education being a central area of discussion. Although Sweden lacked a language act that designated Swedish as the official language, Swedish was utilized as the language of instruction in formal schools. Thus, the national curriculum for compulsory education is an important artefact in which the different discourses about the idea of language as well as the status of languages are negotiated. As a first step, an analysis of the frequency of central concepts in the total corpus was made. This was followed by a qualitative analysis of how these concepts were used in the texts in order to identify discourses on

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language in the document. An overview of how language-focused subjects in the education policy had been labelled historically was made and Table 4.1 shows the categorization of language in the national curricula for compulsory education during the period 1962–2011. This time period starts with the first curriculum for compulsory school for all children in 1962 and ends with the most recent curriculum in 2011. As shown in the table, the number of language-focused subjects in schools has varied, and the way in which subjects are labelled has changed over time. Four important shifts are visible in the analysis. First, in the 1980 curriculum, studies of the Swedish language are divided into two subjects: Swedish and Swedish as a Foreign Language. The latter subject is later (from 1996 onward) referred to as Swedish as a Second Language (SSL) (see Fridlund, 2011; Economou, 2015, regarding the subject SSL). Secondly, while the German, English and French languages are mentioned as subjects in 1962, 1969 and 1980, German and French are incorporated into the category of B- and C-languages in 1994 (representing the order of foreign languages being learned in school, in terms of the second foreign language (B-language) and the third foreign language (C-language) and then into Modern Languages in 2011. Thirdly, while Finnish is explicitly mentioned in the first two curricula, it disappears in 1980 because it is merged into the new subject Home Language, which in 1997 was renamed Mother Tongue Tuition. Finally, in 2011, a new subject, Sign Language for the Hearing, appears in the curriculum. The four shifts identified in the curricula highlight how languages and language-focused subjects are socially and ideologically constructed. Whereas German and French are given special recognition in the earlier curriculum, the shift to B- and C-languages highlights the level of language proficiency instead, and the later label of ‘Modern Languages’ is rather a misleading way of referring to languages such as German, Spanish or French. Despite the shifts in how language-focused subjects are labelled, Table 4.1 reveals how languages as school subjects are organized into separate units, each with Table 4.1 Languages and language-focused subjects in compulsory curricula from 1962–2011 Compulsory education 1962 1969 1980 1994 2011

Swedish, English, German, French, Finnish Swedish, English, German, French, Finnish Swedish, Swedish as a Foreign Language, English, German, French, Home Language Swedish, English, B- and C-language, Home Language (Mother Tongue 1997), Swedish as a Second Language (1996) Swedish, Swedish as a Second Language, English, Modern Languages, Mother Tongue, Sign Language for the Hearing

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specific goals and learning outcomes. The following section examines how these subjects are presented in the 2011 curriculum.

The Idea of Language As described earlier, the Swedish national curriculum for compulsory education is divided into three chapters: ‘Fundamental Values and Tasks of the School’, ‘Overall Goals and Guidelines’ and ‘Syllabuses’. As part of the analysis, the use of the concept of language in the first two chapters of the curriculum was investigated. In the chapters ‘Fundamental Values and Tasks of the School’ and ‘Overall Goals and Guidelines’, the word language is used 12 times in the text. The first chapter includes the following three statements: Teaching should be adapted to each pupil’s circumstances and needs. It should promote the pupils’ further learning and acquisition of knowledge based on pupils’ backgrounds, earlier experience, language and knowledge. The school should be permeated by concern for the individual, consideration and generosity. In a deeper sense education and upbringing involve developing and passing on a cultural heritage – values, traditions, language, knowledge – from one generation to the next. Language, learning, and the development of a personal identity are all closely related. By providing a wealth of opportunities for discussion, reading and writing, all pupils should be able to develop their ability to communicate and thus enhance confidence in their own language abilities. (SNAE, 2011: 10–11) These three statements reflect different understandings of language, which can be categorized in terms of (a) language as cultural heritage, (b) language as meaning-making and learning, (c) language as identity, and (d) language as an ability. All three statements reflect a sociocultural understanding of language (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1998) that emphasizes language in terms of meaning-making about the world and ourselves (identity). Moreover, this understanding emphasizes the idea that all teaching should be adopted according to the needs of the pupils – in other words, using the experiences and knowledge of the pupils as the foundation for learning. Hence, the first statement requires teaching to be adjusted in relation to the pupils’ background, experiences, language and knowledge. Since it specifically mentions language, this statement could be interpreted as a recognition of the diverse linguistic language backgrounds of the students and a promotion of these as a foundation for all further learning.

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In line with a sociocultural perspective, the curriculum further stresses language and learning as part of a socialization process, and regards language within a cultural belonging as part of a student’s upbringing. Aside from the use of the word ‘generation’, the second statement does not define whose language, values and traditions should be passed on to pupils. The verb ‘passing on’ is also problematic, because it holds a static understanding of cultural heritage (and of the process of socialization into a particular cultural heritage) rather than an understanding that includes negotiation and cultural transformation. Hence, a cultural heritage (including language) that is ‘passed on’ leaves few opportunities for transformation and hybridity. However, given that Sweden is often perceived as a linguistically and culturally diverse society, the cultural heritage mentioned in the second statement could be viewed as one of plurality and diversity, meaning that the values of plurality and diversity are what should be passed on. Such an understanding would open up spaces for translanguaging, not only as a tool, but as a value in school. The third statement – presenting language as identity – encompasses the notion that language, learning and identity are interdependent and therefore need to be developed as a whole. The final part of the third statement stresses that ‘all pupils should be able to develop their ability to communicate and thus enhance confidence in their own language abilities’. Here, language is viewed as a means of communication, and the curriculum stresses that linguistic abilities are not limited to one language; rather, it is the pupils’ ‘own language abilities’ that are highlighted. In the second chapter, ‘Overall Goals and Guidelines’, language is not mentioned in the section about norms and values. However, it is mentioned as a central part of the goals in the section entitled ‘Knowledge’. Out of the 16 goals, six are related to language. The school is responsible for ensuring that each pupil on completing compulsory school: • • • •

can use the Swedish language, both in speech and writing, in a rich and varied way, can communicate in English, both in the spoken and written language, and also be given opportunities to communicate in some other foreign language in a functional way, has obtained knowledge about and an insight into the Swedish, Nordic and Western cultural heritage, and also obtained basic knowledge of the Nordic languages, has obtained knowledge about the cultures, languages, religion and history of the national minorities (Jews, Romanies, indigenous Samis, Swedish and Tornedal Finns),

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can interact with other people based on knowledge of similarities and differences in living conditions, culture, language, religion and history, can use and understand many different forms of expression such as language, art, music, drama and dance, and also has developed an awareness of the range of culture existing in society. (SNAE, 2011: 15–16).

Compared to the perception of language in the first part of the curriculum, the idea of languages as outlined here places language into separate units, identified as Swedish, English, foreign language, Nordic languages and languages of the national minorities. The first and second goals relate to language in terms of skills in writing and in verbal communication within specific, named, languages. Moreover, these first two goals stipulate multilingualism as an objective, requiring students to learn Swedish, English and a third so-called foreign language. While English, Swedish and a foreign language are mentioned in terms of skills, the Nordic languages and the languages of the national minorities are embedded into learning about culture, history and heritage. Thus, the third goal requires students to ‘obtain basic knowledge of the Nordic languages’, while the fourth requires them to obtain ‘knowledge about the cultures, languages, religion and history of the national minorities’ rather than obtaining skills in the languages. There is a hierarchy in the languages that is reflected in the level of skills specified, placing Swedish at the top, followed by English. The fifth goal differs from the previous ones, in that language is used as a means of categorizing the differences and similarities between individuals. Being able to interact with individuals based on a knowledge of similarities and differences can be understood as a recognition of diversity and as a need for students to be able to interact with people who may have different experiences. In the sixth goal, language is presented as one of many modes of expression that should be understood and used by students.

Language-focused Subjects or Spaces for Translanguaging? The following section presents an analysis of the third part of the curriculum, ‘Syllabuses’, with a focus on the syllabi for the language-focused subjects of Swedish, SSL, English, Modern Languages, MTT and Sign Language for the Hearing. All of the syllabi start with a description of the subject prior to clarifying the objective and presenting the core content. In order to compare how language is perceived in the different language-focused subjects, Table 4.2 contains the descriptions found in the syllabi.

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As Table 4.2 shows, all syllabi for language-focused subjects start with the statement, ‘Language is the primary tool human beings use for thinking, communicating and learning’. Hence, taking a point of departure from a sociocultural perspective, language is regarded as the central mediating tool for thinking, communicating and learning in school. The fact that the same statement is used as a point of departure in all syllabi for language-focused subjects could be read as an acknowledgement that language is viewed as a medium for communication rather than as a separate entity. If we examine the subsequent parts of the subject presentations, it is stated in the syllabi for Swedish, SSL and MTT that: Through language people develop their identity, express their feelings and thoughts, and understand how others feel and think. Rich and varied language is important in being able to understand and function in a society where different cultures, outlooks on life, generations and language all interact. Here, taking a broad understanding of language, the syllabi state that it is through language that one develops one’s identity as well as the ability to express one’s feelings and thoughts. Thus, language is described as a tool for thinking as well as the medium through which one expresses one’s thoughts. Moreover, the syllabi state that it is through language that people have the ability to understand one another, and that not just language but rich and varied language is needed in order to understand and function in society. The society in which pupils are expected to act is one where different cultures, outlooks on life, generations and language(s) all interact, displaying a diverse and pluralistic society. As hinted at previously, the presentation of these three subjects does not mention a specific language, but rather describes language as a medium through which human beings construct meaning about the world and themselves. Accordingly, the importance of language for learning and identity is not related to whether the language is the so-called mother tongue or first language. However, in the syllabus for MTT, the following statement is added: Having access to their mother tongue also facilitates language development and learning in different areas. A shift appears in the text here, from talking about language in general to addressing the MT specifically. Since the syllabi have already pinpointed the fact that ‘language is the primary tool human beings use for thinking, communicating and learning’, the statement above gives a special role to the MT in the learning process, both as a specific language and with regard to other content. Where the syllabi previously used categories such as ‘human beings’

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Table 4.2 Language-focused subjects in the Swedish curriculum Subject Swedish

Description

Language is the primary tool human beings use for thinking, communicating and learning. Through language people develop their identity, express their feelings and thoughts, and understand how others feel and think. Rich and varied language is important in being able to understand and function in a society where different cultures, outlooks on life, generations and language all interact. Swedish as Language is the primary tool human beings use for thinking, a Second communicating and learning. Through language people develop their Language identity, express their feelings and thoughts, and understand how others feel and think. Rich and varied language is important in being able to understand and function in a society where different cultures, outlooks on life, generations and language all interact. English Language is the primary tool human beings use for thinking, communicating and learning. Having a knowledge of several languages can provide new perspectives on the surrounding world, enhanced opportunities to create contacts and greater understanding of different ways of living. The English language surrounds us in our daily lives and is used in such diverse areas as politics, education and economics. Knowledge of English thus increases the individual’s opportunities to participate in different social and cultural contexts, as well as in international studies and working life. Modern Language is the primary tool human beings use for thinking, Languages communicating and learning. Having a knowledge of several languages can provide new perspectives on the surrounding world, enhanced opportunities to create contacts and greater understanding of different ways of living. Knowledge of several languages also increases the individual’s opportunities to participate in different social and cultural contexts, and participate in international studies and working life. Mother Tongue Language is the primary tool human beings use for thinking, Tuition communicating and learning. Through language people develop their identity, express their feelings and thoughts, and understand how others feel and think. Rich and varied language is important in being able to understand and function in a society where different cultures, outlooks on life, generations and language all interact. Having access to their mother tongue also facilitates language development and learning in different areas. Sign Language Language is the primary tool human beings use for thinking, for the communicating and learning. Having a knowledge of several languages Hearing can provide new perspectives on the surrounding world, enhanced opportunities to create contacts and greater understanding of different ways of living. Knowledge of a number of languages creates greater opportunities to participate in different social and cultural contexts. Knowledge of sign language is a prerequisite for being able to function in a natural way among deaf persons and other users of sign language.

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and ‘people’, the phrasing ‘their mother tongue’ is a form of othering the pupils in the target group for this subject. The syllabi for English and Modern Languages highlight the importance of multilingualism by stating that ‘having knowledge of several languages can provide new perspectives on the surrounding world, enhanced opportunities to create contacts and greater understanding of different ways of living’. In other words, multilingualism opens doors for understanding the world and others. Furthermore, the syllabi state that knowledge of those languages ‘increase[s] the individual’s opportunities to participate in different social and cultural contexts, as well as in international studies and working life’. A similar statement is found in the syllabus for Sign Language for the Hearing, albeit with the omission of any mention of international studies and working life. That syllabus also states that: Knowledge in sign language is a prerequisite for being able to function in a natural way amongst deaf persons and other users of sign language. While a knowledge of English and Modern Languages creates opportunities for participation in international studies and work life, knowledge in sign language opens up the possibility of participation in the deaf and signing world, where signing is expected to be the ‘natural way’ to function. Although the syllabi for English, Modern Languages and Sign Language for the Hearing are fairly similar, the syllabus for English highlights the extraordinary position of the English language both in Swedish society and in the world. The English language surrounds us in our daily lives and is used in such diverse areas as politics, education and economics. Moreover, the curriculum implies that English is not regarded as a foreign language, but as a language that surrounds us in our daily life. In regard to the wide debate on the dominance of English in Sweden (e.g. Hyltenstam, 1999; Josephson, 2004; Salö, 2012) the curriculum seems to position English as part of the Swedish linguistic landscape. Looking back at Biesta’s (2006, 2011) three functions of education, we can see how all three functions are presented in the curriculum regarding the language-focused subjects. Qualifications are emphasized in all the syllabi examined here. In the cases of Swedish, SSL and MTT, qualification is defined in terms of using a rich and varied language. Regarding socialization, language is perceived as the tool to participation: in schools, as the medium of thinking, communication and learning; and in further education, work and society in general. A rich and varied language, a knowledge of English and a knowledge of several languages are perceived as essential in order to participate in what is described as a diverse society; they are also seen as

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essential in developing the ability to work and study in an international setting. With regard to subjectification, as spelled out in the syllabi for Swedish, SSL and MTT, it is through language that one develops one’s identity and one’s understanding of others. Developing one’s language(s) may be understood as an important part of self-empowerment. Therefore, it is possible to argue that diverse uses of language appear in the curriculum: language as an ability and skill, language as a mediating tool, language as identity, language as culture and heritage, and language as a resource. Returning to Otheguy et al.’s (2015) distinction between (a) languages as enumerable entities and (b) languages as an individual’s repertoire, there is ambivalence in the curriculum on two levels. Looking into the linguistic landscape of educational policy enables us to see how language is constructed and materialized into specific school subjects that are separated by specific syllabi. However, the historical overview highlights that these languagefocused subjects are not naturally occurring, but are sociopolitically constructed. The fact that Arabic is not a modern language but a language for MTT is not grounded in language-specific features or on primarily historical grounds, but on sociopolitically constructed boundaries. Examining the curriculum in more detail shows how language is constructed in more complex and diverse ways in the text. On the one hand, language is still framed as countable units with names such as Swedish and English, as well as ‘first language’ and ‘second language’. On the other hand, language is also framed in terms of an individual’s repertoire, as the ‘primary tool human beings use for thinking, communicating and learning’ and through which identities are expressed.

Spaces for Translanguaging? The aim of this chapter has been to analyze education policy through the theoretical lens of translanguaging. While previous studies using the concept of translanguaging have mainly examined language practices, looking into national policy juxtaposes the dominating discourses about language(s) by which education is organized with possible spaces for translanguaging. As emphasized previously, formal education has been one of the central institutions in the monolingualization process, while language education has been based on the idea of language as separate units, with a standardized version of a named language such as Swedish or Arabic being taught. Otheguy et al. (2015: 301) argue that ‘the linguistic canon that rules the teaching of what schools call native language arts, second languages, additional languages, foreign languages, and bilingual education has been shaped by acts of selective legitimation that license only linguistic features associated with powerful speakers and states’. Hence, a deconstruction of the idea of language(s) in educational policy is

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essential in order to resist a monolingual norm and construct spaces of translanguaging. Translanguaging transcends the named language and instead highlights the individual’s language, taking the perspective of the individual speaker rather than of the sociopolitical construct of language. In school settings, monolinguals have usually been allowed to deploy all or most of their linguistic repertoires, whereas multilinguals have only been allowed to do so in certain or separated environments, often regulated by educational policy. The question raised in the introduction of this chapter was how Swedish education policy opens up spaces for translanguaging in schools. Translanguaging is often regarded as a skill or a practice that individuals simply utilize or engage in. However, if we come to understand translanguaging from a pedagogical point of view, questions of how, where and why it should be learned need to be raised. If translanguaging is understood not just as something we do, but as a central ability in a diverse society, we need to find spaces for learning how to translanguage in schools. Although the relationship between policy in a curriculum and policy and practices in the classroom is complex (e.g. Menken & García, 2010), this study shows that it is still essential to analyze curricula in terms of language ideologies that are diffused by the state. In the Swedish context, the national curriculum holds a central position because it outlines both general educational goals and specific goals that should be reached by students. Even though policies such as the curriculum are never solely implemented in a school setting, the curriculum still sets a framework for how education is organized. The study presented in this chapter shows how diverse ideas about language(s) are constructed in the curriculum. On the one hand, language is seen as a central medium for thinking, communicating and learning, as well as for identity work. On the other hand, languages are organized into different subjects, with separate syllabi, goals and so forth. Hence, the curriculum establishes a framework by which language experiences are organized into different language-focused subjects such as Swedish, SSL, English, MTT, Modern Languages and Sign Language. Each subject has its own goals and objectives. Throughout the school day, subjects are separated by time, teacher, classroom, etc. The separation of language into language-focused subjects creates few opportunities for the emergence of multilingual meaning-making, experiences and identities. Moreover, the analysis shows that, while some languages (Swedish, SSL and MTT) are given importance in terms of addressing feelings and identity work (looking inside the individual), other languages (English and Modern Languages) are presented as important in order to act and create opportunities in a globalized world, thus looking outside the individual. Finally, as national education policies are never just implemented but negotiated and sometimes resisted by the actors, there is a need to further explore policy – not only in terms of written national documents – but in everyday school practices.

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Acknowledgements Part of this work was presented by the author and Professor Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University, Sweden at LanDpost – Languaging and Diversity in the Age of Postcolonial Glocal-Medialization, October 2014, Mysore, India.

References Bagga-Gupta, S. (2012a) Privileging identity positions and multimodal communication in textual practices: Intersectionality and the (re)negotiation of boundaries. In A. Pitkänen-Huhta and L. Holm (eds) Literacy Practices in Transition: Perspectives from the Nordic Countries (pp. 77–100). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bagga-Gupta, S. (2012b) Challenging understandings of bilingualism in the language sciences from the lens of research that focuses social practices. In E. Hjörne, G. van der Aalsvort and G. de Abreu (eds) Learning, Social Interaction and Diversity: Exploring School Practices (pp. 85–102). Rotterdam: Sense. Bagga-Gupta, S. (2013) The boundary turn. (Re)locating culture, identity and language through the epistemological lenses of time, space and social interactions. In I. Hasnain, S. Bagga-Gupta and S. Mohan (eds) Alternative Voices. (Re)searching Language, Culture, Identity (pp. 28–49). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Bagga-Gupta, S. (2014) Languaging: Ways-of-being-with-words across disciplinary boundaries and empirical sites. In H. Paulasto, H. Riionheimo, L. Meriläinen and M. Kok (eds) Language Contacts at the Crossroads of Disciplines (pp. 89–130). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Biesta, G. (2006) Beyond Learning: Democratic Education for a Human Future. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Biesta, G. (2011) Good Education in an Age of Measurement: Ethics, Politics, Democracy. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Canagarajah, S. (2011) Translanguaging in the classroom: Emerging issues for research and pedagogy. Applied Linguistics Review 2, 1–28. Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2010) Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching? Modern Language Journal 94 (1), 103–115. Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2015) Translanguaging and identity in educational settings. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35, 20–35. Economou, C. (2015) ‘I svenska två vågar jag prata mer och så’. En didaktisk studie om skolämnet svenska som andraspråk. [‘In Swedish as a Second Language I Dare to Speak More’. A Didactic Study About the School Subject Swedish as a Second Language.] Acta universitatis Gothoburgensis. University of Gothenburg. Fishman, J. (1974) Language planning and language planning research: The state of the art. In J. Fishman (ed.) Advances in Language Planning (pp. 15–34). The Hague: De Gruyter Mouton. Fishman, J. (1994) Critiques of language planning: A minority language perspective. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 15 (2–3), 91–99. Fridlund, L. (2011) Interkulturell undervisning: Ett pedagogiskt dilemma: Talet om undervisning i svenska som andraspråk och i förberedelseklasser. [Intercultural Education. A Pedagogical Dilemma: Professional Talk About the Teaching of Swedish as a Second Language and in Preparatory Classes.] Acta universitatis Gothoburgensis. University of Gothenburg. Gal, S. (2006) Migration, minorities and multilingualism: Language ideologies in Europe. In C. Mar-Molinero and P. Stevenson (eds) Language Ideologies, Policies, and

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Practices: Language and the Future of Europe (pp. 13–27). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Gal, S. and Irvine, J.T. (1995) The boundaries of languages and disciplines: How ideologies construct difference. Social Research 62 (4), 967–1001. García, O. (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell. García, O. and Kano, N. (2014) Translanguaging as process and pedagogy: Developing the English writing of Japanese students in the US. In J. Conteh and G. Meier (eds) The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges for Individuals and Societies (pp. 258–277). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. García, O. and Leiva, C. (2014) Theorizing and enacting translanguaging for social justice. In A. Blackledge and A. Creese (eds) Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy (pp. 199– 216). Dordrecht: Springer. García, O. and Li Wei (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Grosjean, F. (1982) Life with Two Languages: An Introduction to Bilingualism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Haugen, E. (1972) The Ecology of Language: Essays. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Hult, F. (2004) Planning for multilingualism and minority language rights in Sweden. Language Policy 3 (2), 181–201. Hult, F.M. and Hornberger, N.H. (2008) Ecological language education policy. In B. Spolsky and F.M. Hult (eds) The Handbook of Educational Linguistics (pp. 280–296). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hyltenstam, K. (1999) Inledning. Ideologi, politik och minoritetsspråk [Introduction. Ideology, politics and minority languages]. In K. Hyltenstam (ed.) Sveriges sju inhemska språk. Ett minoritetsspråksperspektiv [Sweden’s Seven Heritage Languages. A Minority Perspective] (pp. 11–40). Lund: Studentlitteratur. Jørgensen, J.N. (2008) Polylingual languaging around and among children and adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism 5 (3), 161–176. Josephson, O. (2004) Engelskan i 2000-talets Sverige [English in Sweden in the 21st century]. In Engelskan i Sverige. Språkval i utbildning, arbete och kulturliv [English in Sweden. Language Choice in Education, Work and Culture] (pp. 7–24). Stockholm: Norstedts ordbok. Lewis, G., Jones, B. and Baker, C. (2012) Translanguaging: Origin and development from school to street and beyond. Educational Research and Evaluation 18 (7), 641–654. Li Wei (2011) Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5), 1222–1235. Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A. (2005) Disinventing and (re)constituting languages. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 2 (3), 137–156. Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A.D. (2007) Disinventing and reconstituting languages. In S. Makoni and A.D. Pennycook (eds) Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages (pp. 1–41). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. McCarty, T.L. (2011) Entry into conversation: Introducing ethnography and language policy. In T.L. McCarty (ed.) Ethnography and Language Policy (pp. 1–28). New York: Routledge. Menken, K. and García, O. (2010) Negotiating Language Policies in Schools: Educators as Policymakers. London and New York: Routledge. Milani, T. (2007) Debating Swedish. Language Politics and Ideology in Contemporary Sweden. Dissertations in Bilingualism 14. Stockholm: Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University.

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Ministry of Culture (2009) Language Act 2009: 600. See http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/ dokument-lagar/dokument/svensk-forfattningssamling/spraklag-2009600_sfs-2009600 (accessed 3 August 2016). OECD (2015) Improving Schools in Sweden: An OECD Perspective. See http://www.oecd. org/edu/school/Improving-Schools-in-Sweden.pdf (accessed 3 August 2016). Otheguy, R., García, O. and Reid, W. (2015) Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistic Review 6 (3), 281–307. Pennycook, A. (2001) Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Phillipson, R., Rannut, M. and Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1994) Introduction. In T. SkutnabbKangas and R. Phillipson (eds) Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination (pp. 1–22). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Ricento, T. (2000) Historical and theoretical perspectives in language policy and planning. In T. Ricento (ed.) Ideology, Politics, and Language Policies: Focus on English (pp. 9–24). Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Rosén, J. and Bagga-Gupta, S. (2013) Shifting identity positions in the development of language education for immigrants: An analysis of discourses associated with ‘Swedish for immigrants’. Language, Culture and Curriculum 26 (1), 68–88. Ruiz, R. (1984) Orientations in language planning. NABE Journal 8, 15–34. Salö, L. (2012) Domänförlust som språkideologisk representation: Språkvårdens diskurser om engelska i Sverige. [Loss of domain as representation of language ideology. Discourses on English in Sweden.] Nordand 7 (2), 21–59. SFS (2010) Skollag [Education Act] 2010:800. See http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokumentlagar/dokument/svensk-forfattningssamling/skollag-2010800_sfs-2010-800 (accessed 13 August 2016). Shohamy, E. (2006) Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches. London: Routledge. SNAE (Swedish National Agency for Education) (2011) Curriculum for the Compulsory School, Preschool Class and the Recreation Centre 2011. See http://www.skolverket.se/ publikationer?id=2687 (accessed 3 August 2016). Tollefson J.W. (1991) Planning Language, Planning Inequality International: Language Policy in the Community. London: Longman. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Process. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wertsch, J.V. (1998) Mind as Action. New York: Oxford University Press. Yildiz, Y. (2012) Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition. New York: Fordham University Press.

5

Multilingual Young People as Writers in a Global Age Joke Dewilde

Introduction This chapter is about 16-year-old Bahar (pseudonym) who grew up in Afghanistan and moved with her family to Norway at the beginning of her teens. Bahar is transnational in the sense that she has ‘moved bodily across national borders while maintaining and cultivating practices tied – in varying degrees – to [her] home countr[y]’ (Hornberger, 2007: 325). She draws on a range of languages on a daily basis including, but not limited to, Dari, Norwegian and English. When Bahar gave me access to her Facebook profile, I wrote the following field note: Bahar has given me access to her Facebook profile. As I scroll down, I am reminded of her complex cultural and linguistic background. I see video clips from Afghan artists, pictures from her favourite football team FC Barcelona saying ‘VISCA EL BARCAAAA’, messages where she congratulates Norway on its national day, a picture with the words ‘I am Farkhunda. Justice for Afghan women.’ I see communication drawing on Dari with the Latin and Persian alphabets, on Norwegian, English and Catalan. I see emoticons like smileys with eyes in the shape of hearts, lips, hands that clap and flowers. (Field note, 12.5.2014) This field note illustrates the complex world many young people navigate in terms of linguistic and cultural diversity. Bahar’s diverse communicative practices on Facebook were not a surprise to me, but rather an extension of the practices I observed earlier in my fieldwork in the upper secondary school she and her friends attend, where during lunch breaks they animatedly drew on their communicative repertoires. This chapter focuses on how Bahar skilfully extends these social practices in two of her school writings, more specifically in two texts for the subjects Norwegian and English, respectively. The aim is to investigate the social space she creates in her school writings by drawing on the full range of her communicative repertoire. 56

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Unlike Facebook and school breaks, Norwegian classrooms appear very much as ‘Norwegian only’ zones, especially when it comes to teaching and learning (Dewilde, 2013; Hvistendahl, 2009). This is in line with both general policies and educational language policies which stress the importance of the Norwegian language as a common language for the nation (MCC, 2007; MER, 2007). More recent minority languages (and their users) should be respected, but it is up to the users themselves to further develop their language competence. In a similar vein, the current national curriculum has been criticized for leading to cultural homogenizing practices, although in a more covert way than the previous curriculum. The imagined community continues to be built on the vision of one language, one culture and one nation, while other identities are actively dismantled (Engen, 2010, 2014; Vedøy, 2008). However, this does not mean that pupils passively relate to homogenizing powers in classrooms. Creese and Blackledge (2010), for example, found that behind their teachers’ backs young people tapped into the rich communicative ecologies found in complementary school classrooms in the UK. Bahar’s multilingual writing on Facebook is not a new phenomenon. Defining multilingual literacy as ‘any and all instances in which communication occurs in two (or more languages) in or around writing’ (Hornberger, 1990: 213), it is an ancient phenomenon which can be traced back to Roman antiquity, involving several other languages and Greek in contact with Latin (Adams, 2003). Hornberger’s (2003) ‘continua of biliteracy’ is well-known for bringing together the fields of bi/multilingualism and literacy. It provides a framework for understanding biliteracy in a multifaceted manner as it demonstrates the importance of context, media and content for the development of an individual’s biliteracy. In a vast body of research on multilingual literacy, studies from across the world have contributed to more nuanced understandings of non-linear literacy development and a more complex understanding of ‘the relationship between transnational processes, social practices, and the social identities of multilingual learners themselves’ (Warriner, 2012: 508). Of particular interest for this chapter is recent work that has explored how literacy practices, identity construction and educational opportunities are affected by the movement of people, ideas, goods and practices. These studies apply a transnational understanding of literacy and have investigated immigrant pupils’ literacy practices across home, school and community contexts, and illuminated how these influence learning, identity (trans)formation and larger historical processes (Warriner, 2007: 213). Multilingualism is a natural part of most transnational people’s lives. This is certainly also the case for Bahar. To analyze her writings, Li Wei’s concept (2011) of translanguaging space, which embraces creativity and criticality, is presented in the next section. Following this, my own study is introduced, focusing on Bahar as a writer in the remainder of the chapter.

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Translanguaging Space The concept of translanguaging is here taken to mean ‘multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual worlds’ (García, 2009: 51, italics in original). At the core of this understanding is the assumption that multilinguals’ ‘languages’ posit a single repertoire from which they strategically select, rather than two or more separate languages that they shift between (see also Creese & Blackledge, 2010). Accordingly, the act of translanguaging is transformative in nature: it creates a social space for the multilingual language user by bringing together different dimensions of their personal history, experience and environment, their attitude, belief and ideology, their cognitive and physical capacity into one coordinated and meaningful performance, and making it into a lived experience. (Li Wei, 2011: 1223) Li Wei (2011: 1223) calls the act of translanguaging and the social space it creates for multilingual language users a translanguaging space. This is not a space where separate identities, values and practices co-exist, but rather a space where cultural translation (cf. Bhabha, 1994) between traditions takes place, as they combine into new identities, values and practices. The boundaries of the imagined translanguaging space are ever shifting. The individual creates the rules of interaction and interpretation within the space in line with the perceived boundaries. Also, the space constructed by the individual is always located in a wider social space and links to the spaces created by others. The individual’s personal histories and experiences, attitudes and values have been acquired in interaction with others under certain social-historical conditions. Finally, a translanguaging space is a lived space, created through social practices in everyday life (Li Wei, 2011: 1223). The idea of a translanguaging space embraces both creativity and criticality: creativity in the sense that language users have the ability to choose between following or disdaining language norms, and criticality in that existing views are questioned, problematized and expressed. These two concepts are intrinsically linked; that is, it is not possible to be creative without being critical, and vice versa. Today’s global world and increased contact between people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds provide new opportunities for innovation (Li Wei, 2011: 1223–1224). The dynamic and transformative understandings of ‘language’ and ‘culture’ at the core of translanguaging acts and translanguaging space harmonize well with the view of language underlying the notion of transnational literacy practices. On a general level, transnationalism challenges the understanding of separate nations and national identity. Rather, it is concerned with ‘the condition of cultural interconnectedness and mobility across space’ (Ong, 1999), and it draws attention to how transnational people sustain and

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further develop social relations with earlier countries of residence and make links between these and their new country. Transnational literacies refer to ‘literacy practices whose referents and meanings extend across national borders’ (Warriner, 2007; in Hornberger & Link, 2012: 264). In this sense, creative and critical practices are expressions concerned with writers’ abilities to push and break boundaries by drawing on situated literacy experiences and established world views that are transferred to and transformed in a new setting where other conventions and expectations are foregrounded. Dewilde and Igland (2015) apply this notion of multilingual (and transnational) literacy practices to extend the understanding of translanguaging acts. When a multilingual pupil adheres to a particular language in a specific school situation, this is not a translanguaging act in the sense of hybrid language practices. However, it may still rely heavily on multilingual and transnational communicative practices which are part of the pupil’s repertoire. Dewilde and Igland illustrate their point by drawing on the writing practices of Mohammed, a Muslim young person, who is found to connect and transform literacy practices that are well established in his ‘culture’ and in school settings he has experienced previously. Accordingly, his writing in Norwegian may also be understood and characterized as a translanguaging act within a translanguaging space. This understanding will be further illustrated below. My understanding of translanguaging in literacy relates to Baker’s (2003: 82) notion of ‘transliteracy’, which derives from William’s understanding of ‘translanguaging’ and describes a practice where the input of literacy is in one language and the output in another. In this chapter, however, my main concern is not the fact that a language is strategically used in a given context, but rather that pupils’ seemingly monolingual writings include traces from their broader transnational repertoires, and how these traces contribute to the creation of a translingual space.

Zooming in on Bahar’s Writings Bahar is a participant in a year-long linguistic ethnography conducted as part of a larger Nordic research project on successful newcomers and school communities called Learning Spaces for Inclusion and Social Justice. Success Stories of Immigrant Students and School Communities in Four Nordic Countries, financed by NordForsk, 2013–2015. At the time of the study, she was in her first year of the Programme for Specialization in General Studies in a large upper secondary school in the East of Norway. In addition to Bahar, five more pupils participated in the study. They had backgrounds from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq and Somalia, and had lived in Norway for approximately five years. The pupils had been identified by their teachers as being particularly successful inside and outside school given the fact that they were all late arrivals at Norwegian schools.

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The data for the project have been produced by means of linguistic ethnographical methods (Copland & Creese, 2015: 30–57), which in this case comprise participant observation inside and outside school, audio-recorded field conversations and naturally occurring interaction and semi-structured interviews. In addition, the pupils were actively involved in the research project and were asked to suggest ways that would allow me to get to know them (Dewilde, 2016). Bahar suggested that I study her through her writings. More precisely, she gave me access to the two texts analyzed here, as well as to her Facebook profile. By agreement with Bahar, Facebook texts from September 2012 up to June 2015 are part of the data. When I wished to include Bahar’s friends’ interaction in publications, they were asked by Bahar to give their consent. Bahar’s texts were scrutinized by close reading, focusing on significant details (e.g. poetry) and larger patterns (e.g. construction of society). Consistent with linguistic ethnographic analyses, these details and patterns were seen in the light of larger patterns in the field notes and transcripts. During the process of textual analysis I had frequent contact with Bahar, who explained and elaborated on issues that I identified.

‘The Last Thing You Will See is a Face of Love’ In this section, the first text Bahar selected for me is presented. It was written in connection with an assignment for the subject Norwegian, where the teacher allowed the pupils to form small groups. Bahar chose to work together with Hasna and Petras (all pseudonyms). Hasna was born in Iraq and came to Norway five years before the research project began, having spent two years in transit in Turkey, Greece, Germany and Sweden. Petras was born in Lithuania and moved to Norway with his family four years before the project started. Hasna speaks Arabic at home, and Petras Lithuanian. The school assignment was to write a manuscript for an audio play in small groups and then record it. The manuscript was to be a text in a genre of their own choice, such as a drama with dialogue, a story, a short story, a poem, an essay, an item on the news or a radio show. The pupils were told that creativity and originality were important. The manuscript was to be at least a page long and was to be based on one of several documents, which consisted of: extracts from two poems by the Norwegian poets Heikki Gröhn and Maria Parr, respectively; a photograph of a soccer ball in front of a goal on a soccer field; a copy of Sjøtrollet (The Sea Troll) a painting by the Norwegian painter Theodor Kittelsen (1857–1914); and a photo of the back of a woman in a white dress who is looking toward a tornado. The origin of the latter picture is unknown to me. Bahar and her peers chose the tornado picture and used it as inspiration for a love story between the main

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characters Gabrielle and Fernando. Whereas Bahar and Hasna contributed equally to the writing process, Petras quickly went on to work on an assignment in another subject with an approaching deadline. The text is 493 words long. Apart from the first paragraph which sets the scene, and the secondto-last paragraph which describes the tragic turning point, it consists of dialogue between Gabrielle and Fernando – 10 exchanges in total. The story is as follows: Fernando has been travelling for four years when he returns to the village where Gabrielle has been waiting for him. She sits at the foot of the hill, thinking of her love and yearning to be reunited with him, when she suddenly hears Fernando calling her name. Her heart starts to pound, and she feels how it fills with joy. Fernando and Gabrielle run toward each other, declare their love, and decide to get married. When the wedding day arrives, Gabrielle puts on her white dress and Fernando his black suit. Unfortunately, the weather changes, and a hurricane takes Fernando and many other people. Gabrielle is left behind in despair. The story ends with Gabrielle calling out that she does not want to live without Fernando, who promised never to leave her behind. The investigation into how the young writers construct the setting of their love story gives an indication as to how they perceive societies and the power relations within them. The pupils choose to situate the action in a village somewhere in Latin America. This is how they start their story. (The language or layout of the extracts have not been changed; the translations are mine.)

Extract 5.1 Det er ein varm sommerdag, sola skinner over hele landsbyen og trærne danser, mens vinden blåser i Latin America. [It is a warm summer day, the sun is shining over the entire village and the trees are dancing, while the wind blows in Latin America.] As we see, the extract contains references to geography, that is, ‘landsbyen’ (the village) and to natural elements, that is, warmth, sun, wind and trees. The choice of the Norwegian word ‘landsbyen’ reinforces the idea that the setting is a village abroad. We learn that there are trees that dance, and later in the text there is reference to ‘fjell bakken’ (the mountain hill/slope/ ground) and ‘området’ (the area). ‘[F]jell bakken’ is not a compound word in Norwegian. ‘Fjell’ means hill. In the illustration, a woman stands at the foot of the hill, which could indicate that the pupils look for a way to describe this and choose the word ‘bakken’, in the sense of ‘the ground’. The reference to ‘the area’ does not reveal the complexity that is later played out. As we will see, this complexity is largely due to the characters’ outer and inner mobility. In other words, the pupils’ construct a village which, at least on the surface, appears peaceful and homogeneous, perhaps mirroring the Norwegian society they are part of (cf. Li Wei, 2011).

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In terms of natural elements, the warm weather, the sun and the (presumably warm) winds that blow all build up a positive atmosphere in the place. In the next line, the blue sky is also mentioned, further emphasizing the good weather. Toward the end, however, the weather changes, the sun suddenly disappears, the winds take over, the hurricane comes and there is ‘smog’. Just before the weather changes, Gabrielle wants to announce their engagement to the whole village. However, the wedding never takes places as the hurricane takes Fernando away. We do not know where Fernando has been in the past; he may have been abroad or somewhere else within the country. We are left to wonder if the characters’ mobility stands in contrast to more uniform powers in the village which do not welcome intercultural marriages or marriages between people with different life biographies. The pupils’ linking of the story’s weather with powerful societal forces is both a creative and critical act as it questions and challenges homogenizing cultural norms and conventions. The way in which Bahar, Hasna and Petras construct the characters in the story gives an insight into the way in which they perceive different people’s possibilities for manoeuvre within society. This construction comes mainly to the fore through the dialogue between the main characters Fernando and Gabrielle, that is, through poetry and multilingualism. When Fernando and Gabrielle meet, they fall into each other’s arms and declare their love by declaiming poetic verses:

Extract 5.2 Fernando:

I dine øyne [In your eyes] er jeg fortapt [I am lost] Fortapt av all ømheten [Lost by all tenderness] som stråler ut [which shines] legger seg rundt meg [lies itself around me] […] Gabrielle: Slår [Beats] Og slår [And beats] 50–70 slag pr minutt [50–70 strikes per minute] Bløder og bløder, gjennom sorgen. [Bleed and bleed, through my sorrow.] Kroppen stopper, når du stopper. [My body stops, when you stop.] It is not common in contemporary Norwegian/Western literature (for children and young people) to have dialogue between characters in the form of poetic verses. When I asked Bahar about her inspiration, she replied as follows:

Extract 5.3 Slike historier og dikt er ganske vanlige i afghanske og persiske romaner. Jeg husker dem godt. Bestefar pleide å fortelle meg sånne historier, og jeg har lest dem på skole også. Hvis jeg trengte hjelp med skolearbeid så hjalp

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han meg, mesteparten var alltid å oversette og forklare dikt og fortellinger på enklere måte. Jeg elsket å få hans hjelp. Også pleide han å lage dikt for meg og sang den høyt. [Stories and poems like that are fairly common in Afghan and Persian novels. I remember them well. My granddad used to tell stories like that and I read them in school as well. When I needed help with my homework then he helped me, mostly it was translating and explaining poems and stories in simpler ways. I loved getting his help. And he also wrote poems to me and sang it aloud.] Bahar is socialized into a literary culture where poetry is central, not only as single poems, but also poems as part of stories. In the assignment, she suggested the inclusion of poetry to Hasna. We thus see how Bahar draws on earlier experiences and transfers them to a different context and a different language. Moreover, the link back in time and place to her grandfather illustrates ‘an intense social experience and emotional investment’ characteristic for a translanguaging space (Li Wei, 2011: 1224). Dewilde and Igland (2015) have previously written about another pupil in the study, Mohammed, who wrote short diary-like texts in Norwegian in his spare time inspired by verses of the Quran which he listened to in Arabic from an app on his mobile phone. Even though these young people are not found to mix different languages here, their language practices are still translanguaging acts since their texts are clearly influenced by their complex linguistic (and in Mohammed’s case also religious) backgrounds. Indeed, the young people contribute to genres travelling across time and space, ultimately creating something new, and thus challenging Western genres as we know them. The other way Bahar, Hasna and Petras construct their characters is by drawing on multiple languages, not unlike Bahar’s communication on Facebook or during school breaks (cf. introductory field note). The entire text is written in Norwegian. Interestingly, however, Fernando declares his love to Gabrielle in seven different languages/language varieties. The lines are numbered for the purpose of analysis.

Extract 5.4 1

2 3

Fernando:

«den dagen kom, den dagen vi har ventet på lenge, den dagen blir du min for alltid» [«this day came, this day we have been waiting for so long, this day you will be mine for ever»] Gabrielle smiler med de fine hvite tenner. og sier «jeg har alltid drømt om den dagen» Gabrielle smiles with her nice white teeth. and says «I have always dreamt about this day»] Fernando: «jeg elsker deg, ana bahebek, dostet darom, I love you, teiamo, Eg elsker deg og myliu tave» [«I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you and I love you»]

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4 5

Gabrielle: Fernando:

»Ah, ah, Fernando» «jeg vil ikke forlate deg mer. La oss si til hele landsbyen, den 17. juni er bryllupet vårt» [«I don’t want to leave you anymore. Let’s tell the whole village, the 17th of June is our wedding»]

As we see in Line 3 in Extract 5.4, Fernando draws on Norwegian, Arabic, Dari, English, Spanish and Lithuanian. Accordingly, the pupils combine their own home languages – Arabic, Dari and Lithuanian – with Norwegian, as well as with English and Spanish. The pupils’ repertories and their linguistic choices reflect their own histories, not only pointing backward to the past, but also forward, anticipating future situations (cf. Busch, 2015: 17). For example, Spanish is a language Bahar has always wanted to learn. Spanish is also an official language in many Latin American countries, where the love story takes place. The other languages Fernando draws on, however, are traditionally not linked to this setting, and are thus found to belong to him personally and possibly to his transnational biography. In sum, the pupils use translanguaging as a strategically ‘rhetorical choice’ (Canagarajah, 2011: 404) and for ‘literary effect’ (García & Li Wei, 2014: 27) to draw attention to Fernando’s entire communicative repertoire, at the same time as it reminds us of the complexities of today’s globalized world. Fernando can also be characterized as a multilingual and transnational person, having acquired several languages while having lived in different places. In contrast, Gabrielle’s role may be interpreted as being traditional – it is the man who travels and the woman who stays behind and waits for him. However, it may also be interpreted in a more complex way. Her affirmative response in Line 4 in Extract 5.4 indicates that she understands Fernando’s love message. It is not possible to know if Gabrielle has also travelled in her life, but it is not very likely that she has exactly the same communicative repertoire as Fernando. It can therefore be assumed that she does not understand Fernando’s declarations of love in all the languages/language varieties. However, she does not stop to ask for clarification of the possible bits and pieces she does not understand. In fact, her affirmative response illustrates dispositions such as ‘a willingness to negotiate with diversity in social interactions [and] openness to difference’ (Canagarajah, 2013: 5). Canagarajah stresses that these dispositions are not limited to multilinguals. Moreover, ‘native/monolingual’ speakers may also develop them as they encounter multilingual practices. As seen through their cast of characters, the pupils have not constructed the setting of their love story as unidirectional, stable, monolingual and monocultural. Moreover, its complexity is closely linked to the characters’ outer and inner mobility. To sum up so far, the pupils create a translanguaging space in their Norwegian school assignment in several ways (cf. Li Wei, 2011). Analytically, Bahar’s reflections on her previous literacy experiences during an interview,

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as well as my study of her Facebook and informal interaction during school breaks with her friends, give me the opportunity to gain greater insight into the translanguaging space created in her school writing. The strategic inclusion of poetry as dialogue breaks with expected genre norms and Fernando’s multilingual line appears as a creative act which at the same time encourages us to think critically in terms of genre and people’s linguistic and cultural identities in global times. In this way, the pupils challenge stable views of language, culture, place and genre. I end this section by turning to the Norwegian language teacher’s response to the pupils’ text. In her feedback, the teacher explicitly acknowledges the pupils’ rhetorical strategy, marking the line with multiple languages and commenting as follows:

Extract 5.5 Så fint å bli elska på så mange språk! [How nice to be loved in so many languages!] And of the poetry she writes:

Extract 5.6 Så vakker bruk av diktene! Dette er jo virkelig romantisk. [Such beautiful use of poetry. This really is very romantic.] In her general comments on the text, the teacher adds the following:

Extract 5.7 Dere har mange vakre bilder i hodet, som dere formilder godt til teksten. Jeg liker at dere blander inn poesi og at dere bruker flere språk når Fernando sier at han elsker Gabrielle. KREATIVT! [You have many beautiful pictures in your heads, which you convey well in your text. I like that you mix in poetry and that you use several languages when Fernando says that he loves Gabrielle. CREATIVE!] In the assignment, the young people were asked to be creative. The teacher recognizes their poetry and multilingual dialogue as creative acts. It is not possible to know if she also realizes their critical potential in terms of challenging norms, expectations, beliefs and values, which are at the core of translanguaging spaces.

‘Reach for the Stars to Change the World’ The second text was written by Bahar in connection with a mock exam for the subject English in April 2014. The pupils were given a preparation

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booklet containing, among other things, texts about and pictures of renowned people who have made a positive difference to the world, such as Mandela and Ghandi. The pupils were instructed to respond to the following task: How would you like to make a positive difference in the future – either in your working or private life? Write a text about how you – like many of the people mentioned in the Preparation Booklet – can make a positive difference for other people. Bahar called her text ‘Reach for the Stars to Change the World’. It is written in English, is 721 words long and consists of five paragraphs. The text is about a dream in which she has to dance in front of many people. She knows that her parents will disapprove because, as a Muslim girl, she should not show her body’s figure. She is determined to follow her dream at the same time as keeping her parents happy. The difference she will make will have an effect on Muslim girls, who should all have the right to follow their dreams. Bahar’s dream was not unfamiliar to me. Two months earlier she had posted a picture on Facebook with a young woman dancing in a puddle and the text ‘dance is freedom’. Bahar accompanied the picture with the line ‘if someone could understand the deepest feeling/secret in your soul …’, sticking to English, the language used in the picture and also a widespread language in social media. Her friend Nargis responded in Norwegian ‘hahahah that makes two of us’, (Hahaha det er vi to om.) whereupon Bahar replied by drawing on Norwegian and Dari, respectively, ‘Yes definitely’ (Ja bokhoda). The young people thus draw on three languages to make meaning. More so, not only do they share the same dream, but they share a common biography since, like Bahar, Nargis was born in Afghanistan and now lives in Norway. Nargis’ shift to Norwegian may be interpreted as a reminder of the importance of their move to Norway for this dream in the first place. Bahar’s switch to Dari when addressing her friend is again ‘emblematic of certain [shared] cultural values and traditions’ (cf. Creese & Blackledge, 2015: 32). As discussed in related publications (Dewilde, 2016; Dewilde & Skrefsrud, 2016), Bahar perceives her Facebook profile as a ‘free space’, away from the eyes of her family members. Bearing this in mind, the translanguaging space created here is one of great social and emotional importance (cf. Li Wei, 2011: 1224). As I will show below, Bahar writes about this dream more extensively for her English mock exam, self-translating the gist of her Facebook post (cf. García & Li Wei, 2014: 26–27). This time, her teacher is the imagined recipient – not her friends. Considering the fact that mock exams are a high-stakes activity in school where her English language proficiency will be evaluated, it is not surprising that Bahar sticks to Standard English as much as possible.

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Moreover, Canagarajah (2011: 404) argues that the ‘ability to assess the situation and frame one’s language accordingly is part of a multilingual’s rhetorical awareness and communicative proficiency’. The content of Bahar’s text, however, shows clear signs of drawing on different values and discourses. Bahar starts her text in the following way. (The language of the extracts has not been changed.)

Extract 5.8 They say be unique and make a difference. That’s what keeps me follow my dream. The one and only dream I have ever had. The dream that only I know and no one else. And this dream comes true the day when the whole world is watching me doing my dance steps. From children to grandparents, everyone is waiting for me to dance. Only me at the stage, lights on me, feeling the beats and the music and moving my body as I am free like a bird. To make a difference in dance history is my future. Just like Michael Jackson. He is death but his dance steps and name is still alive. And Shakira, the dance queen. Bahar’s dream is to make a difference in dance history – a dream which she may share with many girls in Norway. Michael Jackson and Shakira are also common references in youth culture, perhaps particularly in the Western world. In the second paragraph, however, the reader gets a sense of a possible conflict.

Extract 5.9 Since I was a little girl, I loved to dance. And my family keeps often telling me that how much I was happy while dancing. I can remember how much people loved my dance, and they made me dance every time they saw me. I always enjoyed dancing, and I still do exactly the same. Nothing has changed. And it will never change either. […] And one day I will show the whole world, that how much I love dancing. And I will make my own dance history. When people read it, they say ‘wow’ she was amazing. As noted above, Bahar grew up in Afghanistan. When writing about her dream, an event she hopes will take place sometime in the future, she thinks back in time and place as she refers to ‘my family’ and ‘people’. The utterances ‘and I still do exactly the same. Nothing has changed. And it will never change either’ makes the reader wonder why nothing has changed. We get a part of the answer in the next paragraph:

Extract 5.10 I think everyone can make a difference in their life. It can be big or small, for good or for bad. Like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and many

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other important people like them. Everyone has that one secret that no one knows. And it can change their whole life. […] No matter what it takes, I will take the risks too. Because if you want to get something, you must accept the risks too. I know I am going to have problems, because my parents are not agreeing with me. And they will not allow me easily. But I will never give up. I will keep their hearts and make my dream come true at the same time. […] In this paragraph, Bahar reveals that dancing involves a risk because her parents do not agree. She is determined to keep them happy and pursue her dream. In the fourth paragraph, she elaborates on the oppositions she struggles with, putting them into a wider context:

Extract 5.11 The difference I want to make is also to have an effect on Muslim girls. Because a Muslim girl cannot show her body’s figure. They cannot dance in public, or move their body while men are watching them. I am a Muslim girl self and I know many other girls who love to dance, but they are not allowed. They cannot even dance at small parties. And I want to change this situation. Because in my point of view they are taking Islam in in wrong way. I mean Islam is a religion of peace, and I don’t think it is a big problem to show your dance talent. […] And I want to give an example since I am talking about women’s rights. And it is Malala, the Pakistani girl who stood up for the rights of girls. And this brave young lady made a difference in women’s rights. Bahar illustrates how she critically relates to different imagined communities, beliefs and attitudes. Even though there is a variety of traditional and more liberal views present in both Afghanistan and Norway, it is likely that Bahar’s move to Norway has strengthened her liberal attitudes to dance. By referring to Malala Mousafzai, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle against child oppression and children’s rights to education, Bahar makes an explicit link to a member of an imagined Muslim community with more liberal views. She is determined to make a difference in her own life and in that of other Muslim girls, creating something unique, something that the world had not imagined, which is being a Muslim girl dancing on a public stage. Writing about Muslim girls’ rights in a mock exam in a Norwegian mainstream school is a clear reminder that the world’s oppositions occur in individual people’s lives. Moreover, Bahar sets the issue on the agenda and thus makes it a global and not merely a local/national affair (cf. Warriner, 2007, 2012). To sum up, Bahar is able to create a translanguaging space in her school assignment by drawing on her personal history, which is closely linked to her transnational biography, for comparison and innovation. Here, she

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sticks to Standard English most of the time, which is expected in an exam for the subject English. As we have seen from the Facebook extract, however, she communicates about this issue with her friend who has a similar transnational biography by drawing on English, Norwegian and Dari. Contentwise, she questions existing attitudes and beliefs about the possibility of Muslim girls dancing in the public sphere. Here, she shows her ability to go beyond boundaries when she creates new identities, values and practices in response to larger societal tensions. Moreover, analytically, the linking of Bahar’s Facebook post to her mock exam makes it possible to gain a deeper insight into the translanguaging space she creates in the latter. In particular, the Facebook post makes us aware of the (emotional) momentum of the issue – not only in Bahar’s life, but also in that of her friend. Also, the Facebook posting and ensuing exam text provide support for Canagarajah’s (2013: 4) argument that language is only one semiotic resource among many. In her feedback, the English language teacher acknowledges Bahar’s rhetorical choices, as well as her positioning toward larger societal ideologies:

Extract 5.12 Your text is the most personal and moving amongst all the texts I have read from the mock exams so far. You start off by telling how you would like to make a difference in your own life, which is all good and well. Yet, the full extent of your dreams and wishes becomes evident when you put the fulfilment of your own dreams and wishes into a larger context. I really look forward to watching you on stage someday! I will be there, I Promise ☺ The teacher indirectly acknowledges the demanding situation Bahar encounters at times when relating to different imagined communities, particularly in terms of values. Further, she praises Bahar for putting her own story into a wider context and thus drawing on her communicative repertoire in terms of cultural comparison. Similar assignments to this one, which stimulate Bahar to draw on her entire repertoire, including cultural comparison, would further develop her critical skills in terms of linking imagined communities.

Conclusions This chapter set out to investigate the social space Bahar creates in her school writings by drawing on the full range of her communicative repertoire. It illustrates how her translanguaging and transnational literacy practices and translanguaging spaces in two school assignments are creative and critical acts. That is, Bahar can strategically follow or flout norms and

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conventions in terms of language and genre choice, while also critically challenging homogenous perceptions of language and culture. The analytical possibilities the study of pupils’ writings outside school provide for understanding the social space their school writing creates have been stressed. That is, the trajectories between writings and literacy experiences in general from different times, places and repertoires provide deepened insight into the social space created by pupils in school writing. This is especially visible in the sense that Bahar makes an emotional investment in her writings by drawing on earlier (literacy) experiences, values and norms, and transforming them in a new setting. This investment is also underlined by the fact that she chose to share these particular two texts with me. Finally, Blommaert (2010: 1) reminds us that the world has become tremendously complex, and ‘[t]hat [this] complexity needs to be examined and understood’. Here I have shown how studying transnational young people’s texts may contribute to gaining a greater understanding as to how globalization is played out in their lives. Bahar very much appears to be an active agent in her social life with the capacity to change (our view of) society (cf. Li Wei, 2011: 1234), and is thus worth our attention. Also, if we are to persuade educators that the repertoires of students are going untapped, more research on how young people create translanguaging spaces is needed.

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Pedagogies to Challenge Monolingual Orientations to Bilingual Education in the United States Susan Hopewell

Introduction Educational policy debates in the United States have long focused on the role of languages other than English during academic instruction. The hyperfocus on the debate around language instruction has left little room for a substantive evaluation of the educational practices that increase the quality of instruction, and therefore the learning, that takes places within these programmes. These debates largely ignore decades of research that consistently demonstrate that, for students whose home language differs from the dominant societal language, bilingual education results in academic achievement that is as efficacious and, at times, superior to English-only instruction (August & Shanahan, 2006; Genesee et al., 2006; Slavin & Cheung, 2003). A premise of this chapter is that researchers and scholars have a moral imperative to pivot the debate from one that is primarily concerned with language of instruction to a more fruitful and pragmatic line of enquiry that explores pedagogies of bilingual instruction. Documenting these pedagogies requires researchers to be embedded in classrooms and to collect and analyze data that have the potential to identify and highlight the art and science of teacher and student behaviours that ensure biliteracy and bilingual achievement. In this chapter I will share select findings from an observational descriptive study of the intentional translanguaging practices of one second-grade teacher in the United States to demonstrate how educators might recognize and use languages in ways that advance academic achievement while also sustaining and cultivating students’ bilingual identities. Although there are numerous languages used in educative settings in the United States, the most 72

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prevalent are Spanish and English, and these are the languages used in this teacher’s classroom. The practices identified herein, however, have relevancy in larger multilingual international contexts. I define translanguaging as the strategic and flexible use of multiple languages within a single learning event, the expectation that content learned in and through one language informs academic performance and participation in the other, and the creative distribution and use of materials across languages in service to overall teaching and learning. I draw heavily upon the work of Cen Williams who discusses translanguaging as the act of receiving information in one language and using or applying it in the other (Baker, 2003; also Toth & Paulsrud, this volume). When translanguaging is primarily applied to the literacy environment, it is often referred to as transliteracy (Baker, 2003) or, more recently, transnational literacies (Dewilde, this volume; Hornberger & Link, 2012). Hornberger and Link define transnational literacies as those that move beyond purposeful multilingual instruction to include practices that embrace communities’ funds of knowledge, multicultural identities and border-crossing social relations. Importantly, it is done in service to increasing overall academic achievement in addition to strengthening both receptive and productive language abilities in all of the contributing named languages. Pedagogies of bilingualism that include intentional translanguaging recognize that language and identity are inextricably linked (Creese & Blackledge, 2010). The purpose of this study was to document and explore when and how the teacher and her students explicitly practised and valued translanguaging pedagogies in direct challenge to the typical bilingual mandate of keeping languages strictly separated. The findings are used to illustrate how research in the area of translanguaging can provide a vision for the development of humanizing pedagogies that recognize that biliterate students’ multiple linguistic resources facilitate and inform their understanding of academic content. Importantly, practices that will be highlighted in this chapter move us beyond a documentation of translanguaging solely as instances of spontaneous code-switching to a more robust and rigorous understanding of how the typical bilingual process of translanguaging can be intentionally and explicitly harnessed by classroom teachers in service to accelerating the language and literacy achievement of emerging bilingual learners. Further, these approaches need not be isolated to bilingual educational settings. They can, in fact, inform practices within monolingual settings, making them universally applicable.

Monolingual Approaches to Bilingualism A paradox within bilingual education is that, despite the fact that there is no empirical evidence to support monolingual orientations to bilingual

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instruction, most US bilingual programmes continue to demand strict separation of languages (Cummins, 2005). A strict separation of languages approach to bilingualism requires that students learn in and through only one language at a time. This is referred to as code-segregation (Guerra, 2012), parallel monolingualism (Fitts, 2006; Heller, 2001) or two solitudes (Cummins, 2005). In the case of Spanish-English bilingual programmes in the US, this means that parts of the day, or perhaps designated subject matters, are dedicated to either Spanish or English, and that during the demarcated time period or subject matter both the teacher and the students remain in the assigned language. All texts and all oral communications are in the authorized language. Students are regularly reminded to remain in the designated language and can be reprimanded for using or applying another language. As a result, speakers of minority language may be silenced in the classroom or unable to demonstrate their full understandings of the concepts being considered. The rationale for this approach is that to become fully bilingual a student must have sufficient and dedicated time to practise each language purposefully (Cummins, 2000; Miramontes et al., 1997). Recent evidence, however, suggests that processing and experiencing the world through two or more languages is typical for bilingual people, and a pedagogy of bilingualism that imagines and embraces translanguaging as instructionally advantageous holds promise. In fact, many of the researchers who initially advocated language segregation have begun to concede that exceptions should be made for explicit and direct side-by-side language analysis (Hamayan, 2010; Thomas & Collier, 2012). The development of a pedagogy of bilingualism has the potential to contribute to more holistic bilingual paradigms for teaching and assessing students, but it must involve more than simply engaging students in a comparative language analysis. The study reported herein documents how one teacher embraces translanguaging instructional practices in response to her students’ needs and to the resources available in each language.

Generative and Holistic Approaches to Language Use in the Classroom This study is grounded in the idea that creating spaces in which students can draw intentionally upon multiple linguistic resources and strengths has the potential to accelerate academic achievement (Auerbach, 1993; Hopewell, 2011, 2013). It acknowledges that, regardless of the externally imposed limitations on language use, students always have all of their linguistic resources at their disposal (Francis, 2005). Support for challenging monolingual approaches to bilingualism is found in the work of Grosjean (1989), Cummins (2000, 2005) and Nation (2001). Further, a moral and ethical argument is

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invoked regarding the necessity of creating bilingual learning spaces that sustain and nurture multilingualism. Each will be discussed briefly. Students’ languages, cultures and life experiences form part of an interwoven and inseparable whole. Intentional compartmentalization of languages is unnatural and results in a fractional understanding of the bilingual learner’s proficiencies and understandings (Grosjean, 1989). This has also been conceptualized as bilingual multicompetence (Cook, 1992). It holds that access to, and application of entire linguistic repertoires results in greater overall engagement with the larger world than when named languages are conceived of as independent and mutually exclusive, or fractional (Cook, 1992; Grosjean, 1982). Instructionally, it means that the entire linguistic repertoire is conceived of, and developed, as a holistic unit. It argues against the idea that the bilingual learner should be compared to a monolingual learner, and for the idea that teaching and learning strategies that foster and invite multilingual opportunities should be developed. Further, theoretically, what is known and understood in one language contributes to what is known and understood in the other. This core premise forms the foundation of what is often referred to as transfer theory or the interdependence hypothesis (Cummins, 2000). It forwards the notion that named languages are reciprocally reinforcing in a bidirectional and supportive manner (Dworin, 2003; Pavlenko & Jarvis, 2002). The process of constructing and extracting meaning from text, therefore, should not be relegated exclusively to one language or another. Further, the totality of a person’s literacy skills and knowledge may, in fact, be distributed across languages. Grounded in these theoretical premises, Cummins (2000) argues that a rigid separation of languages may result in a lost opportunity to develop powerful literacy competencies. Learning involves the recognition of patterns, the formation of analogies, and the connection, reworking, and refining of relationships. Further, new learning is best internalized when it is connected to previous experiences. The ability to communicate and develop new understandings may be distributed across languages. Nation (2001) argues that new learning, in particular the acquisition of second language vocabulary, is quicker and more efficient when its learning burden is minimal. According to Nation, a learning burden represents the amount of effort one must make to learn a new word. He goes on to explain that teachers can reduce a student’s learning burden by attending to ‘systematic patterns and analogies within the second language, and by pointing out connections between the second language and the first’ (Nation, 2001: 24). The teacher, therefore, must engage students in systematic language analyses in which students are explicitly instructed to notice how and when named languages share features and how and when they diverge. Nurturing a thoughtful language environment in which students can draw upon all of their languages as resources may result in differential language learning.

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Finally, the literature on humanizing pedagogies would have us recognize that in the US, a nation in which whiteness and English are often privileged in school spaces, we have the opportunity through the design and enactment of bilingual spaces to nurture a pedagogy in which students’ bilingual and multicultural experiences are centred as essential to their growth and development as human beings (Bartolomé, 1994; Fránquiz & Salazar, 2004; Salazar, 2013). Through decisive action we can create spaces in which students’ languages are not constrained, but rather sustained and cultivated such that students’ humanity and dignity, as reflected in their use of their full repertoire of languages, are recognized and supported through affirming pedagogical practices.

Learning from Teachers By studying how teachers enact the curriculum through two languages, researchers and educators are able to generate knowledge about how bilingualism can be intentionally invoked to advance learning. The study reported herein was observational and took place in a second grade (ages 7–8) classroom during the Literacy-based English language development block. The linguistic culture of this particular site was unique in that the teacher actively encouraged Spanish/English processing within a biliteracy instructional model that traditionally required the strict separation of languages. Further, she intentionally designed lessons and activities that required the use of two languages. Therefore, over the course of four months, I systematically sought to answer the following research question: What are the discursive and pedagogical moves that the teacher encourages or plans that allow and invite students to draw upon their Spanish in order to make sense of the learning goals in English?

Setting and Participants This study took place a school in which a majority of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch (FRL), are Latino, and are learning English as an additional language (see Table 6.1). FRL is a federal meal assistance programme that is available to families who provide evidence of diminished economic income. Qualification for FRL is often used as a proxy to identify families living in poverty. Latino refers to families that have cultural ties to anywhere in Latin America, although all of the students in this study were from Mexican heritage families. Programmatically, the school has a two-way biliteracy programme in which all students are learning to read and write in both Spanish and English. During the study students were grouped homogeneously by

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Table 6.1 School demographics (2014) Category Enrolment FRL White African American Asian Latino Native American Multi-racial English language learners (ALL languages)

480 58.8% 29.6% 1.0% 3.1% 62.9% 0.8% 2.5% 55.8%

language during their literacy block. I chose this classroom because of the widely recognized expertise of the classroom teacher. She had been a member of the faculty for 15 years and was selected as ‘Bilingual Teacher of the Year’ by a local bilingual association in 2012. Her peers and principal commonly speak her praises and she regularly receives outstanding evaluations. As such, I identified her classroom as an ideal environment in which to understand exceptional bilingual practices. Observational, or naturalistic, case studies that take place in actual classroom settings have increased ecological validity in that the participation structures, classroom interactions and materials employed mirror and approximate those that might be encountered in schools with similar populations, values and pedagogies (Broffenbrenner, 1977). Schools establish complex language ecologies that serve to suppress or augment multilingualism, and careful and systematic observation and analyses help us understand language practice as a complex phenomenon (Creese & Blackledge, 2010).

The Study Formal and systematic classroom observations took place on three days per week from January to April 2015 during the literacy-based English language development block. They lasted from one to one and a half hours each for a total of approximately 42 hours of observation. As the principal investigator, I led a team of doctoral students in data collection. During each visit, one observer took detailed field notes while the other video- and audio-taped classroom interactions using the built-in camera and microphone on the iPad mini. One limitation of this form of data collection was the lack of sufficiently powerful microphones to capture all students’ language. Another was that a single recording device inevitably fails to capture the complexity and totality of the dialogic interactions throughout the classroom. Student

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writing, classroom artefacts and the teacher’s instructional notebook were photographed and archived. Each of these data sources was logged and coded. Video-recordings of classroom interactions served as a primary information source from which data could be extracted (Goldman et al., 2007). This format provided a tool for capturing language use in a way that allowed for a detailed analysis of learning and teaching. An effort was made not to interrupt learning and to balance the capture of whole-group teaching and learning experiences with an effort to record small group and paired student language exchanges. All video-clips were indexed and time stamped chronologically with an attempt to describe and name the context, the participants, and the extent to which Spanish was or was not used in each segment. Initial indices and transcriptions were limited to describing what was taking place, how participants were communicating and a description of the lesson content. These low-inference descriptions then allowed the research team to select and isolate the segments that could be analyzed in depth in order to answer the research question. In accordance with the theoretical framing of this study around the phenomena of intentional translanguaging pedagogies, video segments highlighting the teacher’s use of multiple languages, or references to the use of multiple languages, were systematically selected for detailed transcription and analysis. Each segment was then characterized as a ‘teacher directed translanguaging event’. Note that in focusing the video segment selection through this deductive lens, we intentionally excluded segments that were isolated to students using multiple languages, and were compelled to infer teacher intentionality. Segments were often resituated into the holistic video footage to understand the totality of the event, including what directly preceded or followed a particular interaction. Once selected, segments were examined and re-examined to understand the central phenomena of language use. Through an iterative process, illustrative exchanges were isolated and coded for themes using a constant comparative method of viewing, describing and analyzing footage in order to understand the frequency and distribution of language use across time (Strauss, 1987).

Intentionally Planned Translanguaging Practices: Setting the Scene Although the focus was English language development through literacy, and the students were regularly reminded to try to remain in English, both the teacher and the students slipped periodically into Spanish. Often this was spontaneous and used to clarify expectations (¿Puedo escribir lo que dije? Can I write what I said?) or to define a vocabulary word or concept (¿Cómo se dice que los están matando? How do you say that they are killing them?). These moments of spontaneous translanguaging are contrasted, however,

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with intentionally planned and supported bilingual practices. Below, I will highlight two of the pedagogically and linguistically interesting approaches that the teacher employed to build students’ academic content knowledge while simultaneously teaching English. Briefly, all teachers at the focal school plan units holistically such that the teaching and learning of a particular unit spans both the Spanish language literacy time and the literacy-based English language development block. For her unit on biographies, the focal teacher initially introduced the genre of biographies in Spanish and provided extensive time for students to read and discuss the characteristics of biographies while learning about a variety of famous individuals. Then, during the literacy-based English language development block, she eliminated the choice of subject matter and had all students reading and studying only the biography of Frida Kahlo. In choosing Frida Kahlo, she hoped to pique students’ interest by studying a person who shared their Mexican heritage and who had a dramatic and interesting life. In other words, the subject matter served as the vehicle for teaching students the English language, specifically ways of comparing and contrasting, asking and answering questions, proffering opinions, and agreeing or disagreeing.

Pedagogical Approaches Here I will highlight two intentionally planned translanguaging strategies that the teacher used which challenged biliteracy models that require a strict separation of languages. In the first, ‘thematic biliteracy boards’, the teacher transformed what would have previously been a language-specific word wall into a dynamic bilingual display that built language and content knowledge through a deliberate and intentional integration of two languages. In the second, ‘home–school language and literacy experiences’, students were asked to read and interact with families in one language and then use those experiences as the foundation for work accomplished at school in the other language.

Thematic biliteracy boards A traditionally recognized way to assist students in the development of reading and writing is to create word walls (Cooper & Kiger, 2003). Word walls are bulletin boards containing age-appropriate high-frequency or content words that are typically organized by placing the word under the corresponding letter of a pre-posted alphabet. The word ‘was’, for example, would be placed under the letter W, likely with little support regarding the meaning or use of the word. The walls are built to help students gain a repertoire of sight words that can be recognized quickly in reading and spelt

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efficiently in writing. While there is research to indicate their effectiveness, the majority of the studies are conducted in monolingual English-speaking environments (Jasmine & Schiesl, 2009). Guidance for the use of word walls in bilingual settings is minimal, but does suggest that sight words in each language be kept separate and that walls that are dedicated to Spanish remain authentic to the language (Escamilla, 2000). Contrastive analysis is the one area in which there is some support for a side-by-side examination of the features of the languages that are similar or different. Classroom displays for contrastive analysis might include anchor posters to examine true versus false cognates, or explicit attention to capitalization and punctuation rules that vary by language (Escamilla, 2000; Escamilla et al., 2014; Montelongo et al., 2011). Cognates are words across languages that share etymological roots. They often look and sound similar, and the critical feature is that they share meaning. The purpose of contrastive analysis is to develop students’ metalinguistic awareness such that they begin to build a self-extending system for language and literacy development. Thematic biliteracy boards vary from traditional word walls in some fundamental ways. First, unlike word walls that are typically begun at the start of the school year, arranged alphabetically and exhibited throughout the year, these displays are organized thematically and are meant to serve as scaffolds that are displayed only for the period of time in which students are acquiring the knowledge or skill they address. These instructional scaffolds are teacher-provided supports that help students as they learn a new concept, skill or language feature. When a unit is complete, or the students have demonstrated that they have autonomous control over that skill or knowledge, the scaffold is removed. Secondly, they are co-constructed with students such that nothing is added to the board unless the students are involved. Often, what is added comes from students’ questions and their interactions with texts. Thirdly, the information is not limited to single words and it is not language specific. It contains single words, phrases and sentences, attention to cognates, and strategic translations. Everything is posted in English. Then, for intentionally selected sections, the Spanish equivalent is offered. The Spanish might be offered because it provides a striking contrast to the form in English, or because the teacher senses that the word or linguistic concept is unknown to most students in both languages. It is a way to bridge and toggle between languages to develop students’ overall linguistic capacity. The creation of the thematic biliteracy boards begins with large spans of wall being covered with butcher paper. Above the board, the theme or the essential guiding question is posted, but otherwise the paper remains blank. Then, as the teacher and the students engage in reading, writing, speaking and listening related to the theme, the teacher designates particular sections of the chart paper for various types of language development. Typically, in this second grade classroom, the bulletin board would have sections

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for: (1) general English language content vocabulary and phrases; (2) cognates; and (3) a section titled ‘Así se Dice’ (That’s how you say it!). In the general content vocabulary and phrases section, key English language vocabulary that the students needed to express their understanding of the content would be listed, often with important visuals to support language acquisition in meaningful ways. These words and phrases are primarily content specific although general vocabulary can be added as needed. Because vocabulary is added as encountered or needed, it is not arranged alphabetically. In Spanish and English, helping students understand and recognize the importance of cognates is a fundamental bilingual comprehension strategy. Like the section on general English vocabulary, the section for cognates is bounded in space, but the words that are added are not organized by the alphabetic principle. Finally, the third area of the board, ‘Así se Dice’, was originally conceptualized as a guided translation exercise that engages students in grades three and above in contrastive analyses to help them to understand the nuance of communication across languages (Escamilla et al., 2009). In this second grade classroom, however, the teacher recognized that students were often trying to translate common phrases from Spanish to English in literal ways that were ineffective. Rather than having the students develop the translations, as would be done in the upper grades, she would list the phrase in English and provide the Spanish equivalent using differing colours to indicate language distinction. While posting, she would explicitly and directly indicate the important contrasts. Each of these sections, then, served as a resource for students when they engaged in their oracy and writing work. Complementing these interactive additions to the board would be student work in which they demonstrated their applications of the highlighted language features. By way of example, consider the thematic biliteracy board that the teacher created relating to the study of Frida Kahlo. She began by covering the greater part of two classroom walls with black butcher paper and created a header that identified the learning goal and the key questions they would be exploring. Specifically, it said, ‘We are studying biographies. Guiding Questions: Why do we remember him/her? How did he/she make a difference?’ She then used coloured chalk to record the words, phrases and information students needed as they read, wrote and spoke in English about Frida Kahlo. She used yellow chalk for English and white chalk for Spanish. These were punctuated with evidence of student learning and photographs from the unit. While there is much that could be highlighted, let us examine briefly some of the words, phrases and sentences listed in the Así se dice section. By carefully listening to the ways in which students were expressing themselves in English, their teacher shared that she had noticed that students’ English phrasing consisted of direct translations from Spanish and that they had not yet learned how to read aloud dates in English. She used these observations to make an explicit comparison between ‘was born’ and ‘nació’. In particular,

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she helped them to understand the importance of the linking verb ‘to be’, and from there she made connections to the question they were trying to answer. She then addressed how to read a date in Spanish and English by highlighting that in English the date is divided into two sections that correspond to smaller units (i.e. 1934 = nineteen, thirty-four) while in Spanish each digit contributes its value to the date (i.e. 1934 = mil novecientos treinta y cuatro or one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four). By taking only a few moments to address these differences, and recording them so that students could refer back to them, the teacher raised students’ metalinguistic awareness in a way that would have been impossible, or at least strained, if the languages were always to be separated. The remaining sections of the board listed student-generated questions about Frida Kahlo (i.e. ‘Did Frida’s paintings help her to express her feelings?’), a list of cognates (i.e. espina/spine), and general English vocabulary that was supported by illustrations (i.e. full body cast), Spanish translations (i.e. easel/caballete), or English synonyms (i.e. tease = bully). The students regularly suggested additions and changes and would intentionally look to the board for assistance as they engaged in reading, writing and speaking about Frida Kahlo. Again, each section supported student learning, but was not limited to the use of only one language.

Home–school language and literacy experiences A second approach involved family members and began from the holistic perspective that what is learned or experienced in one language can contribute to what is expressed and understood in the other. This principle already guides the coordination of instruction across the Spanish language literacy and the literacy-based English language development environments during the school day. The coordination of home literacy experiences and school literacy experiences, even when they had occurred in different languages, was a new approach for families and students. Research is clear that increased parental involvement in the education of all students leads to multiple benefits for both students and families (Olsen & Fuller, 2012). For bilingual and low-income families, in particular, we know that parents’ expertise and experience is often dismissed or underutilized (Jones, 2003; Lott, 2001, 2003). Homework can be an important way to involve families in their children’s education and may serve as a way to communicate to parents that schools and teachers value them as partners in their children’s education (Brisk, 2006). Finally, there is evidence that the use of dual language texts in schools yields positive academic outcomes for bilingual students (Ma, 2008; Naqvi et al., 2012; Sneddon, 2009). To coordinate home–school literacy experiences, the teacher gathered picture books and texts from the library that related to a theme and were culturally and personally relevant. In two distinct ways, the teacher invited

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family participation through homework. In the first, the connection was through oral language assignments, while the second was on a smaller scale, but was text based. The first iteration involved a unit study on legends. In this unit, the teacher read aloud a series of legends in English, and asked her students to discuss them at home in Spanish with their parents. Students were expected to retell in Spanish one of the versions of the legend that they had heard in English, and to elicit their parents’ inputs about their experiences with regards to the legends. The oral language activity did not require an abundance of texts, and ensured that all students and families could participate. When the students returned to school, they wrote about what they had learned from their parents during their Spanish language literacy block. Thus, what began as a unit on legends during English language literacy was connected to home and then brought back to Spanish language literacy. The following description illustrates this cycle. One of the legends was La Llorona (The Weeping Woman), a popular Latino legend in which a crying woman is said to wander river banks calling out for her drowned children. Like most legends, the story varies in its telling such that in some versions she is believed to have drowned her children herself while in others they died due to her neglect. The legend is often shared with children to warn them of the dangers that take place after dark. Students heard multiple versions of the story during their literacy-based English language development time. Then, students were to retell a version to their parents and ask parents’ their opinions about the legends. When they returned to school they wrote and shared what their parents said. The following are two examples of these written texts: Mi mamá opina que la llorona fué una mamá muy mala porque una mamá siempre debe cuidar a sus hijos. También piensa que la llorona llora porque ella se siente arrepentida por haber matado a sus hijos. (My mother believes that the weeping woman was a bad mother because mothers should always take good care of their children. She also thinks that she cries because she’s remorseful about having killed her children.) My mamá piensa que al oir La Llorona siente miedo porque piensa que viene por ella. Una lección que yo aprendí es no debes ir afuera tan noche porque le pueden robar. (My mother gets scared when she hears the weeping woman because she believes she’s coming to get her. A lesson I learned is that you shouldn’t go outside after dark because you might get robbed.) These examples show how coordinated home–school literacy events that link what students are learning in and through English to conversations conducted in Spanish provide opportunities for family engagement in language and literacy development. In the first example, we see that the student’s

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mother is able to use the discussion to pass on life lessons about what it means to be a parent and to model for the child the important literacy comprehension strategy of making inferences. The mother infers that the weeping woman’s behaviours are indicative of her remorse, which requires her to combine her personal life experiences and values with the overall theme of the story. In the second example, the mother uses the story as a foundation to reinforce lessons regarding one’s safety after dark. In each instance, the culturally familiar story, although experienced in school only in English, served as a powerful basis for developing language, literacy and life lessons through homework that engaged parents as partners. Importantly, because they were in a biliteracy school, students were able to record their parents’ thoughts in the language in which they had been shared. The familiar stories, although experienced in English, provided an opportunity for children to talk to their parents about familiar content, thereby increasing the home– school connection. Linguistically, these tasks ask students to experience content in one language and then to translate it, or recast it, in the alternate language. At the conclusion of this experience, the teacher shared her regret that she did not have enough texts to allow each student to take home a book for homework. While the oral language experiences were powerful, and the teacher received positive feedback from students and parents, she lamented that the discussions might have been even more powerful if families could read and discuss the stories in more detail. An opportunity to experiment with this approach surfaced during the unit on biographies. As mentioned previously, students read and experienced a variety of biographies during their Spanish language literacy block, but were focused exclusively on Frida Kahlo during their English language development block. The English language literacy goals during this time were to learn the vocabulary and language structures associated with expressing opinions, comparing/ contrasting and asking/answering questions. Students had extensive opportunities to rehearse these structures orally and to connect them to their writing. As they neared the end of the unit, the teacher announced that they were going to need to use their imaginations, but that Frida Kahlo would be visiting their class! The students were to adopt the role of journalists, and they would have the opportunity to interview Ms Kahlo. Drawing on all that they had learned throughout the unit, students excitedly created lists of questions to pose to Ms Kahlo. What was unknown to all but one of them was that the part of ‘Ms Kahlo’ was to be played by one of the students in the class. This seven-year-old student, in preparation for her role, took home books about Frida Kahlo that were written in Spanish. She read these texts with her mother to learn all she could for the interview. Her teacher shared that the girl’s mother was very excited about the opportunity and relished her role in helping her daughter to prepare. When the day arrived, the student, armed with the information she had learned through readings and

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discussions with her mother in Spanish, donned a traditional folk dress, braided and adorned her hair with flowers, and drew together her eyebrows to assume her role. Though she appeared self-conscious, she sat before her classmates, spoke in the first person, and answered questions that were posed in English. Throughout the exchange she discussed her relationship with Diego Rivera, the accident that changed her life, her affinity for painting self-portraits, her visit to the United States, etc. While some of this information was shared knowledge that had been developed in class, much of it was gleaned through the Spanish language texts she read at home. Her peers were impressed and in awe. After experiencing the interview, the students wrote their opinions about the experience. The following sentences, written by one of her peers, sum up the sentiments of the group: ‘From my point of view, I think Frida’s visit was incredible because I liked everybody’s questions. [Frida] was brave because she was in front of 17 students and 5 teachers.’ In this cycle, unlike the previous one connected to legends, English language literacy was linked to home language experiences in Spanish and brought back into English. Information read and discussed in Spanish at home served as the basis for an in-class discussion in English.

Discussion and Implications Most US-based studies on translanguaging document how teachers and students are using multiple languages during class, but few have looked at how teachers design learning experiences that acknowledge and draw upon students’ affinities to make connections across languages (see, for example, Esquinca et al., 2014; Martínez-Roldan, 2015). This chapter contributes to the literature by providing a glimpse of specific strategies teachers can use to capitalize on the multiple linguistic resources children bring to the classroom. By studying how teachers are able to design intentional multilingual learning opportunities in service to language and literacy development, we can, perhaps, develop pedagogies that not only capitalize and build on these practices and ways of interpreting and understanding the world, but also expand our ability to influence the cognitive domain of metacognitive awareness. As seen in this study, powerful bilingual learning opportunities can be created by teachers in which students’ learning burdens are eased through direct and explicit reference to languages other than English (Nation, 2001). These strategies capitalize on theories of linguistic transfer and increase the likelihood that students can use and apply the totality of their linguistic repertoire in service to learning (Cummins, 2005; Grosjean, 1989). Pragmatically, these practices allow a teacher to use textual materials in unique and interesting ways that dismiss the mandate that a text created in one language can

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only be used and applied in the language environment to which it corresponds. As seen above, texts and languages can be invoked flexibly in service to the larger overall learning goal. Classroom practices should fit the students we teach, and creating the conditions and contexts within which students can thrive is a universal responsibility. Bilingual schools need their own pedagogies, curricula, materials and assessments. Programmes that insist on strict separation of languages rely upon monolingual pedagogies that deny the educational potential that is nurtured through the creation of intentionally bilingual spaces. Teacher training programmes that teach evidence-based pedagogies that are developed and studied in monolingual contexts exacerbate this in that bilingual teachers are never exposed to potentially powerful practices that bring together two languages. Policy and practice have converged to limit and prohibit the development of purposefully bilingual teaching strategies. Teachers need to be given permission to creatively explore how to enact bilingual curricula in linguistically malleable ways. Creating a time and a space to engage in the typical bilingual communicative practice of processing the world through translanguaging holds promise. Interestingly, documenting such practices may lead to the creation of bilingual practices that can be applied in monolingual settings. The home– school language and literacy experiences documented above could easily be implemented in a school that is conducted in English only. Students could study a topic during the school day in English, return home to read, write and discuss the topic with family members in the home language, and return to school to share new knowledge. These potentially powerful learning opportunities would serve to strengthen home–school partnerships, and would communicate powerfully to children and parents that home languages and literacies are valuable. Educators have a moral, ethical and legal obligation to institute best practices for emerging bilingual learners. Many have argued that bilingual education is critically important because all children have a right to use the languages shared within their families and because languages are rich resources that contribute to educational achievement (Ruiz, 1984). I argue that we must go one step further and recognize that language is intricately linked to a person’s identity and humanity. Denying a student access to his or her language as a viable and important source for learning negates that student’s fundamental humanity. Pedagogies of translanguaging that intentionally enact and invite multilingual contributions are fundamentally humanizing. These are spaces in which students’ languages are not constrained, but rather sustained and cultivated such that students’ humanity and dignity, as reflected in their use of their full repertoire of languages, are recognized and supported through affirming pedagogical practices. Translanguaging, then, opens spaces for essential aspects of students’ identities to be welcomed into the learning

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environment in ways that may support their social and emotional wellbeing (see also Mary & Young, this volume). Bilingual education begins from a place of promise and optimism, but needs to be challenged to move beyond its insistence on strictly monolingual approaches to instruction. This is particularly true in the US context, but should be generalized to all bilingual learning environments. The charge to the field, therefore, is to identify pockets of hope in which languages and materials are used flexibly and effectively, and to share these strategies to illuminate the unique possibilities that translanguaging affords teachers and learners. The classroom described in this chapter is one such pocket of hope.

References Auerbach, E.R. (1993) Reexamining English only in the ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly 27 (1), 9–32. August, D. and Shanahan, T. (eds) (2006) Developing Literacy in Second-language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-minority Children and Youth. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Baker, C. (2003) Biliteracy and transliteracy in Wales: Language planning and the Welsh National Curriculum. In N. Hornberger (ed.) Continua of Biliteracy: An Ecological Framework for Educational Policy, Research, and Practice in Multilingual Settings (pp. 71–90). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Bartolomé, L. (1994) Beyond the methods fetish: Toward a humanizing pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review 64, 173–195. Brisk, M.E. (2006) Bilingual education: From compensatory to quality schooling (2nd edn). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Broffenbrenner, U. (1977) Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist 32, 515–531. Cook, V.J. (1992) Evidence for multicompetence. Language Learning 42 (4), 557–591. Cooper, D. and Kiger, N. (2003) Literacy: Helping Children Construct Meaning (5th edn). New York: Houghton Mifflin. Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2010) Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching? Modern Language Journal 94 (1), 103–115. Cummins, J. (2000) Language, Power, and Pedagogy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (2005) Teaching for cross-language transfer in dual language education: Possibilities and pitfalls. TESOL Symposium of Dual Language Education: Teaching and Learning Two Languages in the EFL Setting, 23 September, Istanbul, Turkey. Dworin, J.E. (2003) Insights into biliteracy development: Toward a bidirectional theory of bilingual pedagogy. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education 2 (2), 171–186. Escamilla, K. (2000) Teaching literacy in Spanish. In J.V. Tinajero and R.A. DeVillar (eds) The Power of Two Languages: Effective Dual-language Use Across the Curriculum (pp. 126– 141). New York: McGraw-Hill. Escamilla, K., Geisler, D., Hopewell, S., Butvilofsky, S. and Sparrow, W. (2009) Using writing to make cross-language connections from Spanish to English. In C. Rodríguez-Eagle (ed.) Achieving Literacy Success with English Language Learners: Insights, Assessment, and Instruction (pp. 141–156). Worthington, OH: Reading Recovery Council of North America. Escamilla, K., Hopewell, S., Butvilofsky, S., Sparrow, W., Soltero-González, L., RuizFigueroa, O. and Escamilla, M. (2014) Biliteracy from the Start: Literacy Squared in Action. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon Publishing.

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Esquinca, A., Araujo, B. and de la Piedra, M.T. (2014) Meaning making and translanguaging in a two-way dual-language program on the U.S.-Mexico border. Bilingual Research Journal 37 (2), 164–181. Fitts, S. (2006) Reconstructing the status quo: Linguistic interaction in a dual-language school. Bilingual Research Journal 30, 337–366. Francis, W.S. (2005) Bilingual semantic and conceptual representation. In J.F. Kroll and A.M.B. De Groot (eds) Handbook of Bilingualism: Psycholinguistic Approaches (pp. 251– 267). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fránquiz, M. and Salazar, M. (2004) The transformative potential of humanizing pedagogy: Addressing the diverse needs of Chicano/Mexicano students. High School Journal 87 (4), 36–53. Genesee, F., Lindholm-Leary, K., Saunders, W.M. and Christian, D. (2006) Educating English Language Learners. New York: Cambridge University Press. Goldman, R., Erickson, F., Lemke, J. and Derry, S.J. (2007) Selection in video. In S.J. Derry (ed.) Guidelines for Video Research in Education. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Data Research and Development Center. See http://drdc.uchicago.edu/what/videoresearch-guidelines.pdf (accessed 1 October 2015). Grosjean, F. (1982) Life with Two Languages: An Introduction to Bilingualism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Grosjean, F. (1989) Neurolinguists beware! The bilingual is not two monolinguals in one. Brain and Language 36, 3–15. Guerra, J.C. (2012) From code-segregation to code-switching to code-meshing: Finding deliverance from deficit thinking through language awareness and performance. In P.J. Dunston, S.K. Fullerton, C.C. Bates, K.N. Headley and P.M. Stecker (eds) 61st Literacy Research Association Yearbook (pp. 29–39). Oak Creek, WI: Literacy Research Association. Hamayan, E. (2010) Separado o together? Reflecting on the separation of languages of instruction. Soleado. Albuquerque, NM: Dual Language Education of New Mexico. Heller, M. (2001) Undoing the macro/micro dichotomy: Ideology and categorization in a linguistic minority school. In N. Coupland (ed.) Sociolinguistics and Social Theory (pp. 261–296). Harlow: Pearson. Hopewell, S. (2011) Leveraging bilingualism to accelerate English reading comprehension. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 14 (5), 603–620. Hopewell, S. (2013) Strengthening bi-literacy through translanguaging pedagogies. Literacy Research Association Yearbook 62, 234–245. Hornberger, N.H. and Link, H. (2012) Translanguaging and transnational literacies in multilingual classrooms: A biliteracy lens. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 15 (3), 261–278. Jasmine, J. and Schiesl, P. (2009) The effects of word walls and word wall activities on the reading fluency of first grade students. Reading Horizons 49 (4), 301–314. Jones, T.G. (2003) Contribution of Hispanic parents’ perspectives to teacher preparation. School Community Journal 13 (2), 73–97. Lott, B. (2001) Low-income parents and the public schools. Journal of Social Issues 57 (2), 247–259. Lott, B. (2003) Recognizing and welcoming the standpoint of low-income parents in the public schools. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation 14 (1), 91–104. Ma, J. (2008) ‘Reading the word and the world’: How mind and culture are mediated through the use of dual-language storybooks. Education 36, 237–251. Martínez-Roldan, C.M. (2015) Translanguaging practices as mobilization of linguistic resources in a Spanish/English bilingual after-school program: An analysis of contradictions. International Multilingual Research Journal 9 (1), 43–58.

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Miramontes, O.B., Nadeau, A. and Commins, N.L. (1997) Restructuring Schools for Linguistic Diversity: Linking Decision Making to Effective Programs. New York: Teachers College Press. Montelongo, J.A., Hernández, A.C. and Herter, R.J. (2011) Using cognates to scaffold context clues strategies for Latino ELs. Reading Teacher 64 (6), 429–434. Naqvi, R., Thorne, K.J., Pfitscher, C.M., Nordstokke, D.W. and McKeough, A. (2012) Reading dual language books: Improving early literacy skills in linguistically diverse classrooms. Journal of Early Childhood Research 11 (1), 3–15. Nation, I.S.P. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olsen, G. and Fuller, M.L. (2012) Home–School Relations: Teachers and Parents Working Together (4th edn). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Pavlenko, A. and Jarvis, S. (2002) Bidirectional transfer. Applied Linguistics 23 (2), 191–214. Ruiz, R. (1984) Orientations in language planning. NABE Journal 8, 15–34. Salazar, M.D.C. (2013) A humanizing pedagogy: Reinventing the principles of education as a journey toward liberation. Review of Research in Education 37, 121–148. Slavin, R. and Cheung, A. (2003) Effective Reading Programs for English Language Learners: A Best-evidence Synthesis. Washington, DC: Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR). Sneddon, R. (2009) Bilingual Books – Biliterate Children: Learning to Read through Dual Language Books. London: Trentham Books. Strauss, A.L. (1987) Qualitative Data Analysis for Social Scientists. New York: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, W.P. and Collier, V.P. (2012) Dual Language Education for a Transformed World. Albuquerque, NM: Fuente Press.

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Translanguaging and Social Justice: The Case of Education for Immigrants who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing Karin Allard and Åsa Wedin

Introduction This chapter presents the importance of translanguaging for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Deaf communication has the potential to challenge traditional perceptions of bilingualism and communication in multilingual settings, by virtue of the complexity that is such an essential characteristic of communication where people who are deaf or hard of hearing are included (Deaf, with a capital D, is used in this chapter for people who are deaf or hard of hearing). García and Cole (2014: 100) note: ‘Deaf languaging, with its multimodal, spatial nature, enables us to better understand the construction of all languages, both spoken and signed, and thus to invert the relationship in which sign languages have been subordinated to the linguistics of spoken language.’ The focus of this chapter is on the role of translanguaging in education for immigrant Deaf persons with short or no earlier schooling, who have had little or no formal training in any sign language. In Sweden, children who are deaf or hard of hearing are offered training through The National Agency for Special Needs Education and Schools and, since 1981, Swedish Sign Language (SSL) should in Swedish education be treated as the first language of Deaf children, with Swedish treated as their second language. Through schooling, these children receive formal training both in and through these two languages. However, among the immigrants who come to Sweden in the current wave of global migration, there are also people who are deaf or hard 90

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of hearing. Their previous schooling may vary with regard to quality and type, and in many cases has not included formal training in any sign language. In some cases, these individuals have had no opportunity to attend school at all. For them, both SSL and Swedish are second languages in ways that differ from how Swedish is perceived as a second language for Swedishborn Deaf persons. At the same time, teachers and other staff in schools for Deaf children and adults usually have little training in the relevant and necessary conditions for second language teaching or bilingual teaching, as well as limited experience in multicultural aspects of education. Thus, there is an urgent need to create knowledge about conditions for such learning as well as for the development of both language and learning among immigrants who are deaf or hard of hearing. Signed languages, and their users, tend to be subordinated in relation to spoken languages in a similar way to how minority languages are often subordinated to majority languages. This implies a focus on the hierarchy of languages, which in this chapter is highlighted in the relationship between signed and spoken languages, and also with regard to how this affects people in different arenas. By focusing on the question of the individual’s opportunities to use his or her various linguistic resources, we stress the Deaf student’s right to sign language. In this chapter we focus on education for the Deaf from a social justice perspective, making experiences among Deaf immigrants visible by drawing on in-depth interviews with a Deaf adult man who came to Sweden 15 years ago and who had only received limited schooling prior to migration. Building on his narrative, we will give a picture that will illuminate certain linguistic aspects of social justice and also create new knowledge concerning education for this group of people, particularly about aspects of translanguaging which include a diversity of languages and modalities. Thus the aim of the chapter is to take a critical perspective on conditions for schooling for Deaf students with an immigrant background.

Theoretical Framework This chapter takes a critical perspective on the question of education for Deaf immigrant students with little or no earlier formal training in a sign language. Deaf communities are complex, including people who are deaf and hard of hearing to different degrees, as well as relatives, i.e. individuals who grow up as hearing children to Deaf parents (a group called CODA, Children of Deaf Adults). Thus the Deaf community is a heterogeneous group with varying competence and experience from growing up in a sign language environment. Another group within the Deaf community is interpreters and others who have learned a sign language. Deaf people include those who were born deaf or became deaf later in life. Deaf communities may also include family members who have not developed a sign language but use

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whatever communicative tools that may be at hand, such as written language, gestures or pictures (Lucas, 1995). In Deaf communities, different modalities are used, such as signing, literacy, oracy, finger-spelling and mouthing. They include people who vary considerably in their proficiency in these different modalities, and also with regard to the age at which they started to acquire each language. This means that Deaf multilingualism is more complex and varied than spoken multilingualism and is used more dynamically. It also means that this kind of language development is more varied and that the different language components are more or less well developed, with signed and written modalities as the primary ones (Swanwick, 2016). Realizing this complexity of Deaf bilingualism, García and Cole (2014) questioned what is commonly considered to be appropriate development for hearing bilinguals. Studying the simultaneity of modalities among the Deaf convinced them that the ‘language practices of all bilinguals are complex and interrelated’ (García & Cole, 2014: 104, emphasis in original). It is crucial in all education to build on students’ prior knowledge. In the case of immigrants who are Deaf in comparison with hearing people, one can recognize that a nuanced picture emerges regarding deaf upbringing and education. Earlier development of knowledge and language may, for example, have been disrupted for various reasons. The family may have been unable to handle the deafness or there may have been family separation, with the child having been separated from the family by being placed in a boarding school that may have been located far from the home. The individual may, consequently, have suffered from restricted access to language, signed or oral, which may have affected cognitive and linguistic development. Schooling may have been disrupted, with sign language discouraged or even prohibited. People in the individual’s close environment, such as teachers and parents, may have perceived the inability to talk as an inability to think and learn, and there may have been a focus on what seemed to be lacking in the individual’s development. Parents may have associated deafness with shame, bad luck or punishment; or they may have felt hopeless at not having been able to help their child. The parents may also have come to the new country with unrealistic expectations for the deafness to be ‘cured’, for example through cochlear implant (CI). As all linguistic skills influence the development of a second language (Cummins, 2000), it is important that teachers take earlier language proficiency into account. Gerner de García (1995) stresses the importance of valuing earlier language proficiency among immigrant Deaf students, written as well as spoken and signed. Akamatsu and Cole (2000) give an example of a Czech sign language speaker who acquired American Sign Language rapidly, but after many years only had rudimentary literacy skills in English. They claim that schools should also attend to ‘home signs’, such as visual icons and natural gestures used in the home. Also, according to Gerner de García (1995), teachers may think that such individuals have no language, while

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they may actually know many languages. They may have learned sign language outside school through older Deaf individuals or through voluntary organizations, or they may have spoken their home language prior to deafness. The individual thus may have acquired literacy in another language, and perhaps another script, prior to immigration. Gerner de García (1995) also stresses the importance of training teachers in special schools in second language acquisition. The immigrant Deaf need to learn both a new sign language and the spoken and written language of schooling, both constituting second languages. She argues for the need to develop not only everyday language but also decontextualized academic school language, which takes many years. The notion of translanguaging (García, 2009) is particularly relevant in educational settings where Deaf students are included, as it challenges traditional perceptions of language as discrete entities that may be counted and given labels such as ‘English’, ‘Chinese’ or ‘Swedish Sign Language’, instead highlighting the complexity, variability and flexibility in media and modalities used in communication generally and in specific settings including signed languages in particular. Translanguaging makes visible the simultaneous use of different kinds of linguistic forms, signs and modalities, which is typical of settings where Deaf persons are included (see, for example, Allard, 2013; Lindahl, 2015). From a critical perspective on communication and language, Fairclough (2001), Blommaert (2010) and Canagarajah (2013) focus on questions of social rights, democracy and power. In relation to Deaf education, it is important to include questions of voice and agency: Whose voices are heard and who is listened to? In research on education for people who are Deaf, the interest is commonly on the product as opposed to the process, and more often on oral and written language than on signed language. The field is dominated by cognitive and psychological paradigms (see, for example, Knoors & Marschark, 2014; Swanwick, 2016), while focus is rarely on questions such as who sets the goals, which discursive practices are highlighted, and what the opinions of Deaf communities are. When language in oral or written form is the norm, people who are Deaf easily become silenced. One example of research that problematizes the dominant paradigm is Plaza-Pust and Morales-Lopez (2008), who investigate language and switching between different linguistic resources, signed as well as oral, by listening to educational experiences among the Deaf. They show that focus on social rights and power makes the positions of different agents visible in the contexts where individuals develop their linguistic resources. The study of newly arrived immigrants who are Deaf is not a common subject in research on education for the Deaf in general, nor are they very visible in research on second language acquisition and bilingual education. The treatment of SSL as the first language of Deaf students and of Swedish as their second language in educational practices in the special schools for

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the Deaf in Sweden needs to be problematized in the case of immigrant Deaf individuals, who by definition have both these languages as second languages. To enable equal access to education and opportunities for school success for Deaf students, this is of great importance. From a perspective of social justice, this is crucial for their future in general but particularly for Deaf immigrants who come to Sweden with various school backgrounds.

Methodological Issues To give a picture of the role of translanguaging in education for Deaf immigrants in Sweden with limited earlier schooling, this text builds on a narrative, created through in-depth interviews with one informant, here named Emir. Narratives as a methodology offer one way to explore questions both about people’s experiences and identities and about how they are attributed meaning through narration. At the same time, new experiences and identities are created through the narration per se. Narration as meaningmaking is discussed by Freeman (2010), who claims that narration about events from the past provides a way to reflect on experiences and give them meaning. Reflection in itself may in turn create knowledge about processes and relations concerning time, place or reality beyond the narration and the narrative (Karlsson & Pérez Prieto, 2012). Narrative reflection (Freeman, 2010) may also, in itself, create something; thus we and others may appear in new ways through such narratives. Consequently, narrative research may be perceived as performative narration (Karlsson & Pérez Prieto, 2012). In accordance with a socionarratological perspective (Frank, 2010), we view narratives and people as mutually dependent, and position the informant as the authority regarding his own narration and us, as researchers, as having an ethical will to understand and as being able to relate the narration to other phenomena. We have treated the narrative as open-ended, with no final version, following Frank (2010). Accordingly, our interpretation here should be understood as an invitation to continued dialogue. With this openended perspective on the presentation of the narrative, our intention is not that our interpretation should be seen as a final result, but rather that it should be open for further discussion. The material for this chapter was created through three in-depth interviews with the informant. The interviews were mainly conducted through SSL, a second language that the informant started to develop at the age of 15, i.e. 15 years before the interviews were made. As only one of us, Allard, has a command of SSL, she carried out the first two interviews. Wedin participated only in the third interview, together with two interpreters, SSL– Swedish. This arrangement was made to make the informant feel more comfortable in the interview situation. Being interviewed through a second

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language may be a very sensitive experience, particularly when there may have been disruptions in schooling and communication during childhood, as in this case. It was decided, therefore, not to include Wedin and the interpreters until the third and last interview. However, the informant was aware that Wedin would watch the videos and read the transcripts, and also that the reason she was not present during the first two interviews was her lack in signing skills. By conducting three interviews, we wanted to encourage the informant to reflect upon his experiences, his thoughts and feelings about his childhood, himself, his social relations to others and the world around him. All three interviews were video-recorded, translated and transcribed into written Swedish. Each interview took about one hour. During the first interview, the focus was on the informant’s background, especially on his early education and language development. During the second interview, deeper understanding was developed about his childhood and early schooling, whereas the third one focused mainly on the informant’s education in Sweden and further reflections on his childhood and early education. Again, the sensitivity of the situation should be emphasized, as the informant in this case had faced severe communication problems during his life, including a feeling of flaws in communication with parents and close relatives, and also because his conditions of schooling and education had been poor. Due to possible interactional constraints in the interview situation, particular ethical considerations were warranted. During interviews, this was taken into account by carefully paying attention to reactions from the informant and to what was expressed by him. Both translation and transcription of recorded material are always problematic, as they imply reduction of the material. In this case, the recorded material was first translated from SSL to written or oral Swedish, and then to English for the parts presented here. It should be remembered that SLL is a second language for the informant. The examples presented here are not aimed at detailed linguistic analysis of the interviews, but on creating indepth understanding of the informant’s perspectives on his life and on the process by which he developed language and thinking. By using narration as our basis, we want to support and promote the informant’s reflections on his own experiences, his thoughts and feelings regarding his childhood, himself and others, and the world he is living in. In this process, social aspects are particularly interesting, as they are crucial for any individual’s development of identity, knowledge and social life. This means that as far as possible we as researchers strive to represent what was expressed by the informant, although, obviously, what will be presented here is our own interpretation and understanding. Our main concern when presenting the data has been to represent the narrative respectfully. The communicative situation during the interviews was demanding and throughout the process we listened attentively, making

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sure that we handled the material with care when processing it through translation and when representing it in written text. The narrative presented here represents voices that are seldom heard, generating important knowledge about what types of knowledge and experiences an immigrant Deaf person may have. Before turning to the narrative, we will explain the role of translanguaging in Deaf education.

Translanguaging in Deaf Education In classrooms for the Deaf in Sweden, Swedish sign language is used as the dominant mediating tool (Allard, 2013). In classroom interaction, a complex mix of languages and modalities are used, depending on the students who are present during lessons. While some students have SSL as their main language, others may also, to some extent, rely on oral Swedish. Teachers may be hearing, deaf or hard of hearing. As a result, lessons are constructed through different languages and modalities, depending on conditions for participation in the classroom. For example, in a lesson in Spanish as a foreign language, the basis for talk may be a written text and the teacher and the students then chain different modalities to each other, such as spoken Swedish, SSL, written Swedish and oral Spanish. This chaining (Humphries & McDougall, 1999; Quinto-Pozos & Reynolds, 2012), is common in classrooms where sign languages provide the basis for communication. Participants use chaining where different linguistic resources are combined by being chained together, which is particularly relevant when signed and written languages are used simultaneously despite (or because of) the variances in performance. Thus chaining is relevant for the description of translanguaging particularly in settings where signed languages are included. García and Cole (2014) show that what they call signacy is an important linguistic competence, together with oracy and literacy. Signacy here includes the use of signs, including visual pictures and visual movements, related to sign language, alongside the referential markers included in sign languages, such as pointings, gestures, finger spelling and orientation in the threedimensional room, among others. García and Cole (2014) argue that signacy, as well as literacy, is not an isolated skill developed by the individual, but enacted in social and cultural practices. Thus, classroom interaction consists of different modalities and languages that are simultaneously used, which makes translanguaging a particularly useful notion in this context. Examples of how teachers and students shuttle eloquently between different languages and modalities, such as SSL, oral Swedish, written Swedish, mouthing, pointing, finger spelling and so on are shown in Allard (2013) and Lindahl (2015). These translanguaging practices vary according to the conditions for participation, such as students’ and teachers’ hearing status.

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We now turn to the narrative to create a picture of the consequences that growing up as a Deaf person in an environment where sign language is not promoted may have for educational opportunities.

Growing Up as a Deaf Person in Kosovo The narrative of Emir is complicated, as is any person’s narrative. In the representation of his narrative here, our focus will be on the role of language for learning and social life during his childhood. The relation to translanguaging will be discussed after the narrative. Emir grew up in a small village in Kosovo, as the only Deaf person in a Bosnian family consisting of himself, his mother, father, a younger sister and his grandparents. He was born in the mid-1980s, during the war between the Serbians and the Kosovo Albanians. There was no sign language speaking person in his close environment and he describes communication in his home, from his perspective, as sloppy, superficial and light. When he talks about his home and the environment where he grew up he gives many examples of having been excluded. He says that the communication he was involved in at home consisted of gestures, body language and some oral language. His sister learned some sign language, but not his parents. Thus, he says that he was never involved in serious discussions and that his parents ‘avoided talking about things that were difficult to explain and talk about. They would often say that it was nothing important – nothing to talk about. So it became sort of closed, shut, difficult to talk about.’ Emir remembers that his parents often told him to go out and play, and that he used to be outdoors playing all day, just coming home to eat: ‘I was a son who should go out and play and then come home.’ He claims that he did not have any social intercourse in the family and that, for him, the family was ‘not cozy’. He repeats many times that there were no opportunities for him to talk for any length of time with anyone in the family: ‘It was always short, short. Sometimes my sister became an interpreter. I could ask: “What are you talking about?” – “No, nothing important”, they would say.’ He says they could summarize two hours’ talk in one minute for him, but adds: ‘Now I’m exaggerating, but there was never any extended information for me. Then I stopped caring and didn’t ask what they said.’ Here his narrative presents a picture of a curious child, the way children usually are, but in his case those close to him did not know how to respond to his curiosity. Conditions for communication with people in his environment became very restricted, resulting in a situation for him where social interaction with family members did not become familiar, or ‘cosy’, as he expresses it. The communicative limitations in this case created a situation of exclusion in the private sphere.

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Learning during Childhood At the age of seven, Emir was sent to a boarding school for Deaf children, two hours’ drive from his family home. His memories are vague when he talks about the school. There seems to have been a school building with a boarding area upstairs and classrooms downstairs. Surrounding the school was a school yard with a fenced-off playground. The teachers used oral language in combination with body language and sign language. He claims that he mainly learned sign language from his classmates. When he talks about this school today, he uses words such as ‘sloppy’, ‘no deep discussion’ and ‘light information’, claiming that the teaching was ‘not clear’ and that it was ‘bad teaching’. He remembers that the children played day and night, and that there was no clear regime at school. What he remembers from school are mainly his friends and how they played and told each other stories about what had happened at home during the weekends. When it comes to developing sign language, Emir remembers that sign language was used in school among the children. The older children taught the younger ones. Some teachers seem to have known some sign language, but teacher–student interaction seems to have been a mix of oral language, written language, body language, gestures and occasional signs. There was no teaching in sign language: ‘It just sort of happened that you learned.’ Asking classmates and older children seems to have been the dominating way to learn to sign in school. This is an example of how children took responsibility for their own learning. For Emir, two places were of particular importance during his childhood as far as social life and learning are concerned: two Deaf clubs. Both in the nearest town, and in the town where he went to school, there was a club for Deaf people that was open two or three times a week. Every Saturday he demanded to go to the Deaf club: I needed to go there, it was necessary. I spent the whole day there from morning to night. Wanted to feel that I was satisfied so that I then, on Sundays, could be home and play football with neighbor friends. Often there were also relatives who came to visit or we visited them and my cousins. That was dull. My sister had to interpret for me then. Saturdays were my best days. At school, students were not always allowed to go to the Deaf club. This is another example of exclusion from active participation. Emir explains how he tried to persuade the adults at school to allow him to go there. Good behaviour was a requirement to be permitted to go there. He stresses the importance of the Deaf club and that it was like a second home for him: ‘Why, because there was sign language. It was strong. Like my

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blood. Same identity.’ Emir remembers how the older people there told the younger ones stories about the world, but also taught them how to behave and the importance of following rules. He says that someone at the Deaf club became like a father, telling him not to smoke and other important things. People there were of different ages, ‘like a family’, and he stresses the importance of the social interaction but also that he learned important things there. This is where he found his role models, people who taught him and corrected him. His parents could also see that he developed when he visited the Deaf club. The other people at the club told him about politics, society and the world. He remembers that his parents had been surprised when he had come home and told them what he had learned at the Deaf club. However, few of the Deaf had an occupation or were trained in one, and many of the older people had very limited schooling. He says that when he told the others at the club that he wanted to become a carpenter, like his uncle, they warned him that he might be discriminated against and that it could be dangerous to cooperate with hearing people. Thus, the main opportunities to learn that Emir, as a Deaf person, had during childhood were among other Deaf children in the playground and from older Deaf people. He claims that he learned both social behaviour and language mainly from older Deaf people. His environment seems to have been centred around his home, the Deaf clubs and the school. Since he grew up during the war in the former Yugoslavia, as a Bosnian child in the area where there was war between Kosovo Albanians and Serbians, we asked him about the ethnic and religious conflicts. Regarding religion, he refers to restrictions concerning pork and alcohol. When asked about the religious situation and what it was like being a Bosnian Muslim among Albanian Muslims and Orthodox Serbians, he says that he felt that, as a Bosnian, he was somewhere between the Albanians and the Serbians: ‘I’m a Bosnian and am together with the Serbians but have the same mosque as the Albanians. That’s strange but that’s the way it is.’ From Emirs’ narrative, we may understand that, for him, his identity as Deaf, the marginalization he experienced and the struggle for positive identity formation that this forced him to engage in overshadowed the ethnic and religious conflicts that were tearing the surrounding society apart. By equating sign language with his blood, he makes visible his struggle for social justice, for language and social intercourse, as well as the importance of his own agency. When he did not explicitly demand that family members should explain things to him, he seems not to have been included in communication. Also, when he explicitly asked for clarification, this seems to have been taken somewhat lightly. Further, the amount of time he was allowed to spend at the Deaf club seems to have depended on his own agency to a large extent as he had to insist on going there and persuade his parents and teachers to allow him to do so. Then at school the development of sign language seems to have depended on the children’s

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own agency as the learning of sign language seems mainly to have taken place outside formal settings. When there was no understanding in the surrounding environment of the communicative conditions for Deaf people, his own agency determined his conditions for communication. Thus, questions of identity, social justice and agency stand out as important in Emir’s narrative, as does the importance of social relations and of developing positive identities. The people in the Deaf club, who became a kind of substitute parents (and teachers) for him, taught him not to cross the borders of the group by aiming to work with hearing people, a strategy common among oppressed minorities. Teachers’ demands at school for ‘good behaviour’ for him to be granted permission to spend time at the Deaf club may also be understood as exercising power. In the case of Emir, teachers exercised power by taking advantage of his emotional weakness and lack of social interaction to make him behave in the way they preferred. Consequently, his opportunities to claim voice were restricted, particularly in his home and school settings. The prevalent lack of knowledge of conditions for Deaf persons, and of sign language among adults, gave few opportunities for his own agency.

Developing Languages Emir mentions, several times, a sense of grief because his parents did not develop sign language. When asked about his language development and language awareness, he explains that different oral languages were used in Kosovo – Serbian, Bosnian and Albanian – and also that Serbian and Bosnian are very similar, whereas Albanian is different. He says that he realized that sign language was a language on its own, different from oral language, when he started school at the age of seven. Asked about language use in school, he says that the teachers were bad educators and that there was no strict order. He remembers that he learned to read and write in school when he was 10 years old, also saying that he can recall how the teacher used to write a sentence or a short text and explain, and that students were then supposed to copy the same text from a textbook. With regard to language development, the importance of his own agency is also clear. His struggle for language, developing sign language with other Deaf children and spending as much time as possible at the Deaf club, clarifies the importance of positive identity development and social relations. From a social justice perspective, being able to participate fully in society requires being given opportunities to access education; for Deaf people, this means fair chances to communicate and to receive relevant information. This implies not only the right to develop and use sign language, but also to engage in translanguaging which, as pointed out earlier, is necessary for communication in settings where the Deaf are included.

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Moving to Sweden and Studying in Sweden When Emir speaks about coming to Sweden and about education here, questions related to identity are in focus. He was an adolescent when his family took refuge in Sweden and were granted asylum. The family was placed in a village and Emir was put in an introductory class with hearing adults. When he realized that he did not understand the language, he asked his parents to send him back to Kosovo and the Deaf club, which they refused. He then demanded to be placed in a school for the Deaf and was first taken to a school for children. After some time, he also refused to go there, now being an adolescent. Then he was placed with Deaf students two years under his own age. The education was demanding, using Swedish sign language and Swedish, neither of which he mastered. Emir specifically mentions one teacher who taught him SSL through his own sign language from Kosovo. He remembers how the teacher asked him to say something using his Bosnian sign language while the teacher was video-recording. They then watched the film together with the rest of the class, who asked him to translate into SSL. At first this was difficult because his SSL was still restricted, but step by step he developed his skills. By asking him to use the linguistic resources he had, the teacher both activated Emir’s earlier knowledge and made him take an active part in class, instead of positioning him as an ignorant student not knowing the language to be used. Following Busch (2012) and Li Wei (2011), this lesson thus turned into an example of how translanguaging may be understood as a local practice. In this way, the teacher tried to bridge the gap between, as well as combining, different languages by considering the student’s earlier linguistic history, repertoire and proficiency. This also gave Emir the status of someone knowing something that the others did not: he became the expert, teaching both his classmates and the teacher. He particularly expresses his appreciation of the fact that the teacher showed an interest in his earlier sign language by comparing it with SSL. According to Emir, this entailed a sort of linguistic adaptation, also providing a neat bridge to SSL. After two years, Emir demanded to start upper secondary school, as he wanted to be with students his own age. Starting to study on the individual programme in upper secondary school – a programme aimed at adolescents who do not yet qualify for ordinary programmes – he appreciated having older study mates, not as ‘childish and silly’ as the younger ones. ‘This saved my life’, he says, once again showing the importance of social life for him. Emir often compares schooling in Sweden with the schooling he had in Kosovo. The difference he appreciates most in Sweden is the use of sign language, but he also repeats that he perceives education in Sweden as structured and well organized. While he describes his former education in Kosovo as ‘narrow’, he describes his Swedish education as ‘broad’ and ‘about

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everything’. His narrative about education in Sweden strengthens the impression of how important language is for his identity and social relations, and how crucial his own agency has been for his educational outcome.

Translanguaging and Social Justice Emir’s narrative may take the understanding of translanguaging a step further. It is difficult to find much interaction through what is usually perceived as named languages in what he tells us about his childhood. His narration about the types of communication he was involved in at home, in school and in society may rather be characterized as translanguaging than through any named language at all. From this narrative, we may understand Emir’s perception of his childhood regarding education and social life, but it is not possible to understand what and how he learned. As his narrative only reveals what he chooses to tell, and not what he does not choose to tell, our understanding will have to build on that. It was by his persistent demands that he was actually allowed to spend as much time at the Deaf club as he did, which clearly has been important for his social development, for his learning and also for his wellbeing. When he came to Sweden, his own agency was again decisive for how his schooling developed as he had to argue to receive appropriate schooling. The environment where he grew up seems to have been limited to the home, the school and the Deaf club. He keeps saying that he never had the opportunity to discuss important things in his home, and also that when the others were having long discussions at home he was never included. It may well be that issues about the war, about ethnic conflicts and religious matters were actually discussed, but Emir seems to have been excluded from such talk, or it may not have been important for him. The significance that, in his narrative, he attributes to language for identity formation and social relations, referring to ‘my blood’ and ‘same identity’, overshadows what he has to say about the war and the asylum process. It is possible that issues such as the reasons behind the civil war or religious matters were not talked about with him during his childhood, but it may also be the case that his own sense of being marginalized was simply of greater importance to him. What Emir narrates about being excluded from conversation and talk is something that most Deaf people experience every day, irrespective of their linguistic backgrounds. In the case of Emir, this has affected him severely as those closest to him were not aware of what deafness and sign language might mean. His experiences concerning social participation in everyday situations affect how he perceives things later in life. The warnings that his Deaf friends gave him about getting too much involved with hearing people may be understood either as a way to protect the members of the group or as a way to keep the group intact by maintaining strict borders between ‘us’

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and ‘the others’. The importance of this group for Emir is clear. This was where he derived his emotional nutrition from. Emir’s sense of marginalization and of limited opportunities for participation and social interaction makes questions of social justice and of relations between language and power obvious (Fairclough, 2001). Although the Deaf club may be perceived as a comfort zone, it limited his ability to choose and to act to change his life situation in contexts outside the Deaf community. Access to the Deaf club gave him an opportunity for personal activity and participation as well as having some social privileges as being Deaf in the Deaf community. However, being referred only to this group created an unbalanced relationship between himself as an individual and society. An example of this is his dreams for the future and a career as a PE teacher in relation to the low expectancy about his future that those around him held – his parents, his teachers and the friends at the Deaf club. This is something he himself expresses that he thinks it is possible to become as a deaf person. However, Emir, coming to Sweden and finally getting access to signed languages, found other linguistic and social role models and possibilities. Even though he did not learn how to become a PE teacher through schooling in Sweden, he learned that it is possible. While he was deaf from birth, that is he could not hear, we understand that it was at the Deaf club that he became Deaf with a capital D, meaning that the Deaf club was where he could develop an identity as belonging to the Deaf community. For Emir, the school in Kosovo became a sort of compensating environment, where what he had missed regarding certain information was compensated for in the sign languaging environment, although mainly through deaf schoolmates. Despite its shortcomings – the teaching not being through sign language and the expectations of students’ achievement apparently being low – he still perceived it as a sort of substitute for what he had been excluded from outside school. In Emir’s case, however, the Deaf club, where sign language was dominant, appears to have offered a more positive environment for learning and social relations than the school. Similarly, the importance of social intercourse stands out in his narrative about how he struggled to be placed with Deaf students of his own age. The school in Sweden may thus be understood as a compensation for both Emir’s lack of communicative opportunities and his lack of access to information, by offering a sign language based environment. The struggle that Emir describes of having to catch up with his age-mates may be compared to what hearing immigrant children feel when faced with schooling through a new language. Emir, however, had to learn not only one new language, but two – i.e. SSL and Swedish – and also to catch up in regular school subjects due to the deficiencies in the education he had previously received. Furthermore, as we could understand from his narrative, in Sweden he himself actually had to demand appropriate schooling, as there was not enough awareness of what type of education he needed. For Emir, the

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educational solutions offered seem to have been short-sighted, either in the form of a preparatory class for hearing adults or placement in groups for small children. Here a need becomes visible for developing materials for the mapping of Deaf immigrants’ prior knowledge, particularly concerning sign language, and also for creating relevant educational opportunities. Clearly, translanguaging has been a prerequisite for his education, both in Kosovo and in Sweden, and perhaps for much of the communication he was included in during childhood. This shows the importance of creating more knowledge about how different types of translanguaging skills and strategies have contributed to the positive outcome of his learning. One example of this is how the Swedish teacher made Emir’s linguistic repertoire visible in the educational practice where this competence was made a resource. This may also be understood as Emir being given options to use his own repertoires to promote the development of second languages. Such safeguarding of individuals’ linguistic repertoires is expressed by Li Wei (2011: 1222) as translanguaging space (see also Straszer, this volume). For Emir’s narrative, this is about bringing different dimensions of his life together – his history, experiences, environments, attitudes, opinions and ideologies related to different languages, including signed languages – in order to understand their importance for his language development and education.

Discussion The translanguaging practices used in a signing environment, such as classrooms, enable the simultaneous use of different modalities and languages, thus supporting the development of both signed languages and written languages, in our case SSL and written Swedish. This shows the specific pedagogic potential that translanguaging may have in the Deaf classroom, in accord with findings by Allard (2013) and Lindahl (2015). Emir’s narrative is complex, including immigration, schooling, the family and the Kosovo war through the lens of a particularly strong individual personality. It clearly demonstrates the importance of translanguaging in Deaf communication, and also the need among teachers and school leaders to understand the conditions for learning among immigrant Deaf people. As a minority frequently excluded from communication and social interaction, individual immigrants may come with experiences and knowledge not easily detected by educators. Research on Deaf education is dominated by research focusing on proficiency in oral/written languages and on perceptions of language, where an earlier focus on spoken language has developed into what may be called bimodal bilingualism where Deaf persons are expected to use a signed language as the first language and the spoken equivalent as the alternative, with the two understood as two separate systems (Swanwick, 2016). Research on

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how translanguaging manifests itself in sign language classrooms is limited. Much more knowledge in this area is needed to create a basis for the development of pedagogies that build on translanguaging practices and which may be used to develop new pedagogies for deliberately supporting and promoting students’ and teachers’ development of translanguaging skills (see also Toth & Paulsrud, this volume). As is also shown by Swanwick (2016), Allard (2013) and Lindahl (2015), translanguaging has the pedagogical potential to enable features of talk in classrooms that are supportive of learning. The example mentioned by Emir where he was asked to show his classmates his earlier signing skills is a good illustration of how a teacher may build on the languaging skills of an immigrant student, developing new knowledge and language skills from them. In this case, it may just be a strategy invented by the individual teacher in a demanding teaching situation. In Allard (2013) and Lindahl (2015) other methods and strategies used by teachers are exemplified, such as using and combining the teachers’ and students’ varied linguistic modalities in the classrooms, both to mediate the subject and to enable communication about the subject content, combining sign language, written language and images. There is apparently a great deal of tacit knowledge among sign language teachers regarding how to use translanguaging to support Deaf students’ learning, but this knowledge needs to be made explicit in order to enable the development of teacher pedagogies for translanguaging in Deaf education. The fact that most of this knowledge among teachers is tacit shows the importance of empirical research on translanguaging in educational settings where sign languages provide a basis for communication, to promote the development of translanguaging strategies and skills used among teachers and students. In the present situation, with an increasing number of immigrant students who are deaf or hard of hearing, this is particularly important. Equality and social justice demand that educational plans and practices for Deaf students are developed to promote better opportunities for learning. Increased knowledge about teachers’ translanguaging strategies, and about how to develop translanguaging skills among students and teachers in the Deaf/signing classroom, further implies a wider potential to create knowledge about translanguaging and translanguaging skills that may also be useful for education in general. Thus, translanguaging may not only help to enhance understanding about language and languaging, but may also show relations between historical, ideological and personal accounts of bilingualism and individuals’ linguistic repertoires (see also Jonsson, this volume). From a social justice perspective, it becomes clear not only that relevant education for Deaf immigrants needs to be developed, but also that longterm planning needs to be promoted in education for Deaf immigrants. Questions about career counselling, for example, should, according to Swedish curricula, be raised with all students. Without clear information about different opportunities, relevant educational planning is not possible,

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as illustrated by Emir’s case. Language practices in Deaf education, then, become a question of what identities are made optional – and of who you may become as an adult.

References Akamatsu, T. and Cole, E. (2000) Immigrants and refugee children who are deaf: Crisis equals danger plus opportunity. In K. Christensen (ed.) Deaf Plus: A Multicultural Perspective (pp. 93–120). San Diego, CA: Dawn Sign Press. Allard, K. (2013) Varför gör de på detta viset?: Kommunikativa praktiker i flerspråkig undervisning med svenskt teckenspråk som medierande redskap [‘Woffor did un want to do that?’ Practices of communication in plurilingual foreign language teaching and learning contexts via Swedish sign language as a mediating tool]. PhD dissertation, Örebro Studies in Education 39, Örebro University. Blommaert, J. (2010) The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Busch, B. (2012) The linguistic repertoire revisited. Applied Linguistics 33 (5), 1–22. Canagarajah, S.A. (2013) Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. Milton Park: Routledge. Cummins, J. (2000) Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Students in the Crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Fairclough, N. (2001) Language and Power. Harlow: Longman. Frank, A.W. (2010) Letting Stories Breathe: A Socio-narratology. London: University of Chicago Press. Freeman, M. (2010) Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward. New York: Oxford University Press. García, O. (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell. García, O. and Cole, D. (2014) Deaf gains in the study of bilingualism and bilingual education. In H. Dirksen, L. Bauman and J.J. Murray (eds) Deaf Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity (pp. 95–111). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Gerner de García, B. (1995) ESL applications for Hispanic deaf students. Bilingual Research Journal 19 (3–4), 453–467. Gerner de García, B. (2000) Meeting the needs of Hispanic/Latino deaf students. In K. Christensen (ed.) Deaf Plus: A Multicultural Perspective (pp. 149–198). San Diego, CA: Dawn Sign Press. Humphries, T. and McDougall, F. (1999) Chaining and other links: Making connections between American Sign Language and English in two types of school settings. Visual Anthropology 15 (2), 4–94. Karlsson, M. and Pérez Prieto, H. (2012) (eds) Livsberättelser: Mening och identitet i tid och rum. [Narrations: Meaning and Identity in Time and Space.] Karlstad: Karlstad University. Knoors, H. and Marschark, M. (2014) Teaching Deaf learners: Psychological and Developmental Foundations. New York: Oxford University Press. Li Wei (2011) Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 3 (5), 1222–1235. Lindahl, C. (2015) Tecken av betydelse: En studie av dialog i ett multimodalt, teckenspråkigt tvåspråkigt NO-klassrum [Signs with meaning: A study of dialogue in a multimodal, sign languaging bilingual science classroom]. PhD dissertation, Stockholm University. Lucas, C. (1995) (ed.) Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

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Plaza Pust, C. and Morales-Lopez, E. (2008) Sign Bilingualism: Language Development, Interaction and maintenance in Sign Language Contact Situations. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Quinto-Pozos, D. and Reynolds, W. (2012) ASL discourse strategies: Chaining and connecting explaining across audiences. Sign Language Studies 12 (2), 211–235. Swanwick, R. (2016) Deaf children’s bimodal bilingualism and education. Language Teaching 49 (1), 1–34.

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From Silencing to Translanguaging: Turning the Tide to Support Emergent Bilinguals in Transition from Home to Pre-school Latisha Mary and Andrea S. Young

Introduction We consider a child whose home language differs from the language of the school to be an emergent bilingual from the very first day s/he sets foot in the school. From this perspective the bilingual competences developed by the child are influenced by the contexts in which s/he evolves, the amount of comprehensible input provided, the level of engagement with literacy and the attitudes of significant others toward the child’s languages. This chapter focuses on the innovative translanguaging practices observed over the course of a school year (2014–2015) in one pre-primary classroom of children aged between three and four years in an urban, low socio-economic status (SES) context in northeastern France. Our aim is twofold, firstly to discuss how such practised language policies may help emergent bilingual learners to make meaning, thus enhancing and accelerating their learning, and secondly to present evidence of how translanguaging can be used as a pedagogical tool by all educators (including those who do not have high-level linguistic competences in foreign languages) to promote social justice through equity in education. After clarifying our use of translanguaging as both a theoretical framework and an analytical tool, we briefly present the sociolinguistic characteristics of the context in which the study took place and the methodological approach adopted for our research. We then provide an overview of our analysis of the data, identifying recurrent practices of translanguaging, 108

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supported by short extracts from the data to illuminate our analysis. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for teacher education and continuing professional development and their possible relevance for other educational settings.

Conceptualizing Translanguaging as a Potential Pedagogical Tool Inherent to All Multilingual Classrooms Lewis, Jones and Baker discuss the turning tide among academics, at policy level and within public understanding, as ‘slowly moving away from separating languages in the classroom to the use of two or more languages in the same lesson’ (Lewis et al., 2012: 643) . While this holistic vision of languages as mutually advantageous in learning may be gaining ground in certain circles, in many classrooms lack of knowledge of recent research findings together with deep-rooted ideological beliefs about language and languages continues to obstruct progress (Gkaintartzi et al., 2015; Thomauske, 2011; Young, 2014a, 2014b). Even in educational contexts with a history of the concurrent use of two languages, findings from Lewis et al. (2013) show translanguaging at the pre-primary level to occur less frequently (see also Straszer, this volume). Lewis et al. (2013) report observations from a largescale study in the Welsh bilingual context indicating that teachers tended to use translanguaging as a pedagogical tool more often in upper primary. In the early years classroom teachers tended more towards a monolingual approach (heritage language or immersion), particularly in situations where both of the children’s languages were not yet well developed. In France, resistance to using languages flexibly, passing from one to another as the need arises, is particularly strong. The prevalent belief is still that languages should be kept separate, in space (home/school), time (national language/ foreign language classes) and person (one teacher, one language policy). In this chapter we report on a study during which we observed and recorded the practised language policy of one teacher who regularly used and encouraged the traversing of linguistic boundaries in the classroom through translanguaging as a means of including children and their families for whom the language of the school was not the language of the home.

Translanguaging as a practised language policy By practised language policy, we acknowledge the work of BonacinaPugh (2012) who herself builds on Spolsky’s (2004) idea that policy is not only top-down, published by government authorities, but also bottom-up, existing as practice in the classroom. Bonacina-Pugh (2012: 216) defines practised language policy as ‘a policy found within language practices’, stating

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that ‘the juxtaposition of “practice” and “policy” in one single expression (“practiced language policy”) shows that language policies and practices need not be seen as distinct’ (Bonacina-Pugh, 2012: 217). In other words, what teachers do in the classroom, on a day-to-day basis, effectively constitutes enacted policies, be they explicit or implicit and whether the teacher is consciously aware of these actions and their consequences or not. Such practised policies lead pupils and their families to deduce which language choice acts are appropriate or not within which contexts and so to construct implicit interactional rules. These rules may include censuring their use of the home language at school which may in turn impede communication between parent and child, between pupils and teachers and between the school and minority language families. Bonacina-Pugh (2012) and Spolsky (2004) maintain that practised language policy is the most influential of policies, given the repetitive nature of the practices or language choice patterns. In light of the impact of practised language policies upon speakers, we consider the power of the teacher as the initiator of these policies to be central to classroom climate, parental participation at school and consequently to pupils’ wellbeing and learning. One example of an enacted, or practised, language policy initiated by the teacher in this study, is the use of translanguaging as a pedagogical tool, to make meaning.

Safe spaces for spontaneous purposeful translanguaging By spontaneous purposeful classroom translanguaging we mean the flexible, unplanned use of young learners’ home languages as a complement to the language of schooling by the class teacher at school in order to reassure the child and his/her family and to foster meaning-making. We would first and foremost like to stress that such practices do not require the teacher to be bilingual and that, therefore, in this sense we are not using the term translanguaging in exactly the same way as García, who defines it as ‘multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual worlds’ (García, 2009: 45, our emphasis). The teacher in this study did engage repeatedly in multiple discursive practices in order to help the children make sense of their bilingual worlds, but she managed to do this without being bilingual herself in any of the children’s first languages of socialization (see also Rosier, this volume). This process of meaning-making, although initiated by the teacher, is coconstructed by the teacher together with her pupils, each party sharing their linguistic knowledge with the other. The teacher, speaking predominantly in the language of schooling, may choose to deliberately use items of vocabulary from the children’s home languages when s/he knows them and ask the children how they name these items when s/he does not. In this way the children are encouraged to build on the linguistic competences and knowledge they

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have already acquired in and through their home languages, and the so-called ‘funds of knowledge’ (González et al., 2005) developed in the home context are acknowledged and welcomed as useful tools for meaning-making. Our use of the term translanguaging is therefore closer to that of Baker who has described it as ‘the process of making meaning, shaping experiences, gaining understanding and knowledge through the use of two languages’ (Baker, 2011: 288). This can of course be achieved through more than two languages, according to the local context and the languages spoken by the children and their families and the linguistic repertoire of the teacher. Through this practised language policy, translanguaging opens up an avenue for the transfer of knowledge and skills, encoded in home languages, and supports the acquisition of further competences and knowledge in and through the language of schooling as discussed by Cummins (2008) with reference to his theories of language interdependence and teaching for transfer. In this context the term therefore involves function rather than form, the use of the child’s home language alongside the language of the school effectively facilitating communication between the teacher and the child, cognitive processing for the child who is learning through a second language and language production in this new language. Li Wei (2011) maintains that the act of translanguaging is transformative in nature, as ‘it creates a social space for the multilingual language user by bringing together different dimensions of their personal history, experience and environment, their attitude, belief and ideology, and their cognitive and physical capacity into one coordinated and meaningful performance’ (Li Wei, 2011: 1223; see also Jonsson, this volume). Li Wei goes on to state that the translanguaging space ‘is about pushing and breaking the boundaries between the old and the new, the conventional and the original, and the acceptable and the challenging’ (Li Wei, 2011: 1223). In addition, the freedom to spontaneously translanguage opens up safe spaces (Conteh & Brock, 2011) for minority language children in which they can build on what they already know and actively participate in the learning process. This flexible language policy also allows the teacher to publicly acknowledge the child’s linguistic knowledge and skills which in turn can contribute to their sense of self-esteem and overall wellbeing. It also opens up spaces for families to use their languages within the context of the classroom and in so doing bridge the gap between home and school. As parents witness their home languages being valued and used in the classroom they are not only reassured and supported regarding their own linguistic practices but are also being provided with models of scaffolding which can serve as powerful learning tools in the home. However, this release of power is not always easy for teachers who need to feel confident in their ability to manage the classroom and the pupils. It is easier to keep control and to enforce a French-only policy, often resulting in the silencing of children who cannot yet express themselves in the language of the school.

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Translanguaging as a constituent part of the teacher’s holistic image of the child The image of the child is a notion borrowed from the Reggio Emilia teaching approach for early childhood education (Edwards, 1998) which considers knowledge to be socially constructed by the child together with the teacher and which considers the child both as an active constructor of knowledge and a social being, a person whose capacities merit recognition and whose rights are worthy of respect. In other words, children are not only perceived as learners with needs, but also as individuals with rights (Rinaldi, 1998). The teacher’s role in this approach is that of guide, facilitator and researcher, as well as collaborator and co-learner alongside the child (Hewett, 2001). Within the context of the minority language child acquiring the language of the school in a pre-school setting, the acknowledgement and use of the child’s first language can thus be seen as an important cognitive tool and, as such, a fundamental right (see Skutnabb-Kangas, 2009). In addition to guiding the minority language child’s learning of the language of schooling, the informed and caring teacher (Banks, 2001) who is able to entertain a holistic view of the child which includes the recognition of knowledge brought from outside school may attempt to learn some words in the child’s home language and thus learn from and with the child. Furthermore, Reggio Emilia educators regard young children as powerful, active, competent protagonists of their own growth with unique personal, historical and cultural identities, whose right to speak from their own perspective should be respected (Edwards, 1998). Within this framework an educator who recognizes the linguistic and cultural specificities of the individual learner and respects her/his right to use the first language of socialization in order to interact with others will seek to encourage the child’s use of his/her entire linguistic repertoire which may lead all concerned (the child, the child’s family/caregivers and the teacher) to use translanguaging as a tool for expression, communication and meaning-making. Moreover, research has shown that young children are sensitive to the image their teacher has of them, integrating the value attributed to their home language and culture (Gkaintartzi & Tsokalidou, 2011; Moons, 2010; Thomauske, 2011). Emergent bilingual children’s first encounters with the institution and its representatives take on all the more importance given the potentially enduring impact on their sense of self-worth and wellbeing (Harter, 1999) throughout their school lives.

Promoting equity through literacy engagement and translanguaging The question of promoting equity in access to learning for low SES children whose home language is different from the language of schooling is of

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central concern in democratic societies. The importance of literacy engagement and access to print resources has been repeatedly emphasized throughout the literature as a means of promoting academic success (Cummins, 2015; Cummins et al., 2015; Mol & Bus, 2011; Nakanishi, 2015). Cummins et al. (2015) stress the causal nature of the relationship between these variables as demonstrated in the literature on reading achievement (see Cummins et al., 2015 for a more extensive review in this area). Providing access to print resources and promoting literacy engagement in the classroom are thus fundamental issues for educators to consider with regard to fostering pupils’ literacy achievement. Recent evidence has also shown the positive impact that access to print resources and literacy engagement can have on pupils who have traditionally been shown to have lower results in the area of reading comprehension, such as those from low SES backgrounds and pupils whose home language is not the same as the language of the school. Pointing to findings from PISA studies (OECD, 2010a) Cummins highlights this relationship and its implications: In more recent PISA studies, the OECD (2010c) reported that approximately one-third of the association between reading performance and students’ SES was mediated by reading engagement. The implication is that schools can potentially ‘push back’ about one-third of the negative effects of socioeconomic disadvantage by ensuring that students have access to a rich print environment and become actively engaged with literacy. (Cummins, 2015: 277) As he and other researchers and educators (Cummins et al., 2015; Laursen, 2013) have stressed, teachers and schools have a central role and responsibility in promoting such literacy engagement among their pupils. This is especially true for schools in areas where pupils, for various reasons including socio-economic ones, have limited access to print resources. Teachers and educational assistants hold the responsibility for acting as mediators for such pupils, providing them with ample access to print and fostering literacy engagement from an early age. Laursen (2013) uses the term ‘sponsors of literacy’ to refer to such individuals and stresses the essential role teachers play in mediating children’s access to literacy resources as they ‘pass on notions of what literacy is, what it can be used for and where and how literacy has value’ (Laursen, 2013: 703). However, providing access to print resources solely in the language of the school while ignoring the child’s home language can act as a barrier to literacy engagement. In order for pupils to connect with such print resources and engage with them, they have to be able to make sense of them as well. Various pedagogical strategies can be employed to foster understanding and engagement with such resources. The availability and use of bilingual books in the classroom and at home, for example, can be one way to foster literacy

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engagement for minority language children. In the school context, effective use of translanguaging while reading books in the language of the school in order to promote understanding is another powerful pedagogy for encouraging literacy engagement and demonstrating to parents that they too can play an active role in encouraging this engagement even if they do not master the language of schooling.

Context of the Study In the following section we describe the national and local contexts of the study.

Minority language speakers at pre-primary school in France Pre-primary education (l’école maternelle) in France is free from the age of three and in some areas from the age of two. It is seen as the first step in a child’s formal education and has a highly structured framework and curriculum fixed by the Ministry of Education (Ministère de l'Education Nationale – MEN, 2015) which sets specific goals for the children to reach by the end of Cycle 1, the end of pre-primary school. One of the priorities of the école maternelle is for all children to gain a solid mastery of the French language. However, as many teachers have a lack of knowledge and/or misguided beliefs about pluri/bilingualism (Young, 2014a, 2014b), they often believe the way to achieve this goal with emergent bilingual children is to ‘immerse’ them in the French language to the exclusion of all other languages. Although the idea of inclusion through immersion in the language and culture of the school is a seductive one, placing children who have not yet acquired the language of the school in an ordinary class with a teacher who has not had the opportunity to reflect on the specific needs of these children and who is not equipped to respond appropriately is not an optimal solution. All too frequently this results in teachers supporting a ‘French-only’ policy as they feel this is the only way to help these learners catch up with their fluent French-speaking peers. Despite convincing evidence to support the claim that emergent bilingual children need to continue to develop their home language competences if they are to realize their linguistic potential in second language acquisition (August & Shanahan, 2006; Genesee et al., 2006; Thomas & Collier, 2002), in France the first languages of pupils are not generally regarded as important cognitive tools, and language support for emergent bilinguals is envisaged almost exclusively in terms of learning French as a second language. Yet, in urban contexts in France as in many other countries (OECD, 2010a), the number of children attending state schools for whom the language of education is not the language of the home continues to rise and to challenge

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conventional linguistic policies and practices within an education system which is failing to evolve to meet the needs of these learners. Teachers do not always know exactly how many pupils speak a language other than French at home nor exactly which languages the children speak. (For a discussion of the reasons why this is the case, see Broudic, 2013; Young, 2014a, 2014b.) Current official policy advocates the integration of the new arrivals into a mainstream class as soon as possible, with support offered in the form of French as a second language lessons taught by a specialist teacher when available. Children who are not new arrivals in the country but who nevertheless do not speak the language of education at home are not identified as requiring additional language support; neither are any children under the age of six. It is therefore generally the well-meaning, sometimes inexperienced and frequently overstretched and unprepared class teacher who is left to provide what support s/he can. Most teachers in France still receive little or no training in how to support children for whom the language of instruction is not the language of the home and, while many are instinctively aware of the specific needs of these children, they invariably feel ill-equipped to meet them. Some practitioners firmly believe that in order to respect Republican values a policy of ‘French only’ should be maintained in the classroom, which is sometimes extended to include the playground and may even be recommended as a policy for parents in the home. Yet others are beginning to acknowledge the bilingualism of these children and to practise policies of inclusion as opposed to ignoring pupils’ plurilingual repertoires and characterizing them as linguistically deficient. However, such policies remain on the margins and are more often than not confined to special French as a foreign/second language classrooms (Bonacina, 2010). Low rates of intergenerational language transmission in France (Héran et al., 2002) also reveal much about the sociolinguistic context and both the overt and covert language policies that exert pressure on minority language speakers. It has been observed, in a variety of contexts, that plurilingual pupils from minority language backgrounds and their parents may play down, hide and sometimes even negate their linguistic and cultural skills in a bid to conform to the norms of the dominant society (Ağırdağ et al., 2014; Gkaintartzi et al., 2014; Moons, 2010). To speak a language other than the official language of the nation-state (and consequently the school) may be considered as betraying national allegiances. Existing minority language skills are in effect quashed by such a dominant monolingual model and plurilinguals may, at least superficially, adopt monolingual attitudes in order to gain acceptance by dominant monolinguals. In some cases they may even abandon their home language under this social pressure. In France, six out of 10 families where both parents are immigrants and who have children attending secondary school speak primarily in French to their children

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(INSEE, 2005). The social pressure to conform to the linguistic norm, French, and the language hierarchy in place in society in general and at school in particular combine to powerfully convince many minority language speakers that their language is not worth maintaining. However, this was not the case in the classroom in which this study took place, where parents were encouraged and supported in their use of the home language with their children.

Zooming in on the case-study classroom The pre-primary school profiled here is situated in an officially designated ‘high priority’ area (REP+, réseau d’éducation prioritaire) qualifying for additional funding. The children attending this school come from predominantly low SES families where in many cases the home languages are different from the language of the school. A number of the children in the school spoke Turkish at home owing to the large Turkish community present in the area. Of the 23 pupils in the class observed, eight spoke French at home, five Turkish, two Albanian, two Serbian, five Arabic and one spoke both Creole from the island of Réunion (an overseas French department in the Indian Ocean) and French. Most of the Arabic-speaking children arrived at school with a basic knowledge of French, having had more contact with the French language; however, the Turkish, Serbian and Albanian speakers began school with very little or no knowledge of the school language. Whereas the Serbian and Albanian speakers had recently migrated to France, many of the Turkishspeaking children were born in France but evolved within a tightly knit community in which Turkish was the sole language of communication. According to the National Institute of Statistics, only two out of 10 Turkishspeaking families use French when addressing their children (INSEE, 2005). The linguistic practices of the Turkish families in our study appeared to adhere to this pattern. (For a more detailed analysis of the linguistic practices of Turkish-speaking families in France, see Akinci, 2006, 2016.)

Scope of the study and data collection This ethnographic study took place from September 2014 to July 2015. Data, consisting of video-recordings of interactions and activities involving the teacher, teaching assistant, pupils and their families, as well as field notes and recorded interviews with the various members of the community of learning (teacher, parents, teaching assistants, children), were collected every two weeks, in situ, throughout the school year. Given our interest in the innovative, inclusive practices favoured by the teacher, we initially reviewed the recorded material and identified occurrences of translanguaging employed by the teacher. These key segments of the video-recordings were then transcribed, along with the interviews. A

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collaborative approach to the analysis was adopted in order to include all interested members of the education community in the research process. In this spirit, the teacher and a small group of parents were shown extracts from the videos separately and invited to reflect and to comment on them. Our aim was to understand: (1) why the teacher was translanguaging; (2) in which contexts the teacher chose to translanguage; and (3) what effects/ impact these practices had, if any, on the children, on their families and on the classroom context in general.

The Teacher, the Translanguaging Lynchpin: When and Why is she Translanguaging? Sylvie, the classroom teacher, had at the time of the study been teaching for 35 years, 31 of which had been in multilingual classrooms and 18 in preprimary (école maternelle) classrooms. Interview data revealed that in addition to possessing positive attitudes toward other languages and cultures, Sylvie also held strong humanistic values which influenced her practices and policy. Concerned by the low achievement she had witnessed in emergent bilingual pupils, particularly from the Turkish-speaking community, who in spite of attending French state schools from the age of three or four were still struggling with basic interpersonal communication in French in primary school (children attend primary school in France from age six to 11) and in an attempt to better understand emergent bilingual children’s linguistic development in the language of the school as they progressed through the school system, she opted to move down the age groups at various points in her career, finally ending up as the class teacher of three year olds in their first experience of formal education. During the 18 years spent as a pre-school teacher, Sylvie had attempted to adapt her own curriculum to meet the specific needs of these children and had developed various strategies and practices, including the use of translanguaging, to help the children progress in their use and knowledge of French, the language of the school. Significantly, in spite of her limited knowledge of the children’s home languages, Sylvie chose to use the little knowledge she had acquired listening to the children converse in their home languages to scaffold the children’s understanding and learning, effectively translanguaging in a spontaneous, but purposeful manner. Sylvie’s practices were fundamentally child centred, which meant that she sought to use any appropriate means to meet the children’s needs and to support them and their learning, including the use of translanguaging. The occurrences of translanguaging were observed during one-on-one exchanges with individual children, within a small group of children who spoke the same home language, but also in large group settings (carpet time), for

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example during finger-plays, songs, rhymes and storytelling. Sylvie also used translanguaging in situations in which getting the child’s attention was urgent (e.g. to keep a child from harm, controlling undesirable behaviour).

Data Analysis: Four Specific Purposes of Translanguaging Through the analysis of the data we also identified four specific purposes for which translanguaging was being used: (1) to meet basic needs; (2) to make connections between home and school contexts; (3) to scaffold children’s learning and knowledge of French; and (4) to foster engagement with literacy. Although at times these purposes overlapped, we attempt to describe them separately below.

Reassuring children from the very first day of school: Meeting their basic needs On the children’s first day at school, the teacher had posted pieces of paper on the wall of the classroom on which were written several expressions in children’s home languages. She explained that these were resources to be used when she or her teaching assistant needed to reassure emergent bilingual children or attend to their immediate physical and emotional needs. They included such expressions/questions as ‘Mummy’s coming back soon’, ‘Are you thirsty/hungry?’ or ‘Do you need to use the toilet?’ Another strategy the teacher was observed using to reassure children was her use of their home languages to connect with them, to reinforce the value of their languages and cultures and to build relationships with them. For example, on the very first day of school she often referred to different objects in the children’s home languages and with one child she sang a short finger-play rhyme that she had had translated into Turkish and memorized herself. On an occasion when one of the Turkish-speaking children was very distressed and was crying, the teacher used the little Turkish she had learned to comfort this child and in order to provide him with more support she had her assistant bring in an older Turkish child to translate for him.

Making connections between home and school Another example observed was that of the teacher engaging in an activity with plasticine with one child, during which she was able to make links to his home culture by building the activity around the making of lahmacuns (Turkish pizzas popular with Turkish families).

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Extract 8.1: Making lahmacuns (2 September 2014) N.B. For the purpose of this chapter the transcripts have been translated from French into English, leaving the original Turkish words and adding (their translation into English). 01

English translation

02 Teacher: Now let’s make a lahmacun. You like lahmacuns don’t you? 03 Child 1: Yes. 04 Teacher: They’re good. 05 Child 2: Me too! 06 Teacher: You like them too, lahmacuns. You know what they are? … Ok, look here. [Teacher holds the lahmacun out for the child]. 07 Lahmacun … Lahmacun istiyorsun? (Do you want a lahmacun) Do you want a lahmaçun? 08 Child 2: [Shakes head no] 09 Teacher: You don’t want one? Mmm, lahmacuns are good. [Takes a piece of plasticine]. And this? What’s this? 010 Child 1: Ekmek. (bread) 011 Teacher: Bread? Yum yum. Your bread is good.

Original data (French and Turkish) Maintenant, on va faire une lahmacun. Tu aimes les lahmacuns ? Non ? Si C’est bon. Et moi! Toi, tu aimes ça, les lahmacuns. Tu connais ça ? … Allez, regarde. [Tend la lahmacun à l’enfant]. Lahmacun … Lahmacun istiyorsun ? Tu veux une lahmacun ? [Fait non de la tête] Tu veux pas ? Mmm, c’est bon les lahmacuns. [Prend le morceau de pâte] Et ça, qu’est-ce que c’est ? Ekmek. Du pain ? Miam, miam. Il est bon ton pain.

In this extract we observe the teacher encouraging participation by mentioning an element that is familiar to the child and by using and recognizing words he uses in his home language. During a post-session interview, when asked why she chose to do this, the teacher expressed her desire to ‘let these children know that I am familiar with their world’ (interview with Sylvie, 30 September 2014). Furthermore she demonstrates that she views these Turkish words and culturally specific references in a positive light, stating that she thinks lahmacuns are good. By interacting with them in this way, she is creating a space in which she grants them permission to bring their knowledge and experience from home into the classroom and thus to capitalize on their funds of knowledge (González et al., 1995). Conteh and Brock (2011) highlight the need for such ‘safe spaces’ in which children are invited to co-construct their learning together and also point to evidence that ‘dissonance between home and school creates barriers to such co-constructions’ (Conteh & Brock, 2011: 350).

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Scaffolding learning and knowledge of French and building on children’s prior knowledge Other observed occurrences of translanguaging in the classroom were clearly designed to scaffold the children’s learning and thus build on their prior knowledge encoded in Turkish. The concept of scaffolding is understood in this chapter as the support given by the teacher to enable the child to do something s/he would not be able to do without assistance. Through her use of both languages, the teacher in this study provided support to children which enabled them to understand the activities they were engaging in and modelled language use which they could try out within a secure context. Her practices took on different forms, from repeating something which was said in French in the child’s home language to eliciting the French form of a word said by the child in their home language. These practices were particularly frequent during storytelling and activities associated with the reading of children’s literature. The first example below took place just two weeks after the beginning of the school year. We observed the teacher capturing the children’s attention, facilitating their comprehension and scaffolding their knowledge through her use of translanguaging as a pedagogical tool. The following extract is taken from a sequence where the teacher is reading a ‘lift the flap’ book (Van Genetchen, 2009) in which children discover different animals and the contents of their diapers. The children have some knowledge of the book as the teacher has read it before and has also had a Turkish mother read the Turkish translation in parallel.

Extract 8.2: Storytelling (19 September 2014) 01 02 03

04

05 06 07

Teacher:

The mouse meets a …, a …? La souris rencontre un …, un …? Child: Tavşan (rabbit) Tavşan Teacher: Tavşan [Teacher raises her Tavşan [L’enseignante finger to draw the child’s lève le doigt pour attirer attention] … Rabbit. She l’attention] … Lapin. Elle meets a rabbit. rencontre un lapin. [Teacher points to the illus- [L’enseignante montre tration] Hey rabbit, what’s l’image avec le doigt] Hé, in your diaper? What’s in lapin, qu’est-ce qu’il y your diaper? dans ta couche ? Qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans ta couche ? Child: Poo poo. Poo poo. Caca. Caca. Teacher: In the rabbit’s diaper, there’s Dans la couche du lapin, il poo poo. y a du caca. Teacher and It – doesn’t – smell Ça – sent – pas -booonn children: -goooodd.

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Teacher:

09 Child: 010 Teacher: 011

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And you, mouse? Ve sen? (And you?) And you? What’s in your diaper? What’s in the mouse’s diaper? Poo poo yok! (No poo poo!) [The teacher smiles] Poo poo yok? Well done, Mert.

Et toi, souris ? Ve sen ? Et toi, souris? Qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans ta couche ? Qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans la couche de la souris ? Caca yok ! [L’enseignante sourit] Caca yok ? Il n’y a pas de caca ? Bravo, Mert. Look, there’s no poo poo. Regardez, il n’y a pas de Poo poo yok. There’s no caca. Caca yok. Il n’y a pas poo poo in the mouse’s de caca dans la couche de la diaper. souris.

Here we note that the teacher is repeating what the children say in their home language (Turkish), but also reformulating in Turkish certain expressions and words she says herself in French, such as ‘And you, mouse?/Ve sen?/And you?’ (Line 08). By demonstrating these spontaneous purposeful classroom translanguaging practices herself, she effectively and simultaneously authorizes the children to move freely between languages, consequently mobilizing all their skills and prior learning through an unrestricted use of their linguistic repertoires. This interaction allows all the children to participate, even those who have limited knowledge of French. In other linguistically diverse classrooms in the region, we have often witnessed emergent bilingual children drifting off during story time as the flow of impenetrable words results in their disengagement from the task of listening and meaningmaking. In contrast, during this activity observed in Sylvie’s classroom, the teacher makes use of translanguaging to scaffold the children’s understanding of the story and to maintain their attention and engagement in the activity.

Fostering engagement with literacy The interaction mentioned in the extract presented above is also an example of the children’s early access to print and engagement with literacy and the way the teacher mediates this experience for the Turkish-speaking children. This type of activity occurred in both spontaneous pupil interactions and teacher-initiated contexts. Giving the children permission to interact with print resources in the language of their choice resulted in their regularly engaging with these resources. This aspect is of considerable importance given the aforementioned impact on academic achievement that early engagement with literacy has been shown to have (Cummins et al., 2015; Duke, 2000; OECD, 2010b). Literacy played an important part in the life of this classroom and children were frequently observed attentively poring over picture books which

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they were either looking at by themselves or huddled together and discussing animatedly with their peers. On one occasion we observed two Turkish boys reading a storybook together. The book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Carle, 1994, 1999), was in French but the children were commenting on it together in a very lively way in Turkish. The exchange lasted for over 10 minutes as the children retold the story and recalled the different items eaten by the caterpillar. It is important to note here that the teacher allows these exchanges and does not interrupt the children’s exchanges, neither to tell them to stop speaking Turkish nor to use the situation to teach them French. The boys were allowed to engage in and enjoy literacy through their home language. However, this freedom to engage with literacy through languages other than French does not mean that French is absent during these activities. On another occasion the teacher invited these same two boys to look at a picture/ word book with her, using their knowledge of both French and Turkish to do so. Below is an extract from their interaction.

Extract 8.3: Reading picture books and activating vocabulary (30 September 2014) 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 010 011 012 013 014 015

Teacher: Can you see a vase? Est-ce que tu vois un vase ? [Child 1 points to the [Enfant 1 montre l’image picture] avec le doigt] Teacher: Yes! Oui ! Teacher: Can you see a car? Est-ce que tu vois une voiture ? [C1 points to the picture] [E1 montre l’image avec le doigt] Teacher: Yes! Oui! Teacher: Can you see some fish? Est-ce que tu vois des poissons ? [C1 points to the picture] [E1 montre l’image avec le doigt] Teacher: Yes! Oui ! Teacher: Flowers? Do you see any Des fleurs ? Tu vois des fleurs flowers? ? [C1 points to the picture] [E1 montre l’image avec le doigt] Teacher: Yes! Oui ! Teacher: Where’s the mummy? Où est la maman ? Où est la Where’s the mummy? maman ? [C1 points to the picture] [E1 montre l’image avec le doigt] Teacher: Yes! Oui !

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017 Teacher: 018 Teacher: 019 Child 2: 020 Teacher: 021 Child 2: 022 Teacher: 023 024 Teacher: 025 Child 2: 026 Teacher: 027 028 029 030 031

Teacher: Child 1: Child 2: Teacher:

032 033 034 035 036 037

Child 1: Teacher: Child 1: Teacher: Child 1: Teacher:

038 Teacher: 39 040 Teacher: 041 042 Child 3: 043 Teacher:

[Another Turkish-speaking child (Child 2) shows interest. T has him sit next to her.] Do you want to join us? Come here next to me. Where’s the cat? Çocuk (child) Çocuk, is a child, kedi is the cat. Tavşan (rabbit) Tavşan is a rabbit. Wait.

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[E2, un autre élève turcophone s’approche. L’enseignante l’assoit à côté d’elle]

Tu veux venir ? Viens à côté de moi. Où est le chat ? Çocuk Çocuk, c’est un enfant, kedi c’est le chat Tavşan Tavşan, c’est le lapin. Attends. [C2 points to another [E2 désigne une autre image] picture] That? That’s a basket. Ça ? C’est un panier. Basket Panier A basket Un panier [C2 points to a picture of a [E2 pointe une image de car] voiture] Araba (car), the car, the car. Araba, la voiture, la voiture The car La voiture O ne (What’s that)? O ne ? O ne, What’s that? Flowers. O ne, qu’est-ce que c’est ? Des fleurs. Flowers. C’est des fleurs. What’s that? Qu’est-ce que c’est ? Balık (fish) Balık Balık, a fish. Balık, un poisson. A fish Un poisson And that? What’s that? A Et ça ? Qu’est-ce que c’est ? boat, as in [T sings a famil- Un b ate au, com me , iar nursery rhyme in French] [l’enseignante chante] ‘bateau ‘boat on the water’. Boat. sur l’eau’. Bateau. Where’s the little boy? Où il est le petit garçon ? [C1 points to the picture of [E1 désigne une image de a little boy.] petit garçon] The little boy is there. Le petit garçon, il est là. [Another child approaches [Un autre enfant s’approche the teacher] de l’enseignante] I want to join you. Je veux venir. No, in a little bit. Now I’m Non, tout à l’heure. D’abord looking with them and after je regarde avec eux, après avec I’ll look with you. toi.

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044 Teacher: And here, what’s in the Et là, qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans basket? le panier ? 045 Child 1: Ekmek (bread) Ekmek 046 Teacher: Ekmek, some ….? Ekmek, du ….? 047 Child 1: Bread Pain 048 Teacher: Ekmek, some bread. Ekmek, du pain. In this extract the teacher begins by asking the child to point to the various objects she names. The exchange begins with the teacher recognizing and valuing the child’s receptive knowledge of French. Spontaneously, the second child who joins the pair participates in the interaction in his home language. The teacher then uses this interaction to make links between the home and school languages and to scaffold their understanding and learning by first repeating the words in French, by saying them both in French and Turkish, and finally by using the words in Turkish and eliciting a response in French. Toward the end of the interaction we observe the first child beginning to say some of the words in French (basket, flowers, a fish, bread). The exchange back and forth between the images in the picture book, French and the children’s home language, was used as a tool to build upon what the children already knew and were able to communicate, either through gestures, their home language or the school language. In giving them this freedom to express themselves in the language of their choice, Sylvie was teaching connections between and transfer across languages. In addition to this, she was also legitimizing the home language and providing a safe space for children to express themselves freely, an important aspect in the development of their self-esteem and self of identity. It is important to note that the number of Turkish words and expressions actually used by the teacher in the exchange was relatively low (six different items of vocabulary/expressions). As mentioned previously, the teacher had very limited knowledge of Turkish and had actually learned many of the words she used from the children themselves. We want to draw attention to this point to highlight the fact that educators do not need to learn all the home languages of the children in their care. This would clearly be extremely demanding for teachers working in classrooms with a large number of different home languages. What should be stressed is the potential power of a few words in the children’s home languages when used to scaffold the child’s growing knowledge and use of the school language or simply as a sign of recognition of an essential component of the child’s identity and the competences s/he brings to the classroom. Parents were also observed serving as key resources in facilitating children’s engagement with literacy. They participated in the translating of French story and picture books into their home languages (the written translations were typed using similar fonts to the original text and added

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either directly above or below the French text). The story was then read to the children in the home language and in French in parallel (one page read by the teacher in French, then by the parent in the home language) during carpet time. These translated stories were also read individually by parents to their own children and other children who spoke the same home language.

Conclusions In this chapter we have discussed the innovative practised language policies of one experienced teacher in a linguistically diverse, low SES preprimary class in the northeast of France. Acutely aware of the linguistic resources, rights and needs of her pupils, the teacher has integrated the use of translanguaging as a pedagogical tool into her daily classroom practices, simultaneously creating a translanguaging space for translanguaging and through translanguaging. Detailed analysis of the recorded data reveals a range of practised language policies, underpinned by the teacher’s strongly held beliefs, based on years of professional experience, dialogue with plurilingual families, a positive image of the child and, more recently, familiarization with current research findings. This powerful interaction of practices with what has been coined ‘teacher cognition … what teachers know, believe and think’ (Borg, 2003: 81) appears to have impacted on the ideologies and practices of those (teaching assistant and parents) working closely with the teacher in question. This flexible use of the linguistic resources available to the community of learning (pupils, parents, teachers and teaching assistants) fosters co-constructed learning, meaning-making and engagement with literacy, and in so doing promotes equity in the pre-primary classroom. However, these progressive practices unfortunately remain marginal for the moment in France. Findings underline the need for teacher educators to work more closely, in situ, with practising professionals so that they may (1) support those professionals who are keen to develop innovative pedagogies such as using translanguaging as a tool for meaning-making and (2) challenge dominant exclusive language policies by adopting a critical language awareness approach (Alim, 2010) during continuing professional development. Some of the filmed extracts from Sylvie’s classroom have already been used during initial teacher education and in-service courses for teaching assistants and have been received positively. We believe that, guided by a desire to promote equity and to provide access to learning and equal opportunities to all pupils, educators will rise to the challenges and responsibilities to provide conditions and implement pedagogies in which children are supported and recognized and where ‘identities of competence’ (Maynak, 2004) are fostered.

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Approach – Advanced Reflections (2nd edn) (pp. 179–198). Greenwich, CT: Greenwood Publishing. García, O. (2009) Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas, R. Phillipson, A.K. Mohanty and M. Panda (eds) Social Justice Through Multilingual Education (pp. 140–158). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Genesee, F., Lindholm-Leary, K., Saunders, W.L. and Christian, D. (2006) Educating English Language Learners: A Synthesis of Research Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gkaintartzi, A. and Tsokalidou, R. (2011) ‘She is a very good child but she doesn’t speak’: The invisibility of children’s bilingualism and teacher ideology. Journal of Pragmatics 43, 588–601. Gkaintartzi, A., Chatzidaki, A. and Tsokalidou, R. (2014) Albanian parents and the Greek educational context: Who is willing to fight for the home language? International Multilingual Research Journal 8 (4), 291–308. Gkaintartzi, A., Kiliari, A. and Tsokalidou, R. (2015) ‘Invisible’ bilingualism – ‘invisible’ language ideologies: Greek teachers’ attitudes towards immigrant pupils’ heritage languages. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 18 (1), 60–72. González, N., Moll, L.C., Tenery, M.F., Rivera, A., Rendon, P., González, R. and Amanti, C. (1995) Funds of knowledge for teaching in Latino households. Urban Education 29, 443–470. González, N., Moll, L.C. and Amanti, C. (2005) Funds of Knowledge: Theorising Practices in Households, Communities and Classrooms, Mahwah, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum. Harter, S. (1999) The Construction of the Self: A Developmental Perspective. New York: Guilford Press. Héran, F., Filhon, A. and Deprez, C. (2002) La dynamique des langues en France au fil du XXe siècle. [Language dynamics in France throughout the 20th century.] Population et sociétés 376, 1–4. Hewett, V.M. (2001) Examining the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. Early Childhood Education Journal 29 (2), 95–100. INSEE (2005) Education et maîtrise de la langue. Langues, parcours scolaires, education et famille. Les immigrés en France (pp. 90–103). Set of seven thematic reports on education and literacy. Paris: Institut national de la statistique et des etudes économiques. Laursen, H.P. (2013) Umbrellas and angels standing straight – a social semiotic perspective on multilingual children’s literacy. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 16 (6), 690–706. Lewis, G., Jones, B. and Baker, C. (2012) Translanguaging: Origins and development from school to street and beyond. Educational Research and Evaluation 18, 641–654. Lewis, G., Jones, B. and Baker, C. (2013) 100 bilingual lessons: Distributing two languages in classrooms. In C. Abello-Contesse, P.M. Chandler, M.D López-Jiménez and R. Chacón-Beltrán (eds) Bilingual and Multilingual Education in the 21st Century: Building on Experience (pp. 107–135). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Li Wei (2011) Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43, 1222–1235. Maynak, P.C. (2004) ‘What did she say?’: Translation in a primary-grade English immersion class. Multicultural Perspectives 6, 12–18. M.E.N. (Ministère de l'Education nationale) (2015) BO spécial du 26 mars 2015. Retrieved from http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid87300/rentree-2015-le-nouveau-programmede-l-ecole-maternelle.html (accessed 25 February 2017). Mol, S.E. and Bus, A.G. (2011) To read or not to read: A meta-analysis of print exposure from infancy to early adulthood. Psychological Bulletin 137 (2), 267–296.

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Moons, C. (2010) Kindergarten teachers speak: Working with language diversity in the classroom. Unpublished Master’s thesis, McGill University Library, Montreal. Nakanishi, T. (2015) A meta-analysis of extensive reading research. TESOL Quarterly 49, 6–37. OECD (2010a) OECD Reviews of Migrant Education – Closing the Gap for Immigrant Students: Policies, Practice and Performance. Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD (2010b) Overcoming Social Background – Equity in Learning Opportunities and Outcomes. PISA 2009 Results. Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD (2010c) Learning to Learn – Student Engagement, Strategies and Practices (Vol. III). PISA 2009 Results. Paris: OECD Publishing. See http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/ 11/17/48852630.pdf. Rinaldi, C. (1998) Projected curriculum constructed through documentation – Progettazione. In C.P. Edwards, L. Gandini and G.E Forman (eds) The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach – Advanced Reflections (2nd edn) (pp. 113–125). Greenwich, CT: Greenwood Publishing. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2009) What can TESOL do in order not to participate in crimes against humanity? TESOL Quarterly 43, 340–344. Spolsky, B. (2004) Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, W.P. and Collier, V.P. (2002) A National Study of School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students’ Long-term Academic Achievement. Santa Cruz, CA: Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence. Thomauske, N. (2011) The relevance of multilingualism for teachers and immigrant parents in early childhood education and care in Germany and in France. Intercultural Education 22 (4), 327–336. Van Genetchen, G. (2009) Qu’y a-t-il dans ta couche? [What’s in your diaper?] Paris: Albin Michel. Young, A.S. (2014a) Unpacking teachers’ language ideologies: Attitudes, beliefs, and practiced language policies in schools in Alsace, France. Language Awareness 23 (1–2), 157–171. Young, A.S. (2014b) Looking through the language lens: Monolingual taint or plurilingual tint? In J. Conteh and G. Meier (eds) The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges (pp. 89–109). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

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Translanguaging Space and Spaces for Translanguaging: A Case Study of a Finnishlanguage Pre-school in Sweden Boglárka Straszer

Introduction This chapter presents a discussion of spaces for translanguaging, using the concept of translanguaging space in relation to social space and safe space from the perspective of national minority language education for pre-school children. The aim is to highlight the visibility and salience of languages and, through linguistic landscaping, to investigate the status of one national minority language in one selected pre-school environment in Sweden in light of local language policy. Here, translanguaging encompasses the simultaneous and flexible use of different kinds of linguistic resources, forms, signs and modalities – including speaking, writing, signing, listening, reading and remembering. The particular focus is on, first, pre-school teachers’ use of two languages, Finnish and Swedish, specifically in written communication and, second, the form of different signs in minority language settings. The starting point for the present case study is based on Li Wei’s idea of translanguaging, which builds on the psycholinguistic notion of languaging, referring to ‘the process of using language to gain knowledge, to make sense, to articulate one’s thought and to communicate about using language’ (Li Wei, 2011: 1223). He explains that translanguaging creates social space for the multilingual language user, ‘by bringing together different dimensions of their personal history, experience and environment, their attitude, belief and ideology, their cognitive and physical capacity into one coordinated and meaningful performance, and making it into a lived experience’ 129

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(Li Wei, 2011: 1223). He calls this translanguaging space and defines it both as a space created through the translanguaging process and a space which affords translanguaging, offering a ‘sense of connectedness’ (Li Wei, 2011: 1222–1223; see also Rosén, this volume; Dewilde, this volume). This sense of connectedness is linked in a minority language context to other concepts, such as the term safe space, which refers to places where all learning experiences are recognized and valued (e.g. Conteh & Brock, 2011). The setting of the study is a Finnish-speaking pre-school (day care for children ages one to five), located in the premises of a Swedish-speaking preschool, dominated by Swedish-language monolingual norms and ideologies. Through the exploration of the idea of translanguaging space in the context of minority language education, how teachers create space for translanguaging by using images, pictures, text materials and artefacts in this Swedishspeaking environment is revealed. After a presentation of the official protected status of the Finnish language in Sweden, the selected Finnish pre-school is presented as a sociocultural institution, as part of the Swedish national minority language policy. The concept of social space is then discussed in relation to the case of the Finnish pre-school, by exemplifying how spaces are created for translanguaging in the selected pre-school’s organization and physical setting. This is followed by a mapping of the local linguistic environment of the pre-school, whereby the visibility and salience of the minority language is demonstrated. In conclusion, questions relating to the creation of social and safe spaces are discussed.

Finnish as a National Minority Language in Sweden Finnish is today one of the national minority languages in Sweden, following the ratification of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages in 2000. The objective of the Swedish minority rights policy is ‘to protect the national minorities, strengthen their power to influence and support the historical minority languages in order to promote and preserve them’ (MIGE, 2009; see also, for example, Lindberg, 2007: 71–72). Through this legislation, the minorities in Sweden retained a sort of redress after having been marginalized, made invisible and repressed (e.g. Lainio, 2015). A decision on a minority policy was made, through which five national minority groups and their languages (Jews, Romani, Swedish-Finns, Sami and Tornedalers) were recognized and the ethnic groups declared national minorities, due to the fact that these groups ‘have their own linguistic, cultural and to some extent also religious affiliations and a will to keep their identity’ (MIN, 2015). Accordingly, the historic national minority languages are Jiddish, Romani Chib, Sami, Finnish and Meänkeli, which are protected through the Language Act of 2009 as well as the Act on National Minorities

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and National Minority Languages (ACT, 2009). The new legislation came into force on 1 January 2010, resulting in ‘legal obligations is to protect the minorities and to promote the minority languages’ (MIGE, 2009). Furthermore, the act stipulated that the children of minority language speakers were to be given opportunities ‘to develop a cultural identity and their minority language’ (ACT, 2009). Although Finnish is the largest national minority and migrant language in Sweden, with approximately 250,000 speakers, the number of persons Finnish-speaking, with a Finnish background or connected to the Finnish language or culture in Sweden was estimated to be 712,000 in 2012 (SR, 2015). The Finnish language, together with Meänkieli and Sami, has special minority rights protection, especially in the so-called administrative areas, giving individuals the right to use Sami, Meänkieli and Finnish in their contact with authorities and the right to pre-school and care of the elderly, partly or completely, in the minority language. Every administrative area consists of a number of municipalities and, since 2015, 59 municipalities are included in the Finnish administrative area (MIN, 2015). In Sweden today, teachers in 24 pre-schools use Finnish part or full time in the everyday activities, including the pre-school in focus in this study. According to the municipality in which this study takes place, which is part of the Finnish administrative area, pre-school education in Finnish is available if the parents request it. However, because of perceived inadequacies in the implementation of Finnish-speaking education, a Finnish language and culture club was created in the municipality. This group reports questions about education in Finnish to the municipality’s authorities, with the aim of preserving the Finnish language and culture and protecting the Swedish-Finns’ linguistic rights at municipality level.

The Present Study This case study is based on a linguistic ethnographic approach (see, for example, Creese, 2008; Preston, 1989: 2, 2011) informed by linguistic landscaping and visual ethnography studies (e.g. Heller, 2008; Pietikäinen, 2012; Pink, 2007). The empirical material, collected in 2014–2016, includes mainly photographs, but also a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview with one Finnish-speaking teacher. Additionally, some observations of the language use by the pre-school teachers were made, and artefacts, such as monthly information newsletters and other messages to parents, were collected, as well as portfolios containing children’s work. Additionally, some documents were used, i.e. public information from websites, brochures about the language policy concerning Finnish in the selected municipality, and official information concerning the selected pre-school’s profile and the status of Finnish.

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Initially, a questionnaire was distributed to the five Finnish-speaking teachers in the selected pre-school. Two of the teachers responded, one of whom who had worked in the pre-school since 2013 and who agreed to be interviewed. An hour-long, semi-structured interview took place with this teacher at the beginning of 2016, six months after the questionnaire was completed. In the interview, the main focus was on the teacher’s perception of language choice and the usage of different language resources in different kinds of situations in her everyday work at the pre-school, as well as her description of the visual material in the pre-school’s premises. This teacher’s own background is multilingual, comprising five languages from childhood, and she is personally especially interested in and has a positive attitude toward multilingual and multicultural education. This likely contributed to her positive participation in the study. The main material includes 170 photographs taken in conjunction with the interview (no children present) together with approximately 80 photos of the interior and exterior of the pre-school taken on a number of occasions during the course of 1.5 years. All observations and field notes were made in conjunction with these visits and all materials were studied together to create an understanding of the ‘linguistic messages’ of the photos, i.e. the usage of different linguistic resources and signs. The main method and analytical tool for the investigation presented here is linguistic landscaping: a linguistic mapping of the pre-school’s physical environment, with photographs of texts and signs, both inside and outside the Finnish pre-school. When using photographs as research material, the same image may simultaneously generate different meanings in different situations, creating possible ambiguities that mean that the interpretation depends on the observer (Pietikäinen, 2012: 169). Photos can be multifunctional and can express different types of information, depending on contexts and aims (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Mavers, 2009), and on the observer’s subjective experiences and expressions. It is important to take into account the individual, local and wider cultural discourses, which are meaningmaking for the pictures (Pink, 2007: 67–68). The visual material in the present study was analyzed in light of the aims: first, in order to highlight the visibility and salience of languages, and second, as a basis for the discussion of the concepts of social space, safe space and spaces for translanguaging. This focus includes a consideration of where the visual material is placed in the pre-school’s interior and exterior. The selection of the pre-school and research material represents a personal convenience sample, since the selected Finnish pre-school was known to me as the mother of two children in the Finnish-speaking group. This fact created a potential ethical problem, and this is one reason why, for instance, observations on the education practice and recordings of interactions were not made, instead focusing on photographs as the primary material. Another reason for choosing this material and method for the study is

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my personal interest in photography and the fact that photos and other visual materials are not traditionally used in ethnolinguistic studies as the primary material, although there is a growing interest in doing so (see, for example, Holm, 2015; Jewitt, 2009; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Pietikäinen, 2012). Linguistic landscaping as a method within educational institutions is a relatively new way of approaching translanguaging, allowing for an analysis of how space is created. With this choice of material and method, the risk of personal involvement and sensitive data, values and attitudes was decreased as much as possible, although subjectivity and certain values and attitudes are impossible to avoid completely. In the construction and analysis of data, I tried to separate my roles as mother and researcher, striving to be impartial.

Linguistic Landscaping and Spaces for Translanguaging The concept of linguistic landscape theory was first coined by Landry and Bourhis (1997), who defined it as the ‘visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region [… offering] informational and symbolic functions as a marker of the relative power and status of the linguistic communities inhabiting the territory’ (Landry & Bourhis, 1997: 23). The concept is used in several sociolinguistic studies to show how public space is symbolically constructed, describing and interpreting how languages are visually used in multilingual societies (e.g. BenRafael et al., 2006; Blommaert, 2013; Shohamy & Gorter, 2009; Spolsky & Cooper, 1991). Linguistic landscaping can contribute to an understanding of the hierarchy and status of languages, of which languages are locally relevant, and of conclusions about local linguistic identity. As Gorter (2013: 191) states, the study of linguistic landscape ‘aims to add another view to our knowledge about societal multilingualism by focusing on language choices, hierarchies of languages, contact-phenomena, regulations, and aspects of literacy’. Very few linguistic landscaping studies have been conducted in the school context, especially in the Nordic countries. Lainio et al. (2012) investigated, among other things, the multimodal use of different languages by multilingual adolescents with Finnish as one of their languages, in bilingual Swedish-Finnish schools in Stockholm. The study concluded that Finnish had a prestigious position, for example, by showing how the teachers in the educational situation wrote texts with Finnish at the top in larger letters, while the Swedish translation or the equivalent was written underneath in smaller letters and in another colour. They argued that this kind of practice characterizes the orientation of the school, whereby the Finnish language is accorded a strong and important educational role in bilingual activities.

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Lainio et al. (2012) concluded that, in this way, the school promotes the status of the Finnish language and its related cultural identity, while simultaneously supporting bilingual development among the students. The researchers also established that, in the investigated case, the teachers’ use of different languages as a resource in their everyday work is an example of translanguaging as an educational practice, and the findings of the study can relate to high tolerance for non-traditional language education in the Swedish society (see Lainio et al., 2012: 51). The concepts of translanguaging space, social space and safe space are used as a theoretical lens in this study. Li Wei’s concept of translanguaging space, mentioned above, includes both the act of translanguaging and a space created through the process of translanguaging. The space for the act of translanguaging, as well as a space created through translanguaging, has many dimensions. According to Li Wei (2011: 1223), the cognitive dimension of translanguaging space implies that the individual ‘creates rules of interaction and interpretation within the space’, while the sociohistorical dimension of translanguaging space implies wide social space, which ‘interacts with other spaces created and occupied by other individuals’. Furthermore, Li Wei states that in order to create one’s own space many resources are needed, such as cognitive capacity, personal histories and experiences, attitudes, values and ideologies, all of which develop through interaction with one another. Finally, the cultural dimension of translanguaging space implies a lived space, ‘created through everyday multiple social practices, including multilingual practices’ (Li Wei, 2011: 1223). The term safe space, used by Conteh et al. (2007: 10) in relation to AfricanCaribbean supplementary schools, builds on Bhabha’s (1994) idea of ‘third spaces’. This theoretical concept has been developed over the years to ‘describe the ways in which, in heterogeneous, rapidly changing communities, people create for themselves opportunities for meaning-making and identity construction through language and other social tools’ (Conteh & Brock, 2011: 349). Researchers and teachers agree that all children need safe spaces in order to become capable, confident learners and to grow into full participants in society (e.g. Brooker, 2006). For young bilinguals, safe spaces ‘empower them – with the support of adults in a wide range of ways – to co-construct their own learning’ (Conteh & Brock, 2011: 358). In other words, safe spaces are necessary for successful learning. For the present case study, translanguaging space is investigated in relation to social space and safe space. These are linked together in a minority language context through including different aspects, e.g. the pre-school teachers, the children’s and their families’ histories, experiences, attitudes, beliefs and ideologies, cognitive and physical capacities and the sense of connectedness. In the following sections of the chapter, the main results of the study are presented, starting with a presentation of the selected pre-school, followed by an analysis of the pre-school environment.

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The Finnish Pre-school: A Special Sociocultural Space The municipal Swedish pre-school in this study is located in the outskirts of the centre of the municipality where a new district is developing. This pre-school that includes the selected Finnish-language pre-school is a so-called ‘modulförskola’, i.e. in premises that are in temporary barracks. There are four sections in this pre-school, and all follow the Swedish curriculum without any special pedagogical orientations. A Finnish pre-school was moved to the current pre-school building in the Autumn of 2014, to an E-formed building consisting of four separate ‘wings’, with a separate section in each. Activities outside the pre-school building are considered an important part of the daily routines. The children spend lot of time in the pre-school’s courtyard as well as in nearby forests and parks, which means that the four sections of the pre-school are not separated, as all of the children have the possibility to associate freely with each other. The pre-school follows the municipality’s slogan, which is ‘every child should have the chance to be a successful’. They are also guided by the pre-school’s own basic values: ‘When we meet and show respect for each other, we feel pleasure and contentment, and in this way we will feel secure and can to grow together.’ (Note that all quotations in this section are the author’s translations.) The Finnish pre-school, located in one wing of the pre-school building, is staffed exclusively by Finnish-speaking teachers. According to the municipality directives, all activities are carried out in Finnish. For example, in a recent advertisement for the post as teacher at the Finnish pre-school, knowledge of Finnish was a requirement for employment, as well as pre-school teacher qualifications. Policy documents and the pre-school’s own basic values are emphasized on the walls of the building, and in the monthly newsletters and other messages to the parents of children at the pre-school. On the municipality’s website, the following is stated about the Finnish preschool: ‘The aim is that all children will benefit from, and have the possibility of developing and strengthening the Finnish language, as well as knowing Finnish culture.’ This description echoes the aims of heritage language provision in other contexts (e.g. Blackledge & Creese, 2008; Cummins & Danesi, 1990; Valdés, 2001; see also Gynne, 2016). When the Finnish pre-school started in 2010, there were 18 children and three teachers. Today, there are 30 children and five teachers, some of whom work part-time. The 30 children at the pre-school come from 21 families. The interviewed teacher in this study estimates that most of the children come from families where one or both of the parents are born and or raised in Sweden, or where one or both of the parents moved from Finland to Sweden a long time ago. In some families a third language is also used at

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home. Only two of the families have recently emigrated from Finland. Thus the relation to Finnish, and probably also the knowledge and use of Finnish, varies among the families. All parents, however, have a desire for the children to use, develop and strengthen Finnish and the Finnish culture. In this way, Finnish represents a heritage for both parents and children in most cases (see also, for example, Gynne, 2016; Huss et al., 2003).

Exploring Translanguaging Space through Linguistic Landscaping Li Wei’s idea of translanguaging space embraces two concepts: creativity and criticality. According to his description, creativity can be defined as the ‘ability to choose between following and flouting the rules and norms of behaviour, including the use of language’ (Li Wei, 2011: 1223). Creativity as one dimension of multilingual practice, as shown below, is well illustrated on the wall space of the studied pre-school. Criticality, according to Li Wei (2011: 1223), refers ‘to the ability to use available evidence appropriately, systematically and insightfully to inform considered views of cultural, social and linguistic phenomena’. This kind of criticality can influence the teachers’ language choice and communication with the children, parents and visitors. To investigate the local linguistic environment of the pre-school, the indoor and outdoor environments were mapped through photographic observations. The aim was to analyze the following: (1) how the Finnish language was made visible on the premises; (2) to what extent, and for what type of information, Finnish was used; and (3) what this might say about the use and status of languages used in the context. Throughout the premises, there are a lot of pictures and text materials. Here I will show where and to what extent the two languages (Finnish and Swedish) are represented, exemplifying how translanguaging spaces are created with the visual materials in the premises and moving from outside the pre-school building, through the preschool’s main entrance to the courtyard, to the Finnish-speaking wing of the building, and then through each room. Outside by the main entrance there is nothing to demonstrate that the Finnish language is part of the activities in the pre-school. Neither the name of the pre-school nor the Finnish pre-school are mentioned anywhere. The only sign outside is found on the opposite side of the building, on the last window of the Finnish section facing the street, stating ‘Welcome’ in Finnish, together with other home languages that the children have. Arriving through the main entrance of the pre-school, there are three notices in Swedish with information on the door: two aimed at visiting craftsmen and freight deliveries, and one with information about the prohibition of nuts on the premises due to allergies. The next door, close by, leads to the courtyard, which one Swedish wing shares with the Finnish wing of the building. There

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is a laminated sign in Swedish welcoming the visitors to the Swedish section, but not to the Finnish section. Inside the building in the corridors and halls there are some brochures, notices and plaques, written only in Swedish. In the courtyard there are no signs, texts or other images, except one small plaque on the playground wall, with ‘affär’ [shop] written in Swedish. From the courtyard, there are two doors to the Finnish part of the pre-school. Behind the first one, which is not in use, there is a drying cupboard for clothes, and on the drying cupboards two laminated signs. One of the signs welcomes the visitors to the Finnish pre-school in Finnish, and the other welcomes visitors in Swedish. The other door from the courtyard, which is the only door leading directly to the Finnish section, has some practical information for visitors, written in Swedish: ‘Barnen är snabba som vinden, så stäng dörren ordentligt! TACK!’ [Children are quick as the wind, so close the door carefully! THANKS!] In the entry hall of the Finnish pre-school there are many different signs on the walls as well as on a notice board and on a whiteboard, with current information about the activities of the day. On the biggest free wall area there are many laminated colourful signs. One sign says ‘Information’ in Swedish, with a welcoming text under the first sign in Finnish, and the name of the Finnish pre-school in Finnish, under which the same is written in Swedish, together with telephone numbers. The headings on the other signs read: ‘Matsedel/Ruokalista’ [Menu] and ‘Informationsbrev/Tiedotuskirje’ [Information newsletter], written at the top in Swedish and at the bottom in Finnish. In between these, lists are attached with the menu of the week and the newsletter of the month (also sent to the parents by email), each in Swedish. Attached to the other signs is current information in Swedish, e.g. seminars for parents arranged by the municipality, as well as information from the Finnish culture club in Finnish. In the hall of the Finnish pre-school is municipal information, regarding ‘non-poisonous pre-school’ (directive about avoiding non-natural materials), displayed only in Swedish, and information from the municipality, under the heading ‘Your child has a right to Finnish’, in both Swedish and Finnish. Additionally, each child has a shelf for outdoor clothing and boots in the hall. Between the shelves a noticeboard is situated, displaying pictures of the different outdoor garments with Finnish names. Communication from teachers to the parents about bringing more socks, trousers, diapers and so on is written on small reminder cards with information, first in Swedish, followed by a little picture, and then in Finnish. According to the interviewed teacher, these cards are from the time when all communication between home and school took place in the two languages (see Figure 9.1). From the entry hall a door leads to a bigger room, from which there are many doors to smaller activity rooms and to a second larger room. Each room has a doorplate in Finnish, with information only in Swedish regarding the purpose of each room. The municipality logotype is displayed on the

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Figure 9.1 Reminder cards

information boards, which means that the notices are issued at a municipal level. In the larger rooms there are a lot of signs, pictures and texts everywhere. There are, for example, two refrigerators and a lot of information displayed on different kinds of notices, most of which are written in Swedish. There are also pictures illustrating milk glasses with different amounts of milk, at the bottom of which are statements in Finnish, such as ‘half of the glass’ and ‘quarter of the glass’. In the bigger rooms there are some works of art by Finnish artists, which are displayed with small information cards, giving the name of the artist and work and the materials the pictures are made from, all written in the two languages: first Finnish, then Swedish. Two movable walls show pictures about sign language signs created by the children together with the teachers, for use especially with the younger children. The pictures are photos of children using sign language, and at the bottom of each picture there is the name of the sign language sign in both Finnish and Swedish. Each activity room has its name in Finnish, for example, ‘kirjasto’ [library], where the children have reading time. Here, there is a larger shelf with many Finnish children’s books and a smaller box with a Swedish flag, with the text underneath written in both in Finnish and Swedish: ‘ruotsinkieliset/svenska’ [Swedish], for Swedish children’s books. In the same room there are some decorations on the walls, with Finnish poetry and pictures drawn by the children together with the teachers on the theme of a Finnish translation of a Swedish children’s book. The alphabet of five languages decorates one wall, including the Swedish alphabet and the other four alphabets representing the languages which some children in the group have as their other mother tongue in addition to Finnish and Swedish. Another activity room is a studio for painting, drawing, needlework and pottery; there is a selection of children’s art on the walls, each with a title in Finnish. The studio is full of material in boxes and pots, with the names of the

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materials and tools written only in Finnish. In another room there are some colourful pipes with a sign ‘Mathematics’ written above in Swedish, while under some colourful pillars there are the words ‘pipe’, ‘size’, ‘number’ and ‘volume’, in Finnish. However, most of the information concerning mathematics is in Swedish. Many of the rooms contain authentic materials from the children’s activities, and the walls display a selection of pictures from a task that the children carried out together. Here, statements are displayed as dictated directly by the children, mostly in Finnish, but with some words also in Swedish. Similar works are also found in the entry hall, for example, on themes such as social safety and solving problems together. There are quotations from the teachers in Finnish and quotations from the children in a mixture of languages throughout the premises. On a movable wall in the entry hall, the children’s art is presented together with a poster that tells the children’s stories about their pictures. Another interesting observation made at the Finnish pre-school, for example, is that extracts from the national curriculum for pre-school education are posted everywhere. These are displayed on laminated signs, only in Swedish, with the logotype of the municipality. Norms and basic values are also on the walls in several rooms, in the form of signs and designed pictures with texts made by the children and teachers, written in both Finnish and Swedish (see Figure 9.2).

Figure 9.2 Basic values on the wall. The word ‘perusarvo’ [basic value] is only displayed in Finnish. Above that there is the pre-school’s own basic value, written only in Swedish, and at the bottom is a longer text about solving problems, and a transcription of some dialogues between the teachers and children, written only in Finnish. On the left-hand side are pictures about the children playing family and home games, and some words, first in Swedish and then Finnish. On the right-hand side are pictures about how the children can help each other, with a headline only in Finnish.

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Between the Finnish sections and the other parts of the building there are a lot of doors, on which are signs, for example, ‘endast personal/vain henkilökunnalle’ [staff only] and ‘WC gäster/WC vieraat’ [guest toilet], in both languages, while ‘Städ’ [cleaning] and ‘kom ihåg att kasta blöjorna’ [remember to dispose of diapers] are written only in Swedish. In several rooms there is also information about cleaning routines written only in Swedish. To sum up, the analysis shows that the observed pre-school has a translingual landscape, where all pictures, texts and signs play a dynamic role in terms of the construction of space showing the multimodal repertoire that teachers and children have in the Finnish section. While the signs in the main entrance, corridors, halls and courtyard are in Swedish, the signs in the premises of the Finnish pre-school are in both Swedish and Finnish; in the activity rooms, where the children spend a lot of time every day, almost everything is displayed exclusively in Finnish. In the entry hall there are examples both of images where languages are perceived as separate entities, e.g. the municipality’s bilingual information brochure on children’s minority language rights, and of images demonstrating a flexible use of Finnish and Swedish, e.g. the wall about basic values and the posters with the children’s stories about their pictures. Thus the multimodal signs in the pre-school’s translingual landscape are used as ‘communication tool[s] to appeal to passers-by’ (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015: 71).

Perspectives on Creating a Social and Safe Space for Translanguaging In the investigated pre-school there are a lot of spaces in which individuals – in this case, the teachers – create rules of interaction and interpretation within the space, by means of their authority and ways of communication with one another as well as with the children and parents. The following short review shows some selected findings on how social space creates translanguaging and how the teacher creates a safe space through translanguaging, in other ways than by the images and signs presented above. As some examples below illustrate, the teachers – in certain cases together with the children – bring together different dimensions of their personal experience and environment, as well as their attitudes, and to some extent their beliefs and ideology, and their cognitive and physical capacity. All of these are brought together into one coordinated performance, thus creating a lived experience for the children and each other (compare with Li Wei, 2011). The interviewed teacher explained that there were practical reasons for the use of Swedish on the notices in the entry hall. One example of this was the menu coming directly from the pre-school’s kitchen, which the Finnishspeaking teachers do not translate, but instead usually tell the children in Finnish what food is on the menu each day. Many notices in the entry hall

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are aimed directly at the parents. According to an agreement among the Finnish-speaking teachers, the parents receive all information, such as the monthly newsletters about general activities and other necessary information, in the majority language, Swedish. This was justified by the interviewed teacher, who claimed that when the information was given in Swedish the teachers knew that all the parents would have received it, while if it was given in Finnish not all the parents understood it and thus translation was needed. The teacher noted that previously both languages were used in all written communication, both in information sent to parents and in material displayed on walls in the premises, but this practice was changed as it was perceived to be a double workload: Everything was bilingual before, but it was quite a heavy workload to translate everything, thus we decided that from now on we’ll write only in Swedish, so that everyone gets the information. We’re in Sweden, we live here! However, the teacher adds, those parents who do not understand Swedish are acknowledged, so that no-one is excluded: There have been situations when the family has immigrated from Finland, where both are Finnish-speaking, and their Swedish is not strong, when they come here […] For them, the two languages are not used, instead, they are asked if they have understood. We try to give the most important information to the parents and tell them [in Finnish] what we have done. The interviewed teacher described her efforts to include everybody, also in the case of non-Finnish speaking colleagues. She admits to having qualms about when she uses Finnish in a non-Finnish speaking teacher’s presence, where she would suggest a change of language, although the non-Finnish speaking colleagues claim not to expect that: Sometimes, they [the non-Finnish speaking colleagues] probably feel excluded, but often we ask them and say that we are not talking about secrets but only about work, and that we can change language. Often I try to change, so that all are included. Then the others say ‘no, no, we don’t care’, particularly during recess when we speak only Finnish to each, the others sit with their mobiles and don’t even care. The teacher’s concern described in the quotation may reveal her aim to create a safe space. This concern is shown in other contexts too, for example, when the interviewed teacher emphasizes that she and her colleagues aspire to having the Finnish-speaking section not as an isolated section, but as a natural part of the other sections in the pre-school. Creating a safe space through

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involving Swedish-speaking children in the playing activities is important for the teachers, in order to avoid the Finnish-speaking children feeling victimized or marginalized. Encouraging the Swedish-speaking children and parents to copy the Finnish speakers and pronounce some phrases and expressions in Finnish is one way of creating a safe space: We also receive parents and children [in the morning in one of the Swedishlanguage sections] and greet them [when they have arrive], and it is quite nice when certain parents, or parents and children, say ‘HEIPPA [HELLO]’ in Finnish also … They like to say it. They want to. They ask, so I pronounce the correct word in Finnish. Parents too are eager to use Finnish. For the Finnish-speaking teachers, it is also important to have positive status among other colleagues and Swedish-speaking parents. The interviewed teacher emphasizes that she is happy that good solidarity and fellowship exist in the pre-school, and that the principals, colleagues and parents have a positive attitude toward Finnish and support the Finnish-speaking teacher’s use of the language. The Finnish-speaking education, with one of its aims being to enhance language awareness among children, can be understood as part of the act of creating a safe space for minority language speakers (see also Mary & Young, this volume). Creese and Blackledge (2010: 104) have established that traditionally in bilingual education, languages are perceived as separate entities, and some researchers (e.g. Jacobson & Faltis, 1990) argue that language separation is advantageous for the teaching and learning of languages in the classroom. In the observed Finnish pre-school, according to the interview (and also the questionnaires), the teachers demonstrate the ambition to use only Finnish with the Finnish-speaking children, but they also describe many situations when they move flexibly between their languages, without attaching special importance to language choice (cf. Mård-Miettinen & Palviainen, 2014). In the present case, the act of creating a safe space is not associated only with the minority language, but also with involving Swedish-speakers in the ‘Finnish activities’, despite the fact that the emphasis is on the construction and fostering of Finnish identity. The interviewed teacher does not speak about the exceptional position of the Finnish language in Swedish society or at the local level, but she supposes that the children develop an awareness of how they represent a minority through their experiences and the fact that everybody speaks Swedish around them in the pre-school. The language awareness enhances a kind of separation of languages that takes place in the discourse when the teachers and children have conversations about Finland: Yes, they know that in Finland the people speak Finnish, and they notice that Finnish is a minority language here in the pre-school too, that only

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we speak Finnish, and here there are a lot of other children. We actually do not speak about that so much, but I think that children understand anyway that we can speak Finnish even if we live in Sweden, and that everybody speaks Swedish here and that we are almost the only ones [who speak Finnish]. We have spoken about how we in Sweden speak Swedish, and we now speak Finnish because this is so, but not in the same way, and in Finland some speak Swedish [too]. Finland is a bilingual country, but there it is the opposite, there Swedish is the minority language. In this quotation the sense of connectedness, which is a central element in translanguaging space, is expressed. This also demonstrates the positioning of group identity as minority speakers of Finnish.

Translanguaging Space and Spaces for Translanguaging: A Discussion In this chapter, some spaces for translanguaging are observed by linguistic landscaping in a national minority language pre-school setting. In the presented case the Finnish pre-school is physically inside the main Swedish pre-school building. However, it is not an independent and separate entity but rather just one of the four sections in the pre-school, with the same education and the same curriculum as the other sections, but where the language of instruction is different, and where some elements of the Finnish culture exist (e.g. the celebration of Finnish national holidays, not presented in this chapter). At the same time, the ‘outer’ Swedish pre-school and the ‘inner’ Finnish pre-school occupy two different kinds of social space. On the one hand, the Swedish pre-school is an ordinary and determining space with dominating Swedish norms, ideologies and values. On the other hand, the Swedish pre-school serves the needs of this group of children who are categorized by Swedish national minority language policy when their parents choose the Finnish section. The Finnish section of the pre-school is also a space where Finnish norms, values and identity are accepted, protected and supported, both according to local policy documents and in practice, as seen in this study (cf. Narrowe, 1998; see also Ganuza & Hedman, this volume). The Swedish pre-school constitutes a space only for the majority language, Swedish. Finnish is the main language in the Finnish part of the preschool, but as the children spend a lot of their time outdoors, they are not isolated, but instead interact with Swedish-speaking children and teachers. Consequently, the Finnish pre-school constitutes a space for both Finnish and Swedish. There the children have the opportunity to translanguage and, as the interviewed teacher communicates, there are many situations when Finnish and Swedish are simultaneously and flexibly used among the children, teachers and parents.

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The Finnish section of the pre-school represents a place where a space for using Finnish is institutionally created. For the Finnish-speaking children, the Finnish pre-school has a closed quality: not everyone belongs or can join, as only those who follow the principle of ‘here we speak Finnish’ (cf. Narrowe, 1998: 125) are accepted, regardless of their level of knowledge of Finnish. It can also be stated that the selected Finnish pre-school is a socioculturally and politically created institution, which was officially founded to promote the protection of the national minority languages. Thus, the preschool is also a special social space in that context, as it gathers families who have historical and/or emotional bonds with their Finnish roots and their Finnish heritage. The results of the photographic observations on the linguistic mapping of the pre-school’s local environment show that the Finnish language is not visible outside the Finnish section of the pre-school; nevertheless, the closer one comes to the Finnish section of the pre-school where the Finnishspeaking children’s activity takes place, the more evidence is found of notices, pictures and artefacts where the Finnish language is clearly visible. This investigation demonstrates that Finnish is dominant especially in the domains and contexts where the children are involved, both as active participants (for example, when they are painting and naming their pictures or having common group activities) and as more passive beholders (for example, when they see the pictures and texts about the milk glasses or the names of different materials and tools with Finnish signs). There are a lot of signs and images in the location of the Finnish pre-school that are meant for the parents and visitors, where the Swedish language is used. Finnish appears just to illustrate what the children have done, and also in a symbolic role, for example, in the case when some headings are also in Finnish or when some instructions are in Finnish on the whiteboard. Thus, Finnish does not have an exceptional position in the selected pre-school (cf. Lainio et al., 2012), but it has a special role in the Finnish section, not least as an identity marker, which strengthens the sense of connectedness for both children and parents. It is also interesting to note how the municipality interprets the right to Finnish by way of the information given to parents through the pre-school; Finnish is used only in public information regarding linguistic rights, whereas other types of information are exclusively in Swedish. In turn the pre-school teachers use Finnish and Swedish depending on the purpose and target group. Thus the two languages, Finnish and Swedish, can be said to exist in some cases side by side and in other cases as dynamic and fluid resources in written communication and in different signs. There is neither always a strict distinction of languages nor always a consistent use of languages in the various contexts, but all presented examples above imply that both the teachers and the children use their linguistic resources flexibly, which is an example of translanguaging as daily practice. The presented examples also

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demonstrate that the teachers create translanguaging spaces through the visual work of the children’s artworks and in their verbal presentations, where both Finnish and Swedish are represented. With this kind of work the teachers also create social spaces through translanguaging. Furthermore, social and safe spaces are created by the teachers in other ways, when they involve Swedish-speaking children in play activities and encourage them and their parents to learn some Finnish. Finally, it can be noted that the teacher’s creativity plays an important role as part of the translanguaging space. An example of this is when the teacher inspires the children to create and use their own sign language with one another. With this practice, the teacher also demonstrates the creation of a social and safe space for the act of translanguaging.

Conclusions Translanguaging as practice in education is presented here in a less traditional way, through exploring the idea of translanguaging space in one selected pre-school in a minority language setting with linguistic landscaping as a method and analytic tool. In this chapter the space for translanguaging as well as the concepts of social space and safe space are illustrated in different dimensions, inspired by Li Wei’s (2011) definitions and exemplified both by the teacher’s way of creating routines for interaction and interpretation and by the multiple social practices in a lived space. In the described minority language context, the teachers create space for translanguaging by using images in both the majority and minority languages, depending on their aims. The presented case shows a flexible and creative use of multimodal pictures with different texts and signs, mainly in the pre-school’s interior, constructing the space where teachers’ and children’s linguistic repertoires constitute a translingual landscape. The teachers in this case have also demonstrated efforts to create safe spaces for using Finnish and, at the same time, to create possibilities for strengthening the status of the Finnish language in some cases (e.g. in presence of non-Finnish speakers) through translanguaging. The Finnish language is visible almost exclusively in the Finnish section of the pre-school building of the case studied, but it has a strong symbolic power in the pre-school environment as a whole. This promotes a sense of connectedness and strengthens a sense of identity and heritage, and positions the teachers, the children and their families as minority speakers of the Finnish language.

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10 Unravelling Translanguaging: The Potential of Translanguaging as a Scaffold among Teachers and Pupils in Superdiverse Classrooms in Flemish Education Kirsten Rosiers

Introduction In this chapter, the aim is to explore how translanguaging can be used as a pedagogical scaffold by different actors in interaction in a natural and superdiverse school setting. Since the introduction of the concept translanguaging in Wales in the 1980s by Cen Williams, the term has been popularized by García (2009) and Baker (2011) and is becoming a commonly adopted notion within multilingual educational research. Most of the studies on translanguaging as a pedagogy ‘are increasingly situated in informal educational settings, and in after-school or supplementary programs’ (García & Li Wei, 2014: 115). Moreover, much research on translanguaging focuses on contexts where only two languages co-occur, such as in the research of García (e.g. 2011; Lasagabaster & García, 2014) in Spanish-English educational contexts, whereas research in superdiverse (Vertovec, 2007) classrooms is still scarce. Superdiversity was defined by Vertovec (2007) as an interplay of a wide array of factors contributing to diversity. In addition to ethnicity, other factors such as gender, religion and language should be taken into account. Superdiversity, a concept increasingly used in research worldwide, is applicable to the present study, as the description of the pupils in the investigated classrooms cannot be limited to ethnic groups with a common trajectory as migrants. On the contrary, the complex combination of factors 148

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such as country of origin, language, immigration background, age and gender all play a role and are reflected in the investigated classrooms. The present research concentrates on the integration of the total linguistic repertoire of all pupils in the classroom and thus offers a significant contribution to our understanding of translanguaging. In many respects, the pedagogical side of translanguaging in classrooms is still being developed (Canagarajah, 2011; Toth & Paulsrud, this volume): many implementations are especially teacher-oriented and focus more on didactical interventions on a structural level (e.g. García, 2012; Langman, 2014) than on translanguaging practices as local interactional accomplishments. To study the scaffolding potential of translanguaging, the focus is on the specific context of Belgium, a context characterized by superdiverse settings. Belgium is a multilingual country marked by an increasing diversity due to multiple migration waves and an increasing number of inhabitants born abroad (BFPSE, 2009). As such, a multitude of languages are present in Belgian society and, consequently, in education. The country is a federal state in which power and decision making are organized at a federal, a community and a regional level. Belgium is subdivided into three territorial regions and three cultural communities, with language and education policies being the responsibility of the three communities. Each of the three official languages is associated with a specific community: Dutch is spoken in the Flemish Community, French in the French Community and German in the German-speaking Community. The focus of this chapter is on the educational system of the Flemish Community, which does not have a policy of integrating with the reality of multilingual diversity of Flemish society but, instead, adheres to strictly defined monolingualism in which only Dutch is allowed as the language of instruction (LOI) (see also Jonsson, this volume, on dominant monolingual ideology and deviant practices). The Flemish Community pursues a restrictive policy toward inter- and intralinguistic variation in order to protect the Dutch language (De Caluwe, 2012). Policy makers stipulate that the LOI in all schools within the jurisdiction of the Flemish Community should be Dutch. Furthermore, the Flemish Community also controls the Flemish schools in the bilingual Dutch-French capital area of Brussels. Due to an increasing monolingual rationale, earlier experimental initiatives focusing on multicultural and multilingual development were mostly discontinued. The assumption seems to be that children with a home language other than the LOI should learn Dutch as quickly as possible; they only get support to learn the LOI during the first stages of their arrival. Thus, multilingualism and heterogeneity in daily practices coexist with monolingual policies and ideologies of homogeneity (Creese & Blackledge, 2015). In a context where one of the languages is an immigrant language, research may investigate how translanguaging can offer a balanced educational practice that reconciles the spontaneous language use of pupils with a

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unilateral pedagogical belief in monolingual education practices in which only the LOI receives ample treatment (Lewis et al., 2012a). In this chapter, translanguaging practices are analyzed in two classrooms in two different cities: the Ghent classroom is situated in a monolingual Dutch environment and is compared to a classroom with a monolingual Dutch policy in the French-Dutch bilingual environment of Brussels. I investigate how participants in a classroom use their total linguistic repertoire to make sense of the world surrounding them, that is, how they ‘translanguage’ (García, 2009). First, insight into the implementation of translanguaging in the research project is presented, followed by the methodology of the study. After presenting the results of the study, the relevance of this research and its applicability for further research are discussed.

Translanguaging as a Scaffold From a social-constructivist point of view (Vygotsky, 1978), language is a symbolic tool through which the relation between the world and the human mind can be mediated (Lantolf, 2000). Social mediations take place in the zone of proximal development, which is defined as the difference between what a person can do on his own and what he can do with support (Lantolf, 2000). This enacted support is referred to as scaffolding (De Guerrero & Villamil, 2000). In classrooms, the use of the home language and translanguaging practices can function as scaffolds, mediating learning processes in the LOI (Lantolf, 2000). The term home language is used in this chapter to refer to languages that are spoken at home and differ from the Dutch LOI. The category of the ‘home language’ in practice often overlaps with the first language (L1) or mother tongue, but it also extends these terms. For example, home language may also refer to situations where the pupils use more than one language at home. Similarly to many education policies in Europe, linguistic diversity in the Flemish education policy is believed to hinder the learning of the LOI (Cummins, 2015). Schools often assume that monolingual practices are the only way to improve proficiency in the LOI, whereas students’ home languages are largely neglected (Sierens & Van Avermaet, 2014). Nonetheless, supporting students’ home languages can function as a scaffolding approach, as it may enhance the empowerment of students in interactions and create collaborative relations which challenge societal inequalities (Cummins, 2012; García & Sylvan, 2011). For instance, the Ghent Home Language in Education project has illustrated how lifting the ban on the use of home languages in classroom interaction led to changes in teacher perception and a marked increase in learner self-confidence, but did not impact negatively on the acquisition of the dominant language (Slembrouck et al., 2017). Although other researchers such as Lewis et al. (2013: 123) indicate that translanguaging

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should not be used by the teacher in a Welsh-English bilingual context ‘until both languages are relatively well developed’, this practice can equally be useful in a learner-centred environment characterised by unequal mastery of the languages involved. Teachers who do not master all the languages present in the classroom could create a learner-centred environment where peer interaction in the total linguistic repertoire is enabled, in which one pupil could help another. In doing so, the use of translanguaging practices as scaffolds could be maximized. A pedagogical deployment of translanguaging clearly has affinities with the notion of functional multilingual learning (Sierens & Van Avermaet, 2014; see Slembrouck & Rosiers, 2017, for a detailed discussion and comparison of the two notions). In both cases, learning is fostered by ‘multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual worlds’ (García, 2009: 45).

Research Aims and Methodology The aim of this chapter is to explore how translanguaging, i.e. going back and forth between features of the linguistic repertoire, as pedagogical scaffolding practice unfolds in the dynamics of teacher–pupil or pupil–pupil interactions in order to gain a better understanding as a researcher of how participants cope with the diversity surrounding them. Subsequently, the factors influencing the potential of putting multilingual repertoires to use and effect in learning environments will be described in the two classroom contexts, while also paying attention to the consequences of these factors for the pupils. First, the influence of the macro context of the school policy and the influence of the teacher on translanguaging practices will be analyzed. The consequences of these policies and teacher practices will be discussed while paying attention to the possible empowerment of students (Cummins, 2012). However, it is important to understand translanguaging not only as a matter of language choice: it also needs to be analyzed in the dynamics of turn-taking and evolving interactional patterns. In doing so, the influence of the micro context of interactional patterns on translanguaging can be approached from a sociolinguistic point of view. Therefore, Goffman’s (1981) frame analysis will be integrated into the exploration of translanguaging. The dynamically evolving groupings and alignments in the ‘full’ physical arena of the classroom are analyzed (Goffman, 1981). Footing (Goffman, 1981) is investigated, i.e. changes in the positioning of participants and their alignment in a group. Interactional moves, such as going back and forth between different parts of the linguistic repertoire (translanguaging), go together with shifts in footing and determine group participation (Blommaert et al., 2005). The functional use of translanguaging in the two classroom contexts will be outlined, as well as cognitive and linguistic reasons for translanguaging.

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The goal of this research is to understand the dynamics of the pedagogics of translanguaging by exploring the potential of relying on multilingual repertoires in learning environments. In this chapter, translanguaging strategies used by the participants in the two classrooms are studied. The data presented are part of a larger linguistic-ethnographic project, known as Validiv (Valorising linguistic diversity in primary education). Data are based on field work notes, participant observations, interviews with participants (teachers and pupils) and video-recordings of the classroom activity of pupils in the fourth grade (age 9–10) of primary education. In this chapter, the main focus is on the analysis of the video-recordings, which allow for an understanding of participant interactions in a classroom context. Principles of grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) were used to select and to code the data from the recordings.

Contextualization of the Ghent and Brussels Classroom The present study investigates translanguaging in two schools differing in language policy and mirroring the linguistic heterogeneity of society. The first classroom is a classroom in Ghent, a Flemish city. The locally dominant language in Ghent is Dutch. However, there is increasing diversity in Ghent: 29% of the citizens are of foreign descent and the city is home to 156 different nationalities. This diversity is also apparent in primary education: 30% of the pupils have a home language other than Dutch (LAIM Ghent, 2015). The Ghent classroom consists of 17 pupils with varying home languages (e.g. English, Spanish, Arabic, Bulgarian); however, a majority of the pupils share Turkish as their home language. In the Ghent classroom, there is an ‘open’ policy toward multilingualism: pupils can rely on their home languages when interacting in language homogeneous groups. The second classroom is situated in Brussels. In Sint-Gillis, the Brussels area of the selected school, 78% of the inhabitants are of foreign descent (DASB, 2015), comprising 149 nationalities. As the selected school is located within the jurisdiction of the Flemish Community, the LOI is Dutch. In SintGillis 73% of the pupils in primary education have a home language other than the Dutch LOI (LAIM Sint-Gillis, 2015). The dominant lingua franca in Brussels and in the school is French (Janssens, 2008). In Brussels, the selfreported data based on the home language of the family indicate that 34% of the families in Brussels are monolingual French speaking, 5% are monolingual Dutch speaking and 14% are bilingual Dutch-French (BRIOTaalbarometer 3, 2013). In the Brussels classroom, all of the 13 pupils have French or French in combination with (an)other language(s) such as Arabic and Spanish as their home language, which differs from the Dutch LOI.

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School policy is more restricted than in Ghent: the home languages are not welcome in the classroom, although they can be used in the playground. Analyses of the Validiv questionnaires to assess the attitudes of teachers revealed that teachers in the Brussels school are less tolerant toward multilingualism compared to the teachers of the Ghent school. Table 10.1 gives an overview of the settings of the two classrooms. Table 10.1 Overview of the settings of the Ghent and Brussels classroom

Number of pupils Languages of the pupils

Locally dominant language Language of instruction in school School policy Teacher

The Ghent classroom

The Brussels classroom

17 pupils • English, Spanish, Arabic, Bulgarian, Turkish • Main group of Turkishspeaking pupils Dutch Dutch

13 pupils • Lingala, Spanish, Arabic, Pakistani • All pupils share the same lingua franca, French French Dutch

Home languages can be used in the classroom Male, does not understand the home languages of the pupils

Home languages cannot be used in the classroom Female, speaks and understands the lingua franca, French

For the Ghent classroom, five pupils were selected who shared Turkish as a home language. Fragments were annotated in which translanguaging occurred. Data were restricted to the fragments in which translanguaging was observed. This selection led to a corpus of seven hours of video data comprising 20 fragments. For the Brussels classroom, 20 video fragments were selected in which Dutch-French translanguaging occurred; as such, it was possible to confine the data to approximately 12 hours of video-recordings. By means of conversation analysis (Liddicoat, 2007), the distribution of the linguistic repertoire in the realization of functional sequences in pedagogical practices was examined.

Translanguaging in an ‘Open’ and ‘Restricted’ Context The influence of policy and teacher The Ghent classroom The teacher has a major role to play in creating space for translanguaging to occur (see, for example, Mary & Young, this volume; Toth & Paulsrud, this volume). In this study, the Ghent teacher shows a positive attitude toward

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multilingualism, although he lacks proficiency in the home languages of the pupils. He overtly promotes the use of the home language as a scaffold in language homogeneous groups, as illustrated in Extract 10.1 below. Pupils are working on an exercise in groups when a pupil, Siper, experiences difficulties. The teacher, Gilles, first tries to explain the exercise in Dutch. Secondly, he infers that stimulating translation from another Turkish-speaking pupil, Hayat, could be more helpful, which is illustrated in Extract 10.1, Part 1. In doing so, he applies teacher-directed translanguaging (Lewis et al., 2012b), and he approaches the pupils and their translanguaging skills as scaffolds. Additionally, he stimulates other pupils to function as language brokers for learners (see similar findings in García & Li Wei, 2014; Toth & Paulsrud, this volume). The participants’ names have been anonymized. The English translation can be found in the right column; bold print is used in the transcriptions and their translations to mark the parts which are not in the LOI (i.e. Turkish in Ghent, French in Brussels). A transcription key can be found at the end of this chapter.

Extract 10.1 (Part 1) Teacher-directed translanguaging and translanguaging among pupils as a scaffold G: teacher H, Si: pupil 1 G: Kijkt een keer ier G: Look at this 2 (tegen H) Hayat (to H) Hayat 3 Kan jij es een keer vertalen voor haar Can you translate for her (Si) 4 (Si) 5 Kan jij ’t haar es een keer uitleggen? Can you explain it to her? 6 (…) (…) 7 H: şimdi bak var ya H: Look, now there is 8 Zes komma dertig Six point thirty 9 Ama kijk da ga nie But look it is not possible 10 Burda olmuyo Not here 11 Dus we moete de nulle aanvulle So we need to add the zeros

Previous research has indicated that teachers may stimulate and facilitate the use of the home language, but do not necessarily engage dialogically with the pupils (Rosiers et al., 2015). This Ghent teacher, Gilles, did more than just stimulate and facilitate pupils to translanguage (see Extract 10.1, Part 2). He has taught for some years in a school that focuses on multilingualism and arguably this exposure has made him more adept in developing translanguaging skills. As a result, this longitudinal experience is likely to have contributed to more awareness and familiarity with translanguaging practices.

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This has given rise to experienced translanguaging skills when compared to the teachers in the previous research. The second part of Extract 10.1 indicates that the conscious exploitation of pupils’ linguistic repertoires to scaffold learning is not the endpoint for this teacher: after Hayat’s translation, he dialogically engages with Siper, interacts in the LOI and includes her in the group of learners (Lines 1–2). In doing so, the teacher verifies whether Siper understood everything and promotes a transfer from the home language to the LOI.

Extract 10.1 (Part 2) Teacher-directed translanguaging and dialogically engaging with pupils 1 G: Ja? G: Yes? 2 Siper weet je nog? Siper do you remember? 3 (…) (…) 4 Dat zijn de tienden he? These are the tenths eh? 5 Eentje na de komma? One after the comma 6 (…) (…) 7 Si: (knikt) ah ja Si: (nods) ah yes The Ghent teacher ensures the use of translanguaging as a scaffold for learning the LOI and new content. The valorization of the home language by the teacher seems to encourage pupils to actually rely on their linguistic repertoire as a scaffold, despite the prevailing monolingual ideology in broader society. The teacher empowers pupils and challenges some of the imbalances in relationships that come either with self-imposed or ruleimposed code choices (see also Cummins, 2012).

The Brussels classroom While there is an open attitude toward other languages and translanguaging in the Ghent classroom, the analysis of the Brussels classroom shows an emphasis on Dutch and fewer openings for translanguaging. This is principally due to the school policy: home languages are not welcomed and only the LOI may be used in the classroom. In spite of this clear policy against multilingualism, the analyses and discussion of the video data below show that translanguaging does occur in the classroom (see similar observations by Lasagabaster & García, 2014, in a classroom in New York City). The primary indicator for these translanguaging practices is the interaction between participants. A gradation in pupils’ active use of translanguaging skills depending on the presence of the teacher and the classroom activities is noted (see Figure 10.1 for a schematic overview). Pupils’ translanguaging increases when the teacher is at a physical distance. In general, translanguaging is more covert in Brussels than in Ghent; whispering is observed when pupils rely on languages other than the LOI (see also Heller, 1995).

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Figure 10.1 Gradation in translanguaging patterns in Brussels

Less translanguaging is practised in the Brussels classroom when the teacher is present in the immediate context, as she has to adhere to the monolinguistic policy. Nonetheless, she also creates multilingual spaces to alleviate linguistic difficulties of the pupils (Jaspers, 2015). Pupils know that the teacher has proficiency in French, the lingua franca in Brussels that most immigrant students master. When pupils cannot retrieve a word in the LOI, they overtly initiate a translanguaging practice and ask the teacher to scaffold translation. During such interactional moments the teacher becomes a participant in translanguaging to scaffold understanding. In Extract 10.2 below, the pupil, Riad, explores a translation of the verb ‘revenge’. First, two other pupils give him an erroneous translation due to misunderstanding. Subsequently, Riad notices something is incorrect and adds related information, i.e. the noun ‘vengeance’, in order to scaffold the correct translation in Dutch. Riad covertly initiates translanguaging with peers in a pedagogical way but, unsatisfied with their answers, he overtly applies translanguaging with the teacher.

Extract 10.2 Teacher as a resource for translanguaging K: teacher R, J, A, B: pupils Jorge is a pupil’s name 1 R: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

J: (…) R: J: B: A: R:

9 K:

ee Jorge hoe zeg je venger

R:

Eten

hey Jorge how do you say to revenge To eat

Wraak

To eat? the revenge To eat. okay revenge In Dutch Miss How do you say to revenge, vengeance? Vengeance

J: (…) Eten? De venger R: Eten. aah venger J: In Nederlands B: Juffrouw A: Hoe zeg je venger, revanche? R: K:

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This example demonstrates that teachers and pupils rely on translanguaging skills to ensure communicative profit. French-Dutch translations mutually reinforce each other and are used as a pedagogical tool to scaffold learning and to improve the language of schooling in Dutch (see similar observations by Lasagabaster & García, 2014). Similar to the Ghent teacher, the Brussels teacher treats pupils as resources for translanguaging. In this, the teacher does not position herself as a linguistic authority, but puts herself in a position as a learner, on par with the students (see similar observations by García & Li Wei, 2014; Mary & Young, this volume). Despite the prohibition of the use of other languages, the teacher overtly initiates the translanguaging pedagogical practice in Extract 10.3.

Extract 10.3 Pupils as a resource for translanguaging K: teacher S: Soraya: pupil 1 K: Hoe zeggen ze dan Soraya, c’est 2 foutu, of wa zeggen ze int Frans 3 S: C’est fini 4 K: C’est fini da wast

K: How do they say it Soraya, it’s ruined, or what do they say in French S: It is finished K: It is finished, that’s what it was

During interviews, the teacher indicates that she tolerates the use of other languages (principally French) and translanguaging as a scaffolding approach to support understanding of content, to keep the task moving and to connect to the content in Dutch. In interactions with pupils, the teacher creates collaborative relations. Nonetheless, the teacher has to adhere to the language policy of the school, which limits her in allowing translanguaging (it is mostly restricted to French, and appears to be limited to ‘translation dictionary’ moments). As indicated earlier, spontaneous translanguaging among pupils was mostly observed when the teacher was located at a physical distance. Translanguaging in these cases can be described as a covert pedagogical practice which emerges spontaneously in multilingual spaces. Translanguaging is tolerated by the teacher in such situations; however, she does not explicitly encourage or stimulate transfer from other languages to the LOI as the Ghent teacher did. The Brussels teacher only allows translanguaging to a limited extent, thereby not maximizing the opportunities and diminishing possible learning potential relating to the transfer of knowledge from one language to another. She does not challenge the coercive relations that devaluate the linguistic and cultural capital of these pupils in society; subsequently, she does not provide maximal opportunities of empowerment for her pupils (see also Cummins, 2012).

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The analyses indicate that there are different ways in which teachers authorize and stimulate pedagogical practices of translanguaging in the classroom context. While the Ghent teacher actively made use of the linguistic repertoires of his pupils, the Brussels teacher only tolerated translanguaging in a controlled and limited way (see also Toth & Paulsrud, this volume).

Prevailing interactional patterns influencing translanguaging Next to the meso context of the classroom, in which school policy and the teacher influence translanguaging, pupils adapt to the micro context of the group dynamics. In the data, translanguaging occurs among pupils when interactional dynamics are modified: shifts in alignment, or footing (Goffman, 1981), coincide with going back and forth between different parts of the linguistic repertoire. In Extract 10.4, four pupils are working in a language heterogeneous group when a subgroup is formed. Pupils rely on their multilingual repertoires, switch to their home language and overtly initiate a translanguaging pedagogical practice. First, Fidanka, a Turkish-speaking girl, counts in Dutch in the group of four. She then directs her gaze at another Turkishspeaking girl, Siper. She switches to Turkish and establishes a Turkish-speaking subgroup. This is an example of ‘splitting’ into separate encounters (Goffman, 1981: 135).

Extract 10.4 Splitting and subsequent translanguaging (Ghent dataset) F, Si, Ke, P: pupils 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

F+Si: één twee drie vier vijf zes zeven acht negen tien Ke: (kijkt op naar Si en F, P kijkt naar hem) (xxx) P: Allez doe da (tegen Ke, terwijl Ke even terug naar kaartje kijkt) Ke: Uh uh uh uh uh (kijkt op naar F) F: Bir iki üç dört beş alti sekiz yedi dokuz on

F+Si: one, two, three, four, five, six seven eight nine ten Ke: (looks at Si and F, P looks at him) (xxx) P: Come on, do it (to Ke, while Ke looks again at the card) Ke: Uh uh uh uh uh (looks at F) F: One two three four five six seven eight nine ten

Other interactional moves, designated by Goffman (1981) as merging, were also observed. This occurs when, for example, two pupils, one of whom is Turkish speaking and one of whom is Dutch speaking, are working together on a computer. When the Turkish-speaking pupil directs his attention to an adjacent group of Turkish-speaking pupils, the two participation frameworks can be said to merge and the pupil adapts his language to the extended group (i.e. switches from Dutch to Turkish). Finally, the influence of the participation framework on translanguaging can be attested in the data when someone (the teacher) or objects (such as

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cameras) are added, and this results in a new and transformed participation framework. Extract 10.5 shows pupils initiating translanguaging as a pedagogical scaffolding practice due to the socio-situational reality of differences in group constellation: pupils translanguage to involve other participants (García, 2011).

Extract 10.5 Translanguaging in dynamics of turn-taking (Brussels dataset) K: teacher S, N: pupils 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

S: S:

S: N: S: N:

S:

K: N: S: N:

‘t Is te veel Zestig, zeventig, tachtig, negentig, honderd, honderd en tien (… ze fluisteren, discussie, eerst in het Nederlands) On diminue quelque chose. On diminue ça? Attends, da’s wat dat? Ça c’est quoi en fait Ça c’est suiker avec (xxx) manger, tu peux fait toi-même ton à manger avec (xxx) (…) Moi je fais comme ça. Écoute, zestig. zeventig, tachtig, negentig, honderd (xxx) Lukt het, meisjes? Lukt het? Ja juffrouw We hebben al honderd (telt verder in het Nederlands)

S: S:

S: N: S: N:

S:

K: N: S: N:

It is too much Sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, hundred, hundred and ten (… they start to whisper, discussion, first in Dutch) We diminish something. We diminish that? Wait, that is what that? What is that in fact That is sugar with (xxx) to eat, you can do it yourself you to eat with (xxx) (…) I do it this way. Listen, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, hundred (xxx) Is it going well, girls? Is it going well? Yes miss We already have hundred (continues counting in Dutch)

In this example, pupils translanguage by appealing to Dutch and French, but the use of French is implicitly restrained to comply with the introduction of the teacher to the group (Line 16). Pupils pay attention to the dynamics of turn-taking and adapt to other participants in order to construe meaning together and to gain access to knowledge (see also Heller, 1996). By relying on French in peer interaction, pupils demonstrate the possible advantages of French and translanguaging in the classroom. When the teacher is present, however, pupils switch to Dutch. Based on observations and interviews, it seems that the pupils are aware of the importance of Dutch in school. The teacher embodies this. Consequently, pupils adapt to the LOI. The presence of the monolingual ideology thus affects the interactional dynamics in the classroom. The previous examples demonstrate that pupils adapt to the dynamics of sequence and turn-taking and rely on their translanguaging skills to manage interpersonal relationships. They use translanguaging to cope with the social context and to establish certain aspects of their identities and power relationships (see Jørgensen, 2008). In the last case, Extract 10.5, they establish their

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identities as attentive pupils in making efforts to use Dutch with the teacher, whereas they opt for Turkish (in the Ghent classroom) and French (in the Brussels classroom) to affirm their identity as a friend among peers (see Extract 10.6 below; compare with Creese et al., 2011). In doing so, they demonstrate the social aspects of translanguaging.

Functional use of translanguaging Pupils in the two classrooms rely on different parts of their linguistic repertoire related to frame-related decisions. Two different frames were identified: pupils in a classroom context can talk about school-related issues (school frame) or peer-related issues (peer frame) (see Rosiers, 2016, for a detailed explanation of the distinction). The Ghent data analyses reveal that the five pupils focused on talk more often in Turkish than in Dutch when they were discussing issues related to peers (peer frame) rather than to school. This part of their repertoire is used for chat (e.g. final turn of Extract 10.6 below), to instruct someone to speak Turkish, to silence someone, to give an opinion, to provoke or to reproach another pupil, and to ask questions on topics that are not related to school (see also Rosiers, 2016, for a detailed analysis).

Extract 10.6 Translanguaging for peer-related issues: Chat (Ghent dataset) H, Si (Siper), Se (Selin), Sa: pupils 1 H: Ma kijk (wijst naar de opname2 apparatuur) 3 De licht ga uit 4 Laat da gewoon zo 5 (tegen Siper) Selin? 6 Siper (xxx) 7 S: Wa Selin? (kijkt naar H, dan naar Sa, 8 dan terug naar H) 9 H: Siper az sonra giyim ben onu

H: But look (points at the recorder) The light is going out Just leave it (at Siper) Selin? Siper (xxx) S: What Selin? (looks at H, then at Sa, then back to H) H: Siper shall I wear this later on

Talk in the school frame in the Ghent classroom depicts another pattern: Turkish and Dutch are used to contest, to give orders, to communicate something, to raise a question and to talk about games in the classroom. The analysis reveals that more Dutch was found in utterances on mathematics (numerals) and words typically belonging to a school repertoire (e.g. animals, colours). When it comes to engagement in competitive activities within a school frame (Extract 10.7), pupils appeal to their home language.

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Extract 10.7 Translanguaging for school-related issues: Competition (Ghent dataset) N, H: pupils Fidanka is a pupil’s name

1 N: Pagina vijfenvijftig aç bunlardan 2 duyduk aç, nee grapje haha 3 4 5 6

H: X: H: N:

Fidanka pagina vijfendertig Pagina vijfenvijftig Vijfendertig Aha buldum kapak olsun size

N: Page fifty-five open it quickly, we heard it from them, no it is a joke haha H: Fidanka page thirty-five X: Page fifty-five H: Thirty-five N: Aha I found it, let this be a lesson for you

The previous examples indicate that pupils use their total linguistic repertoire to function in a classroom within a school or peer frame. Moreover, pupils can exploit their translanguaging skills to move from one frame to another, which illustrates the fluidity of the frame dynamics. In Extract 10.8 an activity switch occurs from school to peer frame and then once again to school frame. This frame switching coincides with translanguaging. Three pupils are working on an exercise (school frame), when one of them introduces the eraser, a move which results in downkeying (Goffman, 1974 in Slembrouck, 2012) to a peer frame. After some time, Hayat perceives the contestation of the school frame and encourages Sami to go back to work. This interaction opens up a possibility for translanguaging: pupils are working on an exercise in the LOI, then fall back on Turkish, but use Dutch as a scaffold to ensure the continuation of school work. Pupils overtly rely on their translanguaging skills to make pedagogical progress possible.

Extract 10.8 Translanguaging to switch between frames and to scaffold pedagogical progress (Ghent dataset) H, Sa, Si: pupils 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Si: (Tegen H, wijst met haar potlood naar de pennenzak van H) Ben biliyom onu Nerde aldiğim H: (tengen Si) nerden? Si: Wibra’ dan H: (knikt) Evet Kalem var tatoeage (var)

S:

(To H, points with her pencil to the pencil case of H) I know that I know where you bought it H: (to Si) where? S: In Wibra H: (nodding) Yes There is a pencil of it, there is a tattoo of it 9 Sa: (gericht naar de opname-apparatuur) Sa: (to the recorder) (xxx) 10 (xxx) 11 Si: Kalem var çantasi var kitabi: var There is a pencil of it, there is a bag of it, there is a little notebook of it

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12 H: (knikt) 13 Si: Böyle ama şey kitap 14 (…) (Gaan verder in het Nederlands 15 en het Turks) 16 H: Sa werk gewoon

H: Si: H:

(nodding) But such a little notebook thing (…) (They continue in Dutch and Turkish) Sa just do your work

In the selected classroom in Brussels, the data analysis reveals the same patterns as in the Ghent classroom; however, the translanguaging practices are largely dependent on the situational context. Pupils rely on translanguaging for peer-related and school-related topics. In Extract 10.9 two pupils invent a country ‘Koningland’ (Kingsland). During this school-related interaction, they covertly appropriate a translanguaging pedagogical practice: they perform the task in Dutch, while French is used to discuss aspects of its execution (e.g. to discuss the colours of the flag) and to comment on the activity (e.g. being bored). However, given the restrictive language policy of the classroom, this peer-initiated translanguaging remains covert.

Extract 10.9 Peer-initiated translanguaging for school-related issues (Brussels dataset) J, A: pupils 1

J+A: Welkom in Koningland

J+A: Welcome in Koningland

2

J:

J:

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

J+A: Welkom in Koningland J: Non non, c’est chiant. Welkom in Koning A: In voetballand. In Koniiiiiinglaaaaaaand J: Non, c’est chiant J+A: Welkom in Koningland J: Voilà, c’est tout. Weltom in Koningland J: Welkom in Koningland. Dat is onze (pauze) onze vlag. Hé, kijk, je ne savais même pas que j’ai fait Bruxelles. België A: Non, parce que c’est euhm c’est noir jaune rouge

Neenee, c’est chiant. Allez

No, no, it is bloody boring. Come on J+A: Welcome in Koningland J: No no, it is bloody boring. Welcome in king A: In football land. In Koniiiiiinglaaaaaaand J: No, it is bloody boring J+A: Welcome in Koningland J: That’s all. Welcome in Koningland J: Welcome in Koningland. That is our (pauses) our flag. Hey, look, I didn’t know I made Brussels. Belgium A: No, because it is euhm, it is black yellow red

Finally, the use of Dutch versus French or Turkish can be used to reinforce the differences between the world of school and the world of play, in which children set out the rules (compare with Heller, 2004). Turkish and French in the data, however, are not only implemented within a peer frame; but also within a school frame.

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Cognitive and linguistic reasons for translanguaging When pupils experience problems in finding the exact word or when a term in one language is easier to retrieve, translanguaging occurs as a scaffolding practice in both classrooms: pupils seem to find it valuable to opt for a certain part of their linguistic repertoire (Extract 10.10). Pupils also use their translanguaging skills to show off knowledge (see García, 2011). In Extract 10.11 (Lines 1–2) Soraya, a pupil, is talking about ‘cinema’ both in Dutch and French. Nonetheless, it is doubtful whether she is aware of the two as translations. The task is for pupils to choose items and add them to their list. From this point of view, it would be strange to add the same item twice, viz. ‘cinema’. Nouria, the other pupil in the discussion, demonstrates her knowledge of the word both in Dutch and in French (Line 3) and uses translanguaging to scaffold the correct comprehension of the word for Soraya.

Extract 10.10 Word finding (Brussels dataset) J: pupil Nanou is a pupil’s name 1 J: (naar de camera) Ik heb gepakt de ding 2 van Nanou de bouteille van Nanou en 3 nu kan ik drinken non je?

J: (towards the camera) I have taken the thing of Nanou the bottle of Nanou and now can I drink no I?

Extract 10.11 Demonstrate knowledge in translanguaging (Brussels dataset) S, N: pupils 1 S: Stad das te leuk stad, we hebben 2 cinéma (xxx) bibliotheek, bis, 3 bioscoop 4 N: Je weet das wat bioscoop? Cinéma

S: City it is too nice city, do we have cinema (xxx) library, cin cinema N: Do you know what it is cinema? Cinema

Pupils in the Ghent classroom indicate during interviews that they do not master the vocabularies of schooling in their home languages. When they are talking in Turkish, they translanguage and insert Dutch words to scaffold references to school concepts (‘insect’ in Extract 10.12).

Extract 10.12 Translanguaging: language of schooling (Ghent dataset) N: pupil 1 N: Eeu insect var N: There is an insect

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Thanks to the possibility of using the home language in the Ghent classroom, connections are made between the concepts in the home language and the LOI, facilitating expression in the LOI (compare with De Guerrero & Villamil, 2000, who make a similar point in the context of L2 peer revision; compare also with Toth & Paulsrud, this volume). As such, the home language and translanguaging skills of the pupils function as scaffolds for learning in the LOI: pupils can develop concepts and the language of schooling. In Brussels, pupils can also rely on the translation skills of the teacher to facilitate transfers between Dutch and French (see previous examples).

Comparison of Translanguaging in the Two Classrooms Schools are agents of society and are faced with multilingualism due to an increasing superdiversity, which is often considered as a problem rather than a resource (e.g. Cummins, 2015; Sierens & Van Avermaet, 2014). However, to create equal opportunities, to contribute to academic achievement, to empower all pupils and to ensure integration, schools function as important sites to challenge the societal power relations that may devaluate children’s identities. The aim of this chapter was to study multilingual repertoires and translanguaging in a formal, superdiverse education setting. The use of translanguaging skills as pedagogical scaffolding strategies by participants in superdiverse classrooms was analysed. The contextual factors and consequences of these factors, which influenced translanguaging in a Flemish context characterized by institutional monolingualism and societal multilingualism, were explored. In the two investigated classrooms, translanguaging occurred as a spontaneous practice among participants, notwithstanding the totally different language policies prevailing in the two schools. These policies impacted on the possibilities of translanguaging. In Ghent, pupils translanguaged thanks to an approach that valorized the home languages, whereas in Brussels, translanguaging was more covert, although observed. In the video data, both teachers created collaborative relations in interactions with pupils: they empowered students by appealing to their identities (Cummins & Early, 2011). However, the data also demonstrated restrictions on empowerment when school policy limited the possibilities of appealing to other languages. In the Ghent classroom, pupils could be considered as having developed a practice of translanguaging. In Flemish education, the ideology of monolingualism is dominant, resulting in pupils’ adaptation of language use to the monolingual practices of the school. The Ghent pupils seemed to translanguage to accept institutional values (compare with Creese & Blackledge, 2010) by choosing the LOI. In the Ghent classroom, pupils also deviated from the dominant policy norm and this helped endorse the institution’s acceptance of translanguaging practices in which the home language has symbolic

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value. Pupils were allowed to use the home language and this extended the range of the practices of translanguaging. They behaved as comfortable participants when translanguaging in the classroom. The Ghent pupils translanguaged to scaffold the co-construction of knowledge and learning thanks to the encouragement of the teacher (compare with Toth & Paulsrud, this volume). Although the Ghent teacher lacked proficiency in the home languages of the pupils, he created extended possibilities for translanguaging (see also Mary & Young, this volume). The translanguaging strategy was pedagogically exploited more in the Ghent context than in the Brussels context. The Ghent teacher demonstrated a rich implementation of multilingual skills in order to scaffold learning by appealing to the total linguistic repertoire of his pupils. In stimulating pupils to translate and to help each other, the teacher treated the pupils as resources for translanguaging. When translanguaging is possible, teachers play an important role in enabling the development of this strategy as a skill among pupils. Research on a pedagogical intervention in the Ghent area in a previous project demonstrated that teachers often retreat when pupils are communicating in a language they do not understand (Rosiers et al., 2015). The Ghent teacher did not. On the contrary, he encouraged translanguaging and remained an active participant by dialogically engaging with the pupils. The identities of the pupils were affirmed, the linguistic repertoire was valorized, translanguaging had a legitimate space in the classroom and collaborative relations occurred. The Ghent teacher enabled the development of translanguaging among his pupils. He can be considered as a pedagogically skilled participant in translanguaging. In Brussels, the teacher lacked the advantages of an accepted policy of home language use which benefited the school in the Ghent context. Consequently, translanguaging was more limited. In her practices, the Brussels teacher both resisted and confirmed the policy. On the one hand, multilingual practices in the classroom forced her to challenge the monolingual policy. She challenged the deficit point of view of multilingual pupils as incompetent language users by tolerating certain uses of French, and this resulted in particular forms of translanguaging. Both pupils and teacher were considered as resources and relied on translation as a pedagogical translanguaging scaffold to make sense of the content of the classroom materials (Lasagabaster & García, 2014). Nevertheless, the advantage of the teacher being proficient in the lingua franca of the pupils, a clear possibility for pupil–teacher translanguaging, was not exploited further by the teacher. Note the double contrast with the Ghent teacher, who lacked proficiency in the home languages of his pupils but nonetheless created space for translanguaging to occur. On the other hand, the monolingual policy obliged the Brussels teacher to take on a role as teacher who does not engage with the total linguistic repertoire of the pupils. As such, she reproduced the societal power relations that create inequality. As could be observed, translanguaging occurred spontaneously (cf. García, 2009), but remained more covert and

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linked to situations in which the teacher was not within earshot. The lingua franca, French, and translanguaging were more restricted to the limits of the discursive space as the Brussels teacher only accepted translanguaging on a surface level. As a result, an important part of the pupils’ identity was not acknowledged, and this resulted in a significant challenge of the collaborative relations between teacher and pupils (compare with Cummins, 2012). Due to policy restrictions and possibly other reasons (e.g. individual teacher preferences), the Brussels teacher did not seize the opportunities to create possibilities of learning in translanguaging for pupils and acted only more minimally as a pedagogically skilled interactant in translanguaging.

Conclusions In analyzing translanguaging as part of the interactional dynamics of the classroom, I tried to illustrate pedagogical practices that can be relevant for classrooms didactics. The analyses revealed that many translanguaging practices have a strong pedagogical aspect that can scaffold learning. These translanguaging practices can vary on interrelated levels. First of all, pupils or teachers may initiate and mediate translanguaging. Secondly, these practices may be overt or covert. Much depends on the classroom culture, the school policy and the teacher. Finally, the interactional groupings and configurations of participants affect the appearance of translanguaging. Due to a more open policy toward other languages, more teacher-initiated translanguaging was discovered in the Ghent classroom than in the Brussels one. Moreover, in the Ghent classroom more overt translanguaging practices were noted, whereas in Brussels, more covert practices were attested. Translanguaging in both classrooms, then, depended on the group constellation and dynamics, the demands of interactional sequences, and the topics related to school and peer frames, as well as cognitive and linguistic factors. Pupils adopted translanguaging skills to emphasize interpersonal relationships, demonstrating the social aspects of translanguaging. Furthermore, it appeared that translanguaging came with communicative profits. It could support understanding and connection to the content and could be used as a pedagogical tool to scaffold comprehension, translation, pedagogical progress, learning content, proficiency in the LOI and improvement of the language of schooling in Dutch. Translanguaging can be an effective means through which participants can be offered possibilities to scaffold the learning of content and the LOI during interactional sequences. I analyzed translanguaging and influencing contextual factors and consequences on translanguaging in classrooms, which hopefully could lead to a more successful and equitable integration of both officially recognized and on-the-ground forms of multilingualism in the Flemish education system. Future research could seek to integrate the translanguaging skills and pedagogical scaffolding practices of pupils and

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teachers in order to create a more solid translanguaging pedagogy which is feasible in superdiverse educational contexts.

Transcription key (…) (xxx)

excluded parts unintelligible parts

Acknowledgements The research reported in this chapter was funded by the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT) [Grant No. 110008]; Valorizing Linguistic Diversity in Multiple Contexts of Primary Education – Validiv (2011), Sub-grant: Linguistics Department (PI: Stef Slembrouck). Special thanks to my supervisors, Stef Slembrouck and Piet Van Avermaet; colleagues at Ghent University; the teachers and interpreters who participated in the study; and the organizers of the conference and writing workshop ‘Translanguaging – Practices, Skills and Pedagogy’.

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11 Negotiating Concepts and the Role of Translanguaging Anna Slotte and Maria Ahlholm

Background The aim of this chapter is to analyze translanguaging as a pedagogical strategy in concept formation in a bilingual milieu in informal primary education, more precisely among Swedish- and Finnish-speaking children at a bilingual summer camp in Finland. Learning concepts can be viewed as an overarching goal for all education. The usage of concepts is a resource for developing abstract mapping; concepts enable discussion about knowledgebased issues. Concepts and terms are usually defined as static domains: concepts are indexical parts of speech; they are packed elements that refer to a set of common features of a notional entity. People use concepts to label shared characteristics of phenomena; they enable general discussion, apart from and beyond the particular and the concrete. The terminological theories based on the classical, Saussurean semantic triangle differentiate between the concept (intension), its referents (extension) and the linguistic term (Saario, 2012: 101–102). Metaphorically, concepts can be figured as compact containers of information (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). However, if we are trying to understand children’s learning process in understanding concepts and take steps toward conceptual thinking in interaction, we need to find better ways, as these sorts of static definitions seem to fall short. Here, ‘static’ refers to concepts seen as immobile domains with dictionary-type definitions. These static concept definitions are challenged when the research focus is on the learning process of concept formation and not merely on classifying concepts. Learning concepts is by nature a gradual process, as has been shown by studies of conceptual learning made in the Vygotskian frame of reference (Feller, 2013; Nersäter, 2014). The learner is never a ‘tabula rasa’ or an empty container to be filled with information (Feller, 2013). A process view contributes to a more active approach that is easier to apply to interaction. Conceptualization is a process of coding information into a lexical unit, while understanding a concept is a reverse action: it is a process of decoding 170

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the indexed data. For example, Father’s Day is a cultural concept known by experience among those who have grown up in a culture where that special day is celebrated: in this case the experiential schemata form the ‘subtext’ that is semantically coded into the lexical unit Father’s Day, which is a relatively transparent but still general concept. Decoding the concept would include memorizing the specific experiences that form the scheme, or a literary experience of reading a novel or some other cultural text defining the concept. Some concepts are more literary or academic than others; for example, an estate of the realm in a historical sense referring to a ‘social class system’ would need a written text or a historical film as its subtext in order to be understood. According to Vygotsky, even scientific concepts are built on experientially perceived, often fragmented everyday concepts (Karpov, 2003: 65–66). The process of semantic coding and decoding involves combining elements from a source context with a present context, without any instant support of the source context except the concept itself. The source context – or the original discourse context – is represented in the concept in a concise manner. The very essence of studying and learning school subjects – History, Religion, Biology, Geography, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Health Education – is learning concepts and learning to operate with the concepts in new discourse contexts. Discussing phenomena with precise concepts presumes the ability to activate the relevant parts of the source context in the new context. In this chapter we want to develop a more lucid understanding of concepts as parts of speech and of the process of learning concepts. We define concepts here as lexical units that represent small narratives. For example, diffusion is a concept representing ‘the process whereby particles of liquids (…) move from a region of higher to one of lower concentration’ (MerriamWebster, 2015, s.v. diffusion). In order to understand a concept, a language speaker has to know the narrative behind it: the actors, the milieu, the plot with a specific starting point, the climax and result. In the example of diffusion, the actors would be the molecules of liquids, the particular characteristics of the milieu would be different types of liquids, and the plot would begin when the liquids are set on the move and the molecules begin to diffuse from their previous milieu to the target milieu. For a language speaker, learning a concept is a gradual process of becoming acquainted with all the actors and the plot of the narrative and the story has to be repeated for complete understanding to be achieved. Understanding the narrative structure of a concept gives us the tools with which to grasp how translanguaging is involved with learning concepts and conceptual thinking. Everyday experiential perception gradually deepens academic understanding of a concept. For the bi- or multilingual speaker, concept formation is based on daily, multilingual experiences. The elements of the narrative may be formed in different languages in the multilingual

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learner’s experience; thus, forming a scientific concept means combining the linguistically heterogeneous parts of the narrative into a whole concept that is applicable in the new context. This is where the more flexible dual instruction practices that lay the ground for translanguaging (see García & Li Wei, 2014: 59–60) would be welcome.

Translanguaging Concepts Our aim is to analyze translanguaging as a pedagogical strategy in concept formation in a bilingual milieu. This study focuses on how access to two languages can support children’s understanding of a concept. The question is particularly interesting from a didactic perspective: how can access to two languages be a resource for participants in a discussion when explaining a concept? García and Li Wei (2014: 120–121) present seven different reasons as to why translanguaging is useful in teaching. Two of the mentioned reasons contribute to concept formation and concept processing: according to them, translanguaging helps to build background knowledge for meaning-making and deepens understanding by providing tools to gain new information. Learning concepts requires decoding concepts into narrative form. Opening the concept alters it for translanguaging: for example, when the concepts Father’s Day or the estate or diffusion are decoded into miniature stories, the narrative evokes experiences that may have taken place in various linguistic contexts. The process of understanding is multilingual and it might also be multimodal. In the first phase of language learning, concrete nouns (actors and objects) are the first that are expressed in the language of school instruction; the processes and relations between the nouns are still expressed in the speaker’s own language via multimodal gestures or prosodic elements of speech. Translanguaging goes beyond the monoglossic conceptions of bilingualism, even dynamic bilingualism or codeswitching. Codeswitching as a concept reflects the idea of two separate monolingual codes that can be used without references to each other. Translanguaging means that bilinguals or multilinguals are perceived as having only one linguistic repertoire that is used for effective communication, so there is no clear borderline between the different languages (García & Kleyn, 2013: 4). Bilingualism or bilingual linguistic practice has become a starting point for the concept of translanguaging, although the monolingual norm is for practical reasons prevalent in grammar books and textbooks. Educators and linguists must be realistic: multilingual publishing would probably result in unsolved practical problems of choices between multiple languages. Standards must be set for multilingual publishing so that the choices readers can make among multiple languages are clear.

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The research underlying this chapter was conducted in Finland. Next, we shall focus on the linguistic context of this research.

Bilingual Summer Camps in a Context of Parallel Monolingualism The research underlying this chapter is situated in Finland. Before presenting the data, we need to frame the linguistic situation in Finland. Swedish is one of the two official languages in Finland, but the Swedishspeaking people in Finland presently constitute only 4.6% of the population. Even if there are regional differences, many of the Swedish-speaking Finns are functionally bilingual. In the Finnish language context, it is important to understand that the long history of Swedish in Finland has created a unique minority culture with strong legal language rights, including rights to attend Swedish-speaking schools (Hansén, 2004; Nuolijärvi, 2013) and delivery of various social services in Swedish. Since the establishment of the Finnish compulsory school there has been a parallel school system for the two language groups, also meaning that no bilingual schools exist (Boyd & Palviainen, 2015; Hansén, 2004). In this sense, the regular school system is based on a parallel monolingual approach. Swedish immersion programmes intended for monolingual children as well as CLIL classes are still few in number (Björklund et al., 2014). Currently, 40% of the pupils in Year 6 in Swedish-speaking schools come from Swedish-Finnish bilingual homes (National Board of Education, 2015). Particularly in Finnish dominated areas, it is common for students to use Finnish together outside the classroom. According to both policy documents and research on classroom interaction, the teachers do a lot of work in order to support Swedish, which is the societally weaker language. The students are aware of the monolingual Swedish discourse in the classroom and are active co-constructors of it (Slotte-Lüttge, 2005, 2007). Thus, the Swedish-speaking schools are considered important linguistic spaces for the Swedish language in Finland (Mansikka et al., 2013; Slotte-Lüttge et al., 2013). In official bilingual Finland, both Swedish- and Finnish-speaking children as well as bilinguals are used to the monolingual setting at school. Planned bilingual leisure time activities are still exceptional. This means that the idea of translanguaging is in sharp contrast to the language policy the children experience in school (SlotteLüttge, 2005, 2007). In García and Li Wei’s (2014: 12–18, 54–56) terms, the language situation in Finland’s Swedish-speaking schools reflects the idea of ‘bilingualism as dual’, where two monolingual codes are not mixed with each other. In addition to schooling, organized leisure activities are also divided according to language. However, it is also common for Swedish-speaking children to attend Finnish-speaking groups where the leader usually only

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speaks Finnish. Organized bilingual groups are unusual and there are seldom activities in which the leaders act according to some bilingual or multilingual pedagogical principles. Recently, however, the firmly established language separation in the Finnish school system and everyday practice which was previously seldom discussed has been problematized in both the research context and public discussions (Boyd & Palviainen, 2015; Mård-Miettinen et al., 2015; SlotteLüttge et al., 2013; Sundman, 2013). In the mainstream, Swedish as a subject starts as late as Grade 6. Therefore, parents of Finnish-speaking children in particular have asked for the opportunity for their children to learn Swedish at an early age and in a more informal way. Bilingual families have also questioned the lack of bilingual schools. These requests signal an interest in flexible and hybrid approaches to multilingual practices (García & Li Wei, 2014; Palviainen & Mård-Miettinen, 2015; Sundman, 2013). The data analyzed in this chapter were retrieved from a summer camp organized by the research and development project Natur & Språk [Nature & Language], led by one of the authors. The project is a collaboration between two nature organizations and the University of Helsinki and has the overall aim of developing multilingual leisure activities for children. This is achieved by planning and following up on three- to five-day long bilingual camps, organized both for Finnish-Swedish bilingual children and for monolingual Finnish- or Swedish-speaking children who join the same camp. The programme at the camps consists of different outdoor activities related to nature, with a special focus on water. The research material has been collected through different methods: video-recordings (partly used for stimulus recall interviews), field notes, interviews with children and leaders, and response questionnaires. The video-recordings were obtained from two of the camps organized during the first of the three planned years. The 8–12 year-old children have either a Swedish- or Finnish-speaking background and many of them have some knowledge of the other language. Both camps have the aim of supporting the children increase their language awareness and supporting language contact between the groups, in order to stimulate the development of positive attitudes toward the other language and facilitate language learning. In both the written information sent to them and their families and in the initial discussions at the camps, the children were told that they could use both languages during the camp. They were also encouraged to do so regardless of their language skills. The leaders at the camp were bilingual in Swedish and Finnish and before the camp they had attended a course in multilingual pedagogy. According to the aims of the project Nature & Language, they were supposed to pay attention to any opportunity to support the development of the use of languages and language awareness in all activities in both languages. Their own language roles could vary among situations and activities with the aim

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of stimulating the children’s linguistic awareness and their understanding and use of both languages. Flexible, multiple language use (García & Li Wei, 2014: 59–60; see also Mård-Miettinen et al., 2015) was the general principle for the camp.

Data Processing and Analysis In the frame of the research project, 131 hours of authentic video material were recorded. The recordings were made with the intention of covering different sorts of activities during the camp. During each recording, one child or one adult carried a wireless microphone. The microphone holders were chosen based on the ongoing activities in order to keep the sound quality high even in multi-party situations. In the initial analysis of the video material, we identified situations in which language was topicalized, i.e. where some of the participants talked about language, especially in a contrasting manner. The next step was to identify episodes in which the meaning of a concept was in focus. We found 20 episodes altogether where conceptual meanings are discussed. Two of these were chosen as the material for this chapter. In order to be able to understand how the analysis is constructed, the whole process needs to be shown, which makes the transcripts relatively long; due to their length, it was possible to analyze only two episodes. A criticism may be raised about the small number of transcripts, but we argue that the two analyzed situations contribute fresh examples relevant to the development of understanding concepts in a bilingual setting. The material has been analyzed using conversation analysis (CA) (Schegloff, 2006), which is an approach to the study of the social organization of everyday action. The theory methodologically emanates from an emic perspective, which means that the centre of the analysis is on how the participants understand the situations then and there and how they orient to the situation (Schegloff, 1996). Analyzing the interaction at a micro level is a productive way to grasp the bilingual practice as it is understood and constructed by the participants in the context-shaping and context-renewing turns (Heritage, 1984: 241–242; Schegloff, 1996: 172–173). With the use of CA, we concentrate on microanalyses of the participants’ views as they are identified in observable turns and actions (Sidnell & Stivers, 2013). Additionally, our intention was to analyze the understanding of concepts in a narrative way; therefore, we have chosen to combine the CA method with general interactional analyses. Although the talk-in-interaction is deconstructed turn by turn, the wider context is discussed for the sake of the narrative approach. In the transcripts, the use of Swedish is marked with a bold font and Finnish is unmarked. It should also be mentioned that the FinnishSwedish pronunciation that can be seen in some words in the transcripts to some extent differs from the Swedish spoken in Sweden. A transcription key

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is found in the glossary at the end of the chapter. The focus of analysis is on the co-construction of concepts throughout the bilingual discourse.

Discussing Concepts in Two Languages The first episode is from a camp where six of the children come from monolingual Swedish-speaking homes and two from monolingual Finnishspeaking homes. The group of children is standing around the leader, Sanna, in the woods, where the different groups are supposed to perform different tasks. The concept discussed in the situation is ‘evaporate’ (avdunsta in Swedish, haihtua in Finnish). In the discussion about evaporation the participants refer to an experience from the morning concerning water that had collected on the ceilings of the tents. This example illustrates a Vygotskyan scientific concept based on experiential perception. Even though the participants had this shared experience earlier in the morning, the later discussion about concepts is at a proportionately high and abstract level without (yet) any visible or concrete support. The shared experiences from the morning clues still function as contextual. The transcript of this recorded video about evaporation is fairly long because of the manner of the discussion which was questioning and open, where the participants together try to find some intersubjectivity concerning the meaning of the concept evaporation. Following the conventions of CA, the naturally occurring interaction with all its digression is represented. The analyses focus on the parts concerning translanguaging and the concepts discussed. In order to make it easier for the reader, the transcript is divided into parts followed by analyses.

Extract 11.1.1: Evaporation 1

Sanna:

nå (0.5) hu hade de dä vattne (.) samlats in dit so (0.5) how did that water (.) get in there 2 (.) innanför tälte (.) inside the tent 3 Tove: alltså för vå:r (.) oss hade de int i stora tältet you know for our (.) us it didn’t in the big tent 4 för där e de ett litet hål because there’s a small hole [10 lines removed] The discussion begins with Sanna, the leader, initiating a question about how the water got into the tent. Sanna talks about that water and the children talk about the situation related to different tents (Lines 1–2). This means that they have a common experience of the phenomenon – water on the ceiling – which can be seen as a part of the process of evaporation. To be

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exact, the phenomenon Sanna describes is not evaporation but a parallel phenomenon, namely condensation, when steam becomes water and is gathered on the ceiling. The narrative setting, the milieu for both concepts, is similar, but the narrative differs with regard to the process. The leader knows the ‘whole story’ of the water cycle and she does not seem to notice that she is actually telling the wrong story about a related but different process. This lapse leads us to think that, after being acquainted with an entire narrative that is coded into a macro concept (e.g. water cycle), a reference to any part of the process (e.g. evaporation, condensation, sublimation) may activate the whole macro concept in one’s cognition. This interpretation of the lapse supports the hypothesis about the narrative structure of a concept.

Extract 11.1.2: Evaporation 15

Tove:

16

Sanna:

17

Tove:

18 19 20

Sanna:

21

Tove:

(0.6) aa [just de] oh [right] å [sen] så fa bli: de: (0.7) för att de int slipper and [then] it goes stays (0.7) because it can’t get nån annan stans så de vill fara uppåt (.) men de slipper int anywhere else so it wants to go upwards (.) but it can’t get nånstans fö de int e någå hål där anywhere because there’s no hole there nii just (.) [eliyeah just like that (.) [so[så de fassnar dä] [so it gets stuck there]

Tove’s answer, in Swedish (Line 15), includes knowledge about the water coming from humans, ‘us’; she has knowledge about water as something that rises. This also means that she is talking about both condensation and evaporation.

Extract 11.1.3: Evaporation 22

Sanna:

23 24

Julia:

25

Sanna:

eli meiän meist ihmisistä (0.8) niin (.) haihtuu vettä in other words, from our us humans (0.8) so (.) water (1.0) evaporates (.) koko ajan (1.0) ä: (1.0) mitä se on ruotsiks (1.5) all the time (1.0) em: (1.0) what is it in Swedish (1.5) va betyder haihtuu what does evaporate mean? ja: (0.5) yes (0.5)

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26

Hilma:

27

Sanna:

28 29

Freja:

30

Sanna:

31

Freja:

32

Sanna:

33

Freja:

34

Sanna:

35 36

Sanna:

försvinnä: (0.9) disappear: (0.9) bra förslag låt mossan vara (.) växa på stenen den tycker good suggestion let the moss be (.) grow on the stone it om att vara där (0.8) ä: de a:vsdunstar (0.8) likes to be there (0.8) ehm: it evaporates (0.8) va e [de what is [it [vatten] (1.0) [water] aj j[a vet va de e oh [I know what it is [nä de stiger up]p vatten (0.7) [when the water goes up (0.7) ja vet va de e fö ja lärde mej de i skolan (0.5) I know what it is ‘cause I learnt it in school (0.5) va bra (1.0) de avdunstar vatten från mänskor (0.3) very good (1.0) water evaporates from humans (0.3) ihmisistä haihtuu it evaporates from people (0.5) mistä muualta haihtuu vettä (2.0) joo (0.5) from where else does water evaporate (2.0) yes

Beginning with ‘so’, Sanna summarizes parts of what has been said (Lines 20, 22–23). She does this in Finnish, uses the word haihtuu [evaporate] and ends by asking what ‘it’ is in Swedish (Line 23). Her choice to use it refers to the Finnish term, not to the phenomenon of evaporation. Julia’s question ‘What does evaporate mean?’ (Line 24) is not a question that needs an answer. It is a repair initiation where she asks for acknowledgement that she has understood the question correctly, which becomes clear in Sanna’s confirmation (Line 25). The first suggestion for a Swedish alternative to evaporate is försvinnä (disappears, Line 26), but right after that the leader, Sanna, gives the right word without waiting for any further suggestions. She says the Swedish equivalent, now speaking Swedish again, but does not give any more explanations before she summarizes the phenomenon by repeating almost the same statement that had already been said earlier: ‘water evaporates from humans (0.3); it evaporates from humans (0.5)’. Sanna tries to expand the children’s understanding of the concept ‘evaporate’ by asking, ‘From where else does water evaporate?’ (Line 36). The answers (not all included in the transcripts) are clouds, seas, an aquarium and bilberry shrubs; Sanna adds lakes, nature and human bodies as other sources. The following transcript, Extract 11.1.4, begins in the middle of this part of the discussion.

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Extract 11.1.4: Evaporation 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

Hilma: akvaariosta from the aquarium Sanna: sieltäkin (1.3) ö: om ni titta: runt om kring er va from there too (1.3) em: if you look around you what do se [r ni] yo [u see Lia: [naturen] [nature] här (0.5) [från naturen] here (0.5) [from nature] Tove: [plastpå:sar] på blå:bär [plastic bags] on blueberries Sanna: från alla gröna växtdelar (.) avdunstar de vatten water evaporates (.) from all green plants Lia: mm mm Sanna: också uppåt also upwards Freja: blåbärsris blueberry shrubs Sanna: å (.) de avdunstar från våra kroppar också hela tiden and (.) water evaporates from our bodies all the time vatten (0.5) meidänkin kehosta haihtuu koko ajan vettä water (0.5) also from our bodies water evaporates all the time

First, the conceptions for the narratives will be explained as the underlying theory points to several goals. In discussing evaporation, the girl who mentions the clouds may have a more complete picture, a narrative, of the process of the water cycle in her mind. She may see the narrative as a whole, without exactly understanding the meaning of evaporation. It is logical to understand Hilda’s suggestion, ‘aquarium’ (Line 49) in relation to the previously mentioned ‘sea’ and ‘lakes’, but it is also interesting to think about it as a reference to her own experiences. Perhaps the process of evaporation is obvious for a child who has noticed the water in an aquarium decreasing. The concepts related to the narrative of the water cycle are constructed partly through the children’s experiences and partly through the children’s cognitive memorization of previous experiences or academic knowledge. Sanna confirms all the suggestions and then returns to the fact that water also evaporates from human bodies (Lines 59–60). When focusing on language use and the elaboration of the concept, it is clear that the narrative continuously moves forward through the use of two languages. The long question-answer sequence in which Sanna asks about where evaporation occurs begins in Finnish, but later (at Lines 50–51)

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concludes in Swedish as Sanna switches languages. The language switch can be understood as a way to get all the children’s attention as well as a way to encourage the Swedish-speaking children to participate in the discussion. In the sequence there are three turns where bilingualism is practised in a dynamic way. The leader does not use parallel monolingualism, but rather uses a more flexible languaging practice, which we see as translanguaging (García & Li Wei, 2014: 53–62). Two of these concern the fact that water evaporates from humans. The first time she mentions this fact is in her Finnish summary (Lines 22–23) of Tove’s turn, which was expressed in Swedish. When Sanna returns to the point about water evaporating from human bodies, she uses both languages in Lines 34–35, and at the end of the discussion she summarizes in Finnish (Lines 59–60). When the leader uses translanguaging in order to highlight the important parts in the interaction, we understand it as a way to use translanguaging as a resource. There can be two reasons to highlight the evaporation from human bodies. First, the discussion has dealt with different parts in the process of the circulation of water and Sanna may have felt a need to remind the children of where the evaporation takes place. Secondly, after this discussion the children continue with an experiment that involves the use of plastic bags in order to notice how water evaporates from the hand. The understanding of translanguaging as a resource in this sense is strengthened by the fact that similar content is discussed in both situations where translanguaging occurs. Finally, in this discussion we want to emphasize that the concept of evaporation is also the only word that is linguistically topicalized. This occurs at Line 23 when Sanna, after having presented the Finnish word, asks for the Swedish equivalent. This situation reinforces the understanding of the importance Sanna puts on the concept of evaporation.

Cyclic Progress: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back The next extract (Extract 11.2.1) occurred on the same day as the first, but with other participants. This group consists of children from monolingual Swedish-speaking (11 children) and Finnish-speaking (eight children) homes. One child has a bilingual background. Six children are active in the current discussion; two of them, Tapani and Esa, are Finnish speaking. They are sitting in a group together with two leaders, Anu and Emil. The two concepts being discussed are the water cycle and evaporation. Anu’s initiating question is open and formulated in both languages. She first begins by asking in Finnish what they know about the water cycle and then in both languages how it goes (Lines 1–3). Compared with the first extract, in this discussion the concept itself is the starting point, not the shared experience. Emil’s formulation ‘have you

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181

heard’ (Line 4) refers to the concept, the process of the water cycle, as something the children are supposed to have heard about rather than experienced. With a narrative view of the concept, Anu does not ask for an explanation of the whole water cycle, but invites the children to contribute with parts of knowledge.

Extract 11.2.1: Water cycle 1

Anu:

2 3 4

Emil:

öö (1.5) mitäs tiedättekste veden kiertokulusta vattens ehm (1.5) what d’you know about the water cycle water’s kretslopp (0.3) hur går de cycle (0.3) how does is go [mite mite miten veden] kiertokulku toimii [how how how does the water] cycle work [har ni hört] [have you heard]

In the initial question about what the children have heard about the water cycle, leader Anu uses Finnish, Swedish and then Finnish again. At first it may seem repetitive, but a closer look shows a sequential development in the turn: Anu does not exactly repeat the question in Swedish, but rather she continues the question in Finnish. After opening with a general question in Finnish, she formulates a more particular question about the process in Swedish, and this part is, in a parallel language use, almost exactly repeated in Finnish. The parts link smoothly to one another with a slight overlap in the meaning, leading to a tempo of ‘two steps forward, one step back’. However, the important concept in the situation – the water cycle – is presented in both languages. The short repetition, ‘have you heard’, from the leader Emil directly after Anu’s turn, is in Swedish. The parallel bilingual practice introduced by the leaders proves functional, since four of the children respond, as is seen in Extract 11.2.2.

Extract 11.2.2: Water cycle 5

(Ilmari):

6

Tyrah:

7

Ella:

8 9

Tapani:

10

Ella:

en taida muistaa I don’t think I remember de avdunstar it evaporates de avdunstar fån fån de kommer ner som regn (.) så it evaporates fom fom it comes down as rain (.) then avdunstar de nånting evaporates something mä oon kuullu sen ykkösluokkalaisena mut I heard it in first grade but solit så då avdunstar de sunny then it evaporates

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11

Anu:

12

Ella:

13 14

Ella:

15

Anu:

16

Ella:

17

Anu:

18

Emil:

mm mm sen så fa:r de åpp å så kommer de som regn å far ner i then it goes up and then it comes down as rain and goes ha:ve down in the sea va de rätt was it right joo yes nä: de va de int no it wasn’t jo[o (.) joo] ye[s (.) yes] [nu va de] [it was]

Each child speaks in his or her home language. Looking at the children’s understanding of the phenomenon, we notice that the first answer to Anu’s question about what they know about the water cycle is ‘it evaporates’, said by Tyrah at Line 6. She does not say more than the term, but Ella continues by repeating the word twice without actually explaining it. Both of these turns are in Swedish. In her speaking turn about evaporation, she says that it (water) evaporates ‘from’ something (pronounced as fom here) (Line 7) and that it comes down as rain. She mentions the sun and that it [the water] goes up (Line 10). Tapani’s answer, formulated in Finnish, ‘I heard it in first grade but …’ (Line 9) in between Ella’s turns is not necessarily related to Tyrah’s and Ella’s responses; therefore, we cannot be sure about his understanding of the other children’s contribution to the subject. His statement can also be understood as a response to the question initiated by Anu, the leader, in which she used both languages. Just about a minute earlier, before the transcribed part, Tapani has said that he does not understand Swedish. Of importance for all the children’s understanding of the phenomenon and for Ella’s view of her own epistemic position is the confirmation she receives from both leaders after questioning whether her explanation was correct (Lines 15–18). After these first comments from the children in Swedish about the water cycle, in Extract 11.2.3 Emil refers to the practical shared experience of humidity in the tent earlier in the morning.

Extract 11.2.3: Water cycle 19 20

Emil: ja tyckte att man kunde se de i tältena på morgonen också I thought you could see it in the tents in the morning and va de nån som sa (.) joku sano että teltassa oli (0.5) there was somebody who said (.) somebody said that it was

Negot iat ing Concept s and the Role of Transl anguaging

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

183

sisällä kosteeta humidity (0.5) inside the tent Esa: mä me Emil: (1.5) ja (1.5) and Esa: mä kysyin et sataaks tääl I asked if it’s raining Emil: ja sit me taidettiin sanoo siiheen että (0.5) nii eiks oo and then I think we said that (0.5) yeah hasn’t it haihtunu evaporated Anu: (1.0) joo (1.0) yes Emil: eli (.) de va just de (.) ni hade vått i tälte å de ha so (.) it was exactly that (.) it was wet in your tent avdunsta från er (.) vatten upp och de ha då blivi fast and it had evaporated from you (.) water up and it has inne i duken i tälte then got caught on the fabric in the tent

Emil’s comment constitutes a translanguaging practice: ‘I thought you could see it in the tents in the morning and there was somebody who said (.) somebody said that it was humidity (.) inside the tent’ (Lines 19–21). He uses both languages, not by the use of paralleled language, but rather by repetition. When discussing what had happened in the morning, he continues the story, where the use of the other language in some way not only deepens or extends what has been said in the first language, but also adds new information. This means that the small narrative he constructs also has a structure of two steps forward, one step back. Emil continues talking about ‘the humidity’ and discusses it similarly. When using Finnish, he presents the Finnish equivalent of the concept, haihtunu, in participle form (Line 26). Shortly after that he partly repeats, partly expands the explanation in Swedish by presenting the Swedish term for evaporation, avdunsta (Lines 28–30). The way he initiates the Swedish part, with the discourse particle eli [in other words], points to a summary or explanation coming up, in the same way as the other leader, Sanna, did in Extract 11.1.3, Line 22. New facts in this expansion are that the water comes from humans (evaporated from you) (Line 29) and that it takes a new form elsewhere (it has then got caught on the fabric in the tent) (Line 29–30). In the following turn, not included in the transcript, Esa explains that this occurs ‘because a human consists mostly of water’. We can notice that Esa uses Finnish right after Emil’s Swedish explanation and that he has absorbed and elaborated on the fact that Emil just presented. This means that he has taken advantage of the explanation through the translanguaging practice.

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At the end of the sequence, in Extract 11.2.4, the other leader, Anu, once again uses the word eli [in other words] as a beginning when summarizing the water cycle to the extent that it has been discussed (Lines 30–33).

Extract 11.2.4: Water cycle 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Anu: joo (.) eli täällä (.) öh (.) Tyrah kerto (0.9) et vesi yes (.) so here (.) ehm (.) Tyrah said (0.9) that the water se haihtuu (0.5) maasta ja merestä it evaporates (0.5) from the earth and the sea (.) ja silti siit tulee pilviä (1.0) ja sit ne pilvet sataa (.) and yet it becomes clouds (1.0) and then the clouds taas (.) maan pinnalle ja (1.0) ja rain (.) again (.) on the surface of the earth (1.0) and Esa: eli tarkottaaks tää sitä et meiän päällä on nyt öö tosi so does this mean that we have really a lot of water paljon vettä above us right now Anu: joo (0.5) joo yes (0.5) yes

Looking more closely at Anu’s summary, we can notice both substantial and linguistic differences. Anu completes Tyrah’s and Ella’s explanations with facts about the places from where the water evaporates (Ella tried, but did not really complete her description: ‘it evaporates fom fom’ at Line 7 in Extract 11.2.2) and by saying that clouds are being formed; Lines 32–33). At the same time as Anu completes and reorganizes the story about the concept of the water cycle in Extract 11.2.2, she changes the language from the Swedish used by Tyrah and Ella to Finnish. The explanation and the understanding of the concept are intertwined with presenting the story in both languages; thus, she uses the bilingual context as a resource. This means that the repetition and summary of what the children have said earlier not only narrates the concept, but also develops the use of the other language. The summary plays a double role in the bilingual group when the translanguaging also functions to support the children’s understanding of the concept. Therefore, the way the leaders use translanguaging makes it possible for both Swedish- and Finnish-speaking children to understand enough to get an idea of the concept. The children who understand both languages access a slightly more elaborated explanation and understanding. At the same time, all the children have occasions to widen their vocabulary in both languages. The language camp examples analyzed above are in line with the pedagogic goals for translanguaging suggested by García and Li Wei (2014) which were presented earlier in this chapter. With regard to concept formation, the leaders’ translanguaging practices are vital in building background knowledge for concept making, in deepening understanding and extending new knowledge. In addition, concept-making processes are also facilitated when translanguaging is used for metalinguistic awareness.

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Discussion We have analyzed the process of bilingual concept formation and introduced an idea of the narrative structure of concepts. By using a CA-based analytical tool, we have emphasized the socially constructed nature of bilingual concept making, in a group discussion. The translanguaging in the material is constituted by slightly overlapping language shifts. It shapes a gliding pattern of two steps forward, one step back. In relation to processual concept making, this movement forms a narrative line that allows the children to participate in both languages. Another characteristic of the translanguaging practice is the use of the Finnish discursive particle eli [in other words] for initiating the language shift and the summary that ties together the languages and the central content. The overlapping parts represent the focus in the discussion about the concepts (see also Mård-Miettinen et al., 2015). This means that the content is deepened and emphasized through the reiterated figure of translanguaging. The repetition, even if it is not direct, fulfils two purposes: understanding and comprehension. At first it seems to be used practically for ensuring understanding, but it also has a more sophisticated and rhetorical role in emphasizing important content. The repetitive pattern creates variation in the discourse, while the intertwining languages form a learning space in which bilingual groups or linguistically heterogeneous groups of children can practise both language and comprehension skills. The leaders’ pedagogic translanguaging unites the linguistically heterogeneous focus group. Everyone can engage in and understand at least some part of the general discussion. Those who understand both languages have access to a slightly more elaborated understanding, since the narratives building the concept trace back to possible experiences in both languages. Through bilingual repetition the bilingual children also have an extra challenge at the rhetorical level. Obviously, more than just cognitive knowledge construction is taking place during the dialogues that have been illustrated here. The bilingual meaning-making dialogue embraces all participants in a common, social concept construction process. In the transcripts there are no signs of either verbal or non-verbal orientation to the children’s language choice in a way that would refer to expected monolingualism in the discussion; participants construct a bilingual discourse as a norm. Besides the other characteristics in the leaders’ responses, whether they follow the children’s language use or summarize in the other language, they signal the importance of the children’s explanations regarding both language and content. Thus, the children’s contributions are the building blocks of the common and jointly constructed bilingual practice. When discussing concepts, we must note that the translanguaging pattern is composed of slightly overlapping parts. The language shifts never occur in the middle of a turn construction unit. The repetition is always

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concentrated on the central content to highlight the focus of the discussion. When considering this overlap, it is important to note that only the leaders are engaged in translanguaging in the analyzed material and in the material at large. Unlike the leaders, the children always speak their own home languages. In García’s (2009: 45) definition of translanguaging as ‘multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual worlds’, it can be of interest to discuss the meaning of ‘make sense’ in the analyzed contexts. The leaders strive to make sense of the narratives that form the focused concepts; the translanguaging practice is a way to shed light on the process of learning concepts. It also seems important for them to construct a discussion in which every child, regardless of competence in Swedish or Finnish, has a chance to grasp the main points. By responding to the contributions of the children, either by following the children’s language usage or by later summarizing in the other language, the leaders signal the importance of the children’s explanations or they make sense of the children’s bilingual words. In the pedagogic context of learning concepts, a leader may facilitate the children constructing the concepts in any resource available, in any language that exists in the learner’s linguistic repertoire. In these data, the leader was able to support the learners in two languages to benefit the children’s concept construction. While this case consisted of leaders and learners who were aware of the children’s languages, in a more complex multilingual setting in which the learners’ languages were unfamiliar to the leader other issues could arise; in that case, the process of concept formation might be more difficult for the instructor to guide and manage. This scenario is becoming increasingly common in today’s schools both in Finland and elsewhere in the Nordic countries; therefore, analyzing a multilingual and peer-supported concept formation process demands further research.

Transcription key (.) (0.5) [ ] :

(text) word

Pause shorter than 0.2 seconds Pause measured by 10ths of a second Indicates where an overlap occurs Indicates where an overlap ends Prolonged sound Slower speech than surrounding talk Transcription uncertain Word in Swedish

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12 Agency and Affordance in Translanguaging for Learning: Case Studies from English-medium Instruction in Swedish Schools Jeanette Toth and BethAnne Paulsrud

Introduction This chapter presents studies of English-medium instruction (henceforth EMI), a model of content instruction in contexts where English is not a majority language but is nonetheless used as a language for teaching and learning. The aim was to explore the practices of and perspectives on translanguaging in two Swedish schools offering EMI, through interviews with a primary school teacher and an upper secondary school teacher, as well as through observations of their lessons and interviews with students. The following research questions were investigated: What are the patterns of language choices in the EMI classrooms? How do the processes of translanguaging relate to agency and affordance in the EMI classroom?

English-medium Instruction in the Swedish Education System Swedish children attend nine years of compulsory schooling, from ages seven to 16, and must study 480 hours of English in primary school. In the upper secondary school (non-compulsory), English is also a core subject. No other foreign language holds the same status in the Swedish school system; likewise, English is the language most commonly offered as an alternative medium to the regular Swedish-medium instruction. Similarly to the general 189

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European context, EMI in Sweden tends to encompass only partial or occasional lessons, ranging from as little as one hour per week to 50% or more of the instruction time (Eurydice, 2006; Yoxsimer Paulsrud, 2014). However, there is limited official documentation of EMI in Sweden, as the National Agency for Education does not maintain statistics. EMI classroom practices are both under-documented and underresearched at all school levels in Sweden, with official definitions and best practices lacking (SNAE, 2010; Sylvén, 2004). Although some research has been conducted on EMI, there is no widespread dissemination of the results. Previous studies in the Swedish context have mainly focused on EMI in secondary and upper secondary schools, focusing on the Swedish language development (Lim Falk, 2008) or the English language proficiency (Washburn, 1997) of students in these programmes. Only one study (Yoxsimer Paulsrud, 2014) has focused on actual language use and perspectives on language choice. There has been a lack of research at the compulsory school level, with the exception of studies by Cromdal (e.g. 2001, 2005) addressing language alternation in social play and lesson tasks in EMI primary schools. Thus, there is little understanding of language use, especially in relation to language choice, in EMI classrooms in Sweden. The two qualitative case studies in this chapter address the need for more research on EMI in the Swedish context, through an investigation of classroom practices in EMI content lessons. As both Swedish and English were present in these classrooms, our exploration of classroom language use and participant engagement in the lessons is informed by the concept of translanguaging as ‘the process of making meaning, shaping experiences, understandings and knowledge through the use of two languages’ (Baker, 2011: 288). Our focus is not on student language proficiency or the outcomes of programmes offering EMI. Rather, the emphasis in these two case studies is on the participants in the classroom, the actual language use and language choices as seen through the lens of translanguaging.

Translanguaging as Theory, Practice and Processes In this chapter we define translanguaging as the languaging process (Swain & Suzuki, 2010) that moves away from the compartmentalization of languages to a practice that allows for the use of all available linguistic resources for learning. García (2009: 43) argues that ‘languaging bilingually is the usual way of languaging’, stressing that translanguaging – or the use of ‘multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual worlds’ – is how speakers make use of all their linguistic resources (García, 2009: 45, original emphasis). We specifically consider how translanguaging may be part of a strategy for language use in the EMI

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classroom (Lewis et al., 2012a, 2012b; Yoxsimer Paulsrud, 2014). Our exploration of translanguaging as a pedagogic strategy, however, is more than an investigation of ‘concurrent use of two languages’ (Lewis, 2008: 82). Rather than simply observing language alternation, we focus on how language choices may facilitate content learning in an environment where teachers and learners have varying access to a range of linguistic resources. The participants’ translanguaging may help them move from ‘… finding parallel words to processing and relaying meaning and understanding’ (Williams, 1996, in Lewis et al., 2012a: 644), enabling greater flexibility in lesson participation. As language choice involves agency, we investigate translanguaging in relation to the ways in which teachers and learners are active agents in shaping policies at the classroom level (Hélot & Ó Laoire, 2011: xvii; Hopewell, this volume; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996: 418; Rosiers, this volume) through their use of Swedish and English. Agency is here defined as ‘learners’ socioculturally mediated right to choose whether to partake in a communication and in what language … [which may be associated with] learners’ available linguistic resources and their desire to participate in constitutive and discursive interactions’ (Suwannamai Duran, 2014: 74, original emphasis). Although one ordinance limits instruction in compulsory schools in a language other than Swedish to no more than 50%, there is no national policy in Sweden governing the practice of EMI. Thus, schools and individual teachers exercise agency as they interpret any explicit or implicit local school policies for language use in the classroom. The teachers or students may implement the local policy without contest. Per contra, their translanguaging choices may challenge power structures in the classroom, if their language choices resist restrictive school policies (see Cummins, 2009). Our studies also explore the language choices that the participants make in the EMI lessons as they access various linguistic resources for different purposes. This access may be viewed as an affordance or a constraint. Affordances are ‘what is available to the person to do something with’ (van Lier, 2004: 91). They can be resources that offer an action potential, as participants in an environment may act according to possibilities perceived in the environment or, to the contrary, may feel constrained from acting if they perceive obstacles (van Lier, 2004: 4). Thus, language use may not be a goal in itself, but rather a relationship between the participants and the environment in the process of learning (van Lier, 2004: 53). We acknowledge the theoretical and ideological considerations of identifying named languages (Swedish and English) in our exploration of the process of translanguaging (cf. Otheguy et al., 2015). However, as the participants themselves identify and name the two languages as two distinct elements in the processes in which they engage and in which they are expected to perform, so will we as researchers studying the interaction.

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The Two Case Studies The present qualitative case studies, each part of two larger longitudinal research projects based in linguistic ethnography (Copland & Creese, 2015), utilized multiple methods for the purpose of triangulation (Stake, 1995: 114). Audio-recordings of lessons, field notes from classroom observations and numerous informal conversations with participants, collected artefacts, and audio-recordings of interviews with the participants all provided material for the analysis of languaging practices (see Table 12.1; note that Toth investigated the primary school and Paulsrud investigated the upper secondary school). Student interviews were based on voluntary participation. Data were collected in both schools over the course of three academic years. For the present study, the focus is on Grade 5 in the primary school and on the first year of the students’ programme in the upper secondary school. The extended time spent in the case study sites minimized potential negative effects of modified informant behaviour, as familiarity with the researchers was established and maintained (Freeman, 2012: 85). The data from the classroom observations and artefacts were coded for language choice (i.e. of participants’ language use and materials used), according to different phases in the lessons and different functions of language choices (either observed by the researchers or identified by the teachers and students). The content of the transcribed interviews was translated as necessary and analyzed thematically in relation to the research questions. All interviews are presented in English here, but most were conducted in Swedish. Thus, the observed classroom practices and the interviews with the participants could be explored together for an understanding of the translanguaging processes and perspectives.

Case study I: Primary school context and participants The context of the first case study was a Grade 5 class (11–12 years old) in a Swedish primary school with an English profile. In this profile one Table 12.1 Overview of data collection Data sources Maths lesson observations Science or Physics lesson observations (including labs) Teacher interviews Student interviews Artefacts

Primary school 47 lessons (2820 minutes) 47 lessons (2800 minutes)

Upper secondary school 7 lessons (530 minutes) 4 lessons (250 minutes)

1 interview (38 minutes) 2 interviews (98 minutes) 10 interviews (133 minutes) 10 interviews (240 minutes) Photographs of instructional materials and texts on display in the classroom as well as hard copies of exams and handouts

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stated aim was for students to develop an advanced command of English through increased exposure to and use of the language in the school environment. Another aim was bilingualism in English and Swedish, the languages of instruction. While teachers who were bilingual in these languages taught the subjects of Swedish, Social Sciences and Crafts through the medium of Swedish, the school had a teacher recruitment policy that encouraged the use of English among staff and students, as communication with non-Swedishspeaking staff was of necessity in English. During the current case study, the subjects of Maths, Science, English, Art and Physical Education were taught in English by teachers who were native speakers from English-speaking countries, such as Peter, the Maths and Science teacher. Peter was in his second year of teaching at the school, having been recruited after completing teacher training in North America. Although the teaching position was for the subjects of Maths, Science and English, Peter’s teaching degree was in primary education with a subject specialization in History. His status as a native speaker of English, however, was an important factor for teaching the English-medium subjects, despite a lack of previous teaching experience, second language training or knowledge of Swedish. A total of 28 out of 31 students in the class agreed to participate in the study. None of the students was a native speaker of English; however, two had previous experience with content instruction in English after attending other English-medium schools in Sweden and abroad. Nine students reported speaking languages other than Swedish in the home; further, one of these students had limited knowledge of both Swedish and English, having recently arrived in Sweden. Apart from this student’s use of a bilingual dictionary and note-taking that occasionally included the native language as well as English, students’ other languages were not used in classroom interaction.

Case study II: Upper secondary school context and participants The second case study was situated at an upper secondary school located in a large city, with a primarily local intake of students. This municipal school offered EMI programmes in Natural Sciences and Social Sciences, with a stated aim of having most of the teaching and course literature in English. The present study focused on the first year of the Natural Sciences programme, when all of the content subjects (Social Studies, Physics and Maths) were taught primarily in English, with the exception of the Physics lab. Seven teachers at the school participated in a larger longitudinal study (see Yoxsimer Paulsrud, 2014), but the focus here is on Sam, a teacher at the school since the inception of the EMI programme. Sam, a native Swedish speaker and a qualified Physics and Maths teacher with no formal training or university studies in English, had more than 30 years of teaching

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experience. At the time of the study, he had taught content subjects in English at the same upper secondary school for 15 years. Students at the upper secondary school level in Sweden start their studies the year they turn 16 and complete their education in three years. Thirty of the 32 first-year students on the EMI programme in Natural Sciences agreed to participate in the study. These students made an active choice of the EMI programme, as the same programme was offered in Swedish. None of the students had prior experience with EMI in earlier schooling and none had English as a native tongue, although three students reported that they actively used languages other than Swedish at home.

Patterns of Language Choice in the English-medium Instruction Classroom In the primary school, although the programme has an expressed aim of developing students’ bilingualism, structural factors contribute to an instructional emphasis on students’ use of English in the subjects of Maths and Science. Peter’s limited knowledge of Swedish means that oral and written instruction are only in English, as are teaching materials such as textbooks and worksheets. Select subject-specific terminology is displayed on a bulletin board in the classroom in both Swedish and English as keywords; however, these keywords are not always updated for the current lesson unit, nor are the Swedish translations always accurate. Apart from a diagnostic test in Maths with word problems in Swedish, assessments are also in English. However, all but one of the students make use of both Swedish and English during Maths and Science lessons, discussing both lesson topics as well as off-task topics in Swedish with their peers before addressing the teacher in English. Written work is generally produced in English, with the exception of student notebooks, where some students occasionally include notes in Swedish in addition to the notes copied from the whiteboard in English. While peer remarks directed at the newly arrived student are made in English, interaction among other students is primarily in Swedish. In the upper secondary classroom, English is generally used for classroom management; for example, the teacher, Sam, often captures students’ attention with the single word, ‘Listening?’ However, during content instruction, the language use usually alternates during the lesson, in a flow that is both separate and integrated. Sam consistently presents the material on the whiteboard in English, lecturing and teaching exclusively in English. He only uses Swedish to write support words on the whiteboard for the terms he is introducing or reviewing in English. However, when the students begin working on tasks themselves at their desks, Sam offers individual help and task assistance in Swedish. Students use Swedish with him to work on problems while at their desks. The students use both English and Swedish for their

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own note-taking, as they keep track of Sam’s lesson in English while also recording the Swedish support words he offers. Lesson materials, such as textbooks, are provided in both languages. As all of the Maths and Physics teachers at Sam’s school use the same exams as they use for their Swedishmedium classes, Sam gives practical information about the exams in Swedish. Table 12.2 presents an overview of the patterns of language use described above. Table 12.2 Overview of language use in the observed lessons a

Instruction Materials Subject-specific vocabulary Individual task assistance by teacher Classroom management Exams Students’ language use

Primary school

Upper secondary school

English English (+Swedish) English (+Swedish) English

English (+Swedish) English + Swedish English + Swedish Swedish

English English (+Swedish) English + Swedish

English (+Swedish) Swedish English + Swedish

Notes: aNote that language in brackets indicates that the language is occasionally used but is not the primary language for that part of the lesson.

Translanguaging in the English-medium Instruction Classroom The language use observed in the EMI schools was explored in order to understand how language choices may afford or constrain both participation in the lesson and access to the content of the lesson.

Case study I: Primary school In the primary school, students exercise agency in their language choices, employing various strategies to clarify their understanding of the content and to participate in class discussions. These strategies include alternating between speaking English with the teacher and speaking Swedish with classmates, requesting peers’ help with translation, and consulting bilingual dictionaries. Such actions afford uncertain students the opportunity to participate in class discussions despite their hesitancy in speaking English, as well as allowing for explanations of unfamiliar terms and concepts that the teacher is unable to clarify. Although Peter encourages students to use English as much as possible, at times he acquiesces to their use of Swedish so they can formulate their thoughts before producing the desired output in English,

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as exemplified by his statement to Benjamin in Line 5 below. (See the transcription key at the end of this chapter.)

Extract 12.1: Primary Science lesson 1 2

Benjamin: Peter:

3

Kim:

4 5

Benjamin: Peter:

I don’t understand this So here Benjamin, you’re gonna write down what you want to learn about /…/ Vad du vill lära dig, du ska skriva vad du vill lära dig

/…/ Can I work with … in Swedish? English as much as you can. If you need to you can write something in Swedish and then we can figure out the translation after

After introducing the Science lesson in English, Peter instructs the students to write individually. While Benjamin’s interaction with Peter is in English, the student Kim volunteers a clarification in Swedish. Benjamin proceeds to ask if he can work in Swedish, which Peter reluctantly grants. This pattern of language choices is likewise repeated in other EMI lessons, as content is introduced by the teacher in English and understanding negotiated in peer interaction through the use of both Swedish and English. However, as Peter does not have sufficient knowledge of Swedish, students are expected to perform in English, producing oral and written output in English that can be understood and assessed by Peter. As Table 12.3 illustrates, the students generally use Swedish for communicating with their peers. Peter, however, not having knowledge of the subject-specific terminology in Swedish that the students demand, uses only English in interaction with the students, as shown in Extract 12.2.

Extract 12.2: Primary Maths lesson 1

Peter:

2

S:

3

S:

4

Peter:

How many of you have ever worked with one of these things in Math? Do you know what this is called now? /…/ En linjal?

Ruler /…/ Not a ruler. What would you say … What would you call this in Swedish?

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Table 12.3 Patterns of language choice in a primary Maths lesson Participant activity

Peter

Peter addresses the whole class. Students respond to Peter and each other. Students interact on the subject of the lesson content. Students request help and Peter helps students individually at their desks. Students produce written output individually.

English

Students English (+Swedish) Mainly Swedish

English

English English (+Swedish)

In Line 4 Peter opens up for the students to access their prior content knowledge in Swedish, asking for the subject-specific term in Swedish. However, not recalling the Swedish term, the students instead answer Peter’s earlier query from Line 1 with further suggestions in English, whereupon Peter goes on to provide the term in English in Line 5 in Extract 12.3 below. When the students return to the subject of Peter’s question regarding the Swedish term, Peter is unable to provide the answer. The student Hanna then points out to her classmates in Line 14 that not learning certain disciplinary terms in Swedish could have implications for their future Swedish-medium studies.

Extract 12.3: Primary Maths lesson (continued) 5 6

Peter: S:

7 8 9

S: Peter: S:

10

S:

11

Hanna:

12

Kim:

13

S:

14

Hanna:

/…/ And this thing, it’s called a protractor Vad är det på svenska?

What’s that in Swedish? There’s … There’s no word in [sic] it Va? Det finns ingen linjal

/…/ Hur ska vi förstå då?

Eller hur? Han måste ju berätta på svenska, vad det är

Vi förstår ju vad det är

/…/ berätta på arabiska vad det är

Alltså … Vi … Tänk om vi går på ett gymnasium på svenska, sen så ska vi /…/ på NO, sen så kan vi bara på engelska

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Later in the lesson, a student remembers the correct lexical item in Swedish, gradskiva, and a discussion in Swedish among the students ensues. While there is a clear aim of developing students’ knowledge of English subject-specific vocabulary, there is less focus on the terms in Swedish, which are often limited to lists of keywords displayed in the classroom. In the interview Peter mentions keywords, but points out that they are not a particular focus for the students. At the time of the above lesson, keywords for the new unit were not posted in the classroom. When they were posted two weeks later, the term in Swedish for ‘protractor’ was given as protractor rather than the correct term, gradskiva. Lacking this Swedish knowledge, Peter is unable to provide accurate translations of key terms and instruction in the students’ stronger language. Rather, Peter’s strategy is to allow the students to translate for one another in order to make the transition to addressing him in English, as he mentions in Extract 12.4.

Extract 12.4: Interview with Peter Peter:

Of course there are keywords that … that I post on the wall. /…/ Then again I know a lot of students don’t even bother to look at them until I point them out. /…/ I’m sure you’ve seen how students help each other translate. /…/ There’s a couple of students that are really strong with their English and a couple that are not so good. /…/ So I give them a chance to like turn to their neighbour and say it in Swedish, and they can tell them in English and then they can repeat the English to me.

While Peter is aware of his students’ struggles with English and does allow for the use of Swedish among students as a means of support, he also expresses apprehension about this use by Swedish- and English-speaking bilingual teachers during the instructional support in the subject of English. This weekly support, which involves small group pull-out instruction for students having difficulties with English, was offered only in English by a non-Swedish-speaking, native English-speaking teacher the previous year. Peter’s concern is that increased use of Swedish in these sessions could have negative effects on students’ development of proficiency in English, as illustrated by his comments in Extract 12.5.

Extract 12.5: Interview with Peter (continued) Peter:

I know that they are struggling and they want the help but there’s a time where you gotta move away from translating everything from Swedish to English. /…/ And start thinking more basic English. So I’m … I’m OK with it if the students feel good about it. /…/ But if the teacher’s always trying to instruct in Swedish, how much English are they gonna retain?

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Peter’s statements reveal his conflicting perspectives regarding the use of Swedish. Although he would like students to decrease their dependence on translating from Swedish, he acknowledges its role as a resource for comprehension and communication in the classroom. As instruction and after-school tutorials in Maths and Science are only provided in English, students do not have access to teacher-led support in their first language (L1) for these subjects (see Nilsson & Axelsson, 2013). Students such as Kim, who are considered relatively proficient in English by both their classmates and by Peter, are therefore frequently asked to clarify key concepts or instructions to their peers, such as when the class is given a diagnostic Maths assessment in Swedish, as illustrated in Extract 12.6 below.

Extract 12.6: Primary Maths assessment 1 2

Peter: Everything’s in Swedish. I don’t know how to help you /…/ Peter: Kim, I need your help to translate a question [for newly arrived student]

At other times, this help is offered spontaneously in order to maintain the flow of the classroom discussion. Likewise, when students indicate uncertainty when answering questions, their classmates repeat the teacher’s question in Swedish. This kind of ‘collective scaffolding’ (Gibbons, 2002: 20) provides access to the content for students who are having difficulty understanding and/or participating in the lessons in English, as shown below in Extract 12.7.

Extract 12.7: Interview with student, Boulos R: Do you usually use something else … to … help if you don’t quite understand? S: I sometimes ask [a classmate]. As Boulos indicates in the extract above, when Peter’s explanations do not sufficiently clarify the content, asking a classmate for help in Swedish is a potential affordance for understanding. However, while Peter and the students exercise agency in resisting school language policies in order to facilitate content learning, Peter also considers the use of Swedish to be a potential constraint in terms of the students’ development of English. In summary, translanguaging functioned as a mediating tool between the non-Swedish speaking teacher and the emergent bilingual students in the primary school, scaffolding participation and meaning-making in Englishmedium subjects.

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Case study II: Upper secondary school Students in Sam’s lessons also use Swedish to access difficult content language and concepts, but the translanguaging follows a more consistent pattern and tends to be teacher directed (see Lewis et al., 2012b). That is, through his patterns of language use, Sam exercises agency over the language choice and the students generally respond in the same language. In the observed lessons, there is no negotiation about which language to use and when, but rather the students follow the teacher-directed language choices in most instances with no resistance. They use the same language as Sam does in the different interactions in the lesson, following a translanguaging process that facilitates instruction according to group size and assessment. Table 12.4 below presents an example of a lesson (see also Yoxsimer Paulsrud, 2014). In the lesson above, as well as in other lessons observed, Sam is the one to initiate the language choice. He exercises agency in his choice of English for whole-class instruction and Swedish for one-to-one support or interaction with small groups. For whole or large group (i.e. half the students) instruction, English as the language of instruction does not afford the possibility of efficiently keeping track of individual students, according to Sam in his interviews. However, he says he can provide them with English input, both subject-specific language and content. On the other hand, using Swedish for individual interaction and task assistance allows him to assess students’ subject knowledge, keep track of individual needs, and provide scaffolding in students’ L1. For example, in the Maths lesson in Table 12.4 in Sam’s one-on-one interactions with the students, both he and the student use Swedish to discuss tasks. He describes this as ‘quicker and more efficient’ for checking comprehension in Swedish as well. The students are aware of this strategy, as seen in the interview with Neo (Extract 12.8).

Extract 12.8: Interview with student, Neo Neo:

Yeah, like when he introduces everything that you have to learn, he always says it in English but then like when he repeats stuff or helps us, it’s always in Swedish, almost.

Table 12.4 Patterns of language choice in an upper secondary Maths lesson Participant activity

Sam

Students

Sam helps the students individually at their desks. Sam shows a problem on the whiteboard, with a few students. Sam works with half of the students on a problem together at the whiteboard. Sam addresses the whole class, inviting their participation at the whiteboard.

Swedish Swedish English

Swedish Swedish English

English

English

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Sam changes his strategy from offering specific content assistance in Swedish to a small group to providing both content instruction and language exposure in English to the whole class. In this lesson above (Table 12.4), he encourages the class to join in the English discussion, saying: ‘Look if you are interested, otherwise, keep working. You might learn a new word.’ While Sam makes a choice of either Swedish or English depending on the interaction (i.e. individuals or varying group sizes), he also creates a flow of language use across physical spaces (see García & Li Wei, 2014, on translanguaging spaces in bilingual classrooms). Sam’s placement in the classroom affects which language is used for interactions. For example, in one Physics lesson, he stands near the whiteboard to explain in English how to complete a worksheet (written in Swedish). Once he leaves the space in front of the whiteboard, he switches to Swedish for the task assistance. When he wants all the students’ attention, he returns to the whiteboard before announcing more information in English. In the observations, Sam seems to cross an invisible line, with English being used exclusively near the whiteboard and Swedish away from it. As part of the translanguaging process across lesson phases, Sam regularly scaffolds content comprehension during the English instruction with brief Swedish support, for example, writing the new subject-specific term in both English and Swedish on the whiteboard. This action affords the students the opportunity to hear and see the new terms in both languages. In one Physics lesson, he writes support words for new terminology on the whiteboard: ‘Entropy (=entropi)’ and ‘Efficiency (=verkningsgrad)’, facilitating the students’ acquisition of the Swedish terms. In another lesson he pauses to check their understanding of subject-specific terminology, asking, ‘Do you know these in Swedish?’. The students, previously engaging with Sam in English, then call out the names of terms in Swedish. Sam also helps students make connections to new English terms by focusing on their prior everyday and academic knowledge in Swedish, as seen in Extract 12.9. Here he first elicits the Swedish term (Line 4) and then corrects the word class (Line 6).

Extract 12.9: Swedish support words in Maths 1 2 3 4 5

Sam: Ss: S1: Sam: S2:

6

Sam:

Have you seen …? [draws the symbol ∞ on the board.] What is it? Yes, yes Infinity What is this? Oändligt

Oändlighet

After this exchange, he finishes with a reference to a national grocery store chain that uses the infinity symbol in their logo. In this way, he also allows the students to access their knowledge of other modes outside the

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classroom in their translanguaging process (García & Li Wei, 2014: 29), as their linguistic repertoires are multimodal and include not only Swedish and English, but also signs and symbols. According to Sam, Swedish terms are offered for two reasons: exams and future studies. First, as EMI students write their Maths exams in Swedish, the students have most of their instruction through English but are expected to show their knowledge in Swedish. This practice lessens the teachers’ own workload, according to Sam, but also ensures that the content is tested, rather than an ability to read instructions or write answers in English (cf. Cook, 2001). However, this practice also reveals the students’ translanguaging processes as they are required to perform in one language, showing what they have learned using all their linguistic resources (see Otheguy et al., 2015). In this case, they learn the content primarily through English and then perform primarily in Swedish (see also Lewis et al., 2012a, 2012b). Secondly, the process of learning through one language and producing in another language affords the students the possibility of studying the content subjects in Swedish at university level in their future. As seen above, both Swedish and English maintain prominent status as languages for learning in Sam’s classroom at the upper secondary level. His perspective on language use in the EMI lesson is clear in the interviews: Subject first, language second. Curriculum goals are key and take precedence over the use of English in the classroom. This is not what Sam believed in his early years as an EMI teacher; as he says, ‘everything was really 100% [in English]’. Sam explains that, prior to the introduction of translanguaging strategies, the 100% English policy ambition meant that students were using English words in their Swedish speech as they did not know the Swedish subject-specific words. Sam feels it is now clear that the students do not benefit from an English-only policy if they are to have full linguistic access to the subject content. Although he does not give the students explicit instruction in the use of all their resources, he does explain his language choices to them, noting that if he initiates the use of both languages for learning from the beginning of the programme, the students ‘think it is easier to have it so’. He also implicitly refers to the ability to perform in each language, as seen in Extract 12.10.

Extract 12.10: Interview with Sam Sam:

You don’t want to be talking Swenglish all the time either! It is better for them and better for me, I think, if we can find a good mix of Swedish and English actually.

The students concur (Extract 12.11), indicating that actively processing subject material in both languages affords understanding of academic concepts in Swedish.

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Extract 12.11: Interview with students Meja: Vera: Meja: Vera:

I think it is good because otherwise if you only hear the English words, maybe you won’t understand the Swedish words and vice versa. It is good to learn the Swedish words, too. So you can talk with people! [laughing] So you can tell people in Swedish and you don’t have to say the words in English.

In summary, in the upper secondary school Sam exercises agency to guide his students through a flow of translanguaging designed to afford content comprehension as well as performance and assessment in two languages.

Language Choice in English-medium Instruction In this chapter, the studies of classroom practices provide insight into translanguaging processes through an examination of actual language use. The analysis of language choices revealed patterns of student-centred translanguaging in the primary school and teacher-led translanguaging in the upper secondary school. These translanguaging processes were further considered as to how agency was exercised in the language choices of participants in the EMI classroom and as to the affordances provided to learners when they access subject content in more than one language, namely Swedish and English. Here we consider how these case studies contribute to the understanding of translanguaging specifically related to agency and affordances.

Agency in translanguaging Agency, as indicated by choices made by individuals in given situations, may be considered from the perspective of the conditions that determine their capacity to act in these situations. Both students and teachers make language choices in the lessons every day, and are thus accepting, resisting or negotiating local language policies in order to afford access to content learning. Explicit school policies as well as de facto classroom policies in these two EMI classrooms promoted mainly English language use, but actual practices reflected both teacher and student acknowledgement of the role of Swedish in facilitating communication and content comprehension. The analysis revealed the role of translanguaging in teacher and student agency in the classroom, although the participants themselves did not explicitly identify translanguaging as the process used in their pedagogic strategies.

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In the primary EMI classroom, as learners had access to linguistic resources in both Swedish and English while the teacher was limited to English, the translanguaging process resisted traditional policies and power structures that favoured use of the target language, English, instead promoting a student-centred perspective on languaging for learning. At times students exercised agency in allowing their more proficient peers to take the lead in discussions (see Canagarajah, 1999). By adopting a more passive role and remaining silent, students could choose to avoid the risk involved with answering questions in English or making mistakes when discussing the task in group work. Conversely, at times these students chose to use Swedish in group tasks, actively participating in the discussions. As Peter was unable to understand these student interactions in Swedish, his concern was that the conversations could be beyond his control. In the upper secondary classroom, however, where Sam himself resisted the initial policy of 100% English when he saw that the students needed Swedish for content comprehension, students did not express the need, either implicitly or explicitly, to resist his translanguaging choices. So unlike the students in the primary classroom, who enacted their agency and often chose to use Swedish beyond what was deemed appropriate by Peter, the upper secondary students followed the patterns established by Sam. Neither the students nor Sam were conflicted in the language choices, even though Sam was clearly exercising more agency.

Translanguaging as an affordance Affordances in the EMI classroom include, among other things, the linguistic resources available to the participants in the lesson. In these two case studies, the access to resources in turn determined the participants’ language use. The two teachers did not share the same access, as Peter’s pool of resources was more limited than that of Sam (see Otheguy et al., 2015). In the upper secondary school, Sam and the students could all use Swedish and English, as everyone was proficient in both languages, making each one available as languages of instruction and learning. As Peter was unable to use Swedish in the primary EMI classroom, however, students who were considered to be more proficient in English often took on the role of translators for their peers. Meanwhile, the students in Sam’s classroom did not need to take on specific roles as peer translators as they knew that Sam would discuss the subject matter in each language at some point in the lesson. The experiences of translanguaging in these two contexts differed. In Sam’s lessons, the use of Swedish and English was seen as an affordance, as all the participants could follow the fluid process of translanguaging based on need, while also being assured that the content would be offered in both languages – or with all linguistic resources. Thus, Swedish and English were available. In Peter’s lessons, however, the translanguaging acted as both an affordance and a constraint, depending on the participants’ perspectives. The

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use of scaffolding through clarification of key concepts in Swedish by more proficient students provided additional support for comprehension and facilitated communication between the non-Swedish speaking teacher and less proficient students (cf. Lindberg, 2003). The available linguistic resources of some students thus functioned as an affordance for their peers. Peter, on the other hand, could experience the same translanguaging as a constraint, such as when discussions in Swedish went beyond what Peter considered appropriate. Further, there were concerns about possible drawbacks regarding the use of Swedish for support, in that ‘too much’ Swedish could limit students’ development of the target language (see Extract 12.5).

Translanguaging: A resource for learning These case studies illustrate the potential that translanguaging has for supporting learning in the EMI classroom. The translanguaging processes shown reveal participant agency in the different contexts, in which ‘learners understand their role and what they can do with their linguistic resources’ (Suwannamai Duran, 2014: 75) and teachers make strategic choices about languages used in the classroom. Students may be afforded possibilities to use a range of linguistic resources in order to access content while at the same time learning how to perform in either named language of instruction, as societal demands will dictate. Prior content knowledge is often in students’ L1 or the majority language; therefore, letting students access this knowledge in the process of learning content in English in EMI allows for greater lesson participation as well as content comprehension. However, in order for this to happen, teachers and students may require explicit instruction in the value of translanguaging and how to exercise agency in their language use. As seen in this chapter, classroom participants can develop this skill. However, specific inservice training in strategies that promote the use of the students’ L1 or the majority language may be needed, especially if the teachers are not proficient in the students’ languages. Likewise, learning how to work with translanguaging processes in the classroom is a skill that is potentially beneficial to all teachers, such as those working with newly arrived immigrant students (see Hopewell, this volume). Through the implementation of strategies that encourage students to use Swedish and/or other languages as tools for learning, teachers in Swedish schools may provide students with the means to make use of all their linguistic resources in order to facilitate both interaction and learning. Thus, agency can also lead to affordances in the classroom. Awareness of the possibilities presented by the process of translanguaging may provide educators with a meaningful tool for the development of bilingual pedagogies, and continued research on actual language use in bilingual environments may reveal more strategies for this development.

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Transcription key /…/ [text] text

… S: R:

Text has been deleted Added information about what is happening (not speech) Text in Swedish Translated text Pause or trailing off of speech Unnamed student (Ss if several; S1 or S2 if more than one) Researcher

Acknowledgements Paulsrud’s study was partially funded by the research project CLISS (Content and Language Integration in Swedish Schools), Swedish Research Council (Grant No. 721-2010-5376).

References Baker, C. (2011) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (5th edn). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Canagarajah, S. (1999) Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cook, V. (2001) Using the first language in the classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes 57 (3), 402–423. Copland, F. and Creese, A. (2015) Linguistic Ethnography: Collecting, Analysing and Presenting Data. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Cromdal, J. (2001) Can I be with ?: Negotiating play entry in a bilingual school. Journal of Pragmatics 33 (4), 515–543. Cromdal, J. (2005) Bilingual order in collaborative word processing: On creating an English text in Swedish. Journal of Pragmatics 37, 329–353. Cummins, J. (2009) Pedagogies of choice: Challenging coercive relations of power in classrooms and communities. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 12 (3), 261–271. Eurydice (2006) Content and Language Integrated Learning at School in Europe. Brussels: Eurydice European Unit. See http://www.indire.it/lucabas/lkmw_file/eurydice/ CLIL_EN.pdf (accessed 2 August 2016). Freeman, D. (2012) Focus groups: Commentary. In R. Barnard and A. Burns (eds) Researching Language Teacher Cognition and Practice. International Case Studies (pp. 80–89). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. García, O. (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Malden, MA and Oxford: Basil Blackwell. García, O. and Li Wei (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gibbons, P. (2002) Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Hélot, C. and Ó Laoire, M. (2011) Introduction: From language education policy to a pedagogy of the possible. In C. Hélot and M. Ó Laoire (eds) Language Policy for the Multilingual Classroom: Pedagogy of the Possible (pp. ix–xxv). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

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Lewis G., Jones, B. and Baker, C. (2012a) Translanguaging: Origins and development from school to street and beyond. Educational Research and Evaluation: An International Journal on Theory and Practice 18 (7), 641–654. Lewis, G., Jones, B. and Baker, C. (2012b) Translanguaging: Developing its conceptualisation and contextualisation. Educational Research and Evaluation: An International Journal on Theory and Practice 18 (7), 655–670. Lewis, W.G. (2008) Current challenges in bilingual education in Wales. AILA Review 21 (1), 69–86. Lim Falk, M. (2008) Svenska i engelskspråkig skolmiljö. Ämnesrelaterat språkbruk i två gymnasieklasser. [Swedish in an English-speaking school environment: Content related language use in two high school classes.] PhD thesis, Stockholm University. Lindberg, I. (2003) With a little help from my friends – on the role of collaborative tasks in second language learning. In K. Fraurud and K. Hyltenstam (eds) Multilingualism in Global and Local Perspectives. Selected Papers from the 8th Nordic Conference on Bilingualism, Stockholm-Rinkeby (pp. 357–370). Stockholm: Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University. Nilsson, J. and Axelsson, M. (2013) ‘Welcome to Sweden …’: Newly arrived students’ experiences of pedagogical and social provision in introductory and regular classes. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education 6 (1), 137–164. Otheguy, R., García, O. and Reid, W. (2015) Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6 (3), 281–307. Ricento, T.K. and Hornberger, N.H. (1996) Unpeeling the onion: Language planning and policy and the ELT professional. TESOL Quarterly 30 (3), 401–427. SNAE (Swedish National Agency for Education) (2010) Undervisning på engelska. Utvärdering av en försöksverksamhet i grundskolan. [Instruction in English. Evaluation of a Trial Implementation in Compulsory School.] Report No. 351, Swedish National Agency for Education [Skolverket]. See http://www.skolverket.se/publikationer?id=2450 (accessed 14 April 2015). Stake, R.E. (1995) The Art of Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Suwannamai Duran, C. (2014) Theorizing young language learner agency through the lens of multilingual repertoires: A sociocultural perspective. In P. Deters, X. Gao, E.R. Miller and G. Vitanova (eds) Theorizing and Analyzing Agency in Second Language Learning: Interdisciplinary Approaches (pp. 73–90). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Swain, M. and Suzuki, W. (2010) Interaction, output, and communicative language learning. In B. Spolsky and F.M. Hult (eds) Handbook of Educational Linguistics (pp. 557– 570). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Sylvén, L.K. (2004) Teaching in English or English teaching? On the effects of content and language integrated learning on Swedish learners’ incidental vocabulary acquisition. PhD thesis, Gothenburg University. van Lier, L. (2004) The Ecology and Semiotics of Language Learning: A Sociocultural Perspective. Boston: Kluwer Academic. Washburn, L. (1997) English immersion in Sweden. A case study of Röllingby High School 1987– 1989. PhD thesis, Stockholm University. Williams, C. (1996) Secondary education: Teaching in the bilingual situation. In C. Williams, G. Lewis and C. Baker (eds) The Language Policy: Taking Stock (pp. 39–78). Llangefni: CAI. Yoxsimer Paulsrud, B. (2014) English-medium instruction in Sweden: Perspectives and practices in two upper secondary schools. PhD thesis, Stockholm University.

13 Ideology Versus Practice: Is There a Space for Pedagogical Translanguaging in Mother Tongue Instruction? Natalia Ganuza and Christina Hedman

Introduction The aim of this chapter is to discuss the concepts translanguaging and pedagogical translanguaging (e.g. Creese & Blackledge, 2010; García, 2009) from the perspective of mother tongue instruction (henceforth MTI) in a Swedish context. In Sweden, MTI refers to non-mandatory state-funded instruction of minority languages as a subject within the curriculum. For example, a child whose parent speaks Somali as a mother tongue may be entitled to Somali MTI according to Swedish language policy. For reasons of clarity, we will use the terms MTI and mother tongue throughout this chapter in alignment with how they are used in Swedish language policy and practice. For example, in Swedish legislation MTI does not encompass the teaching of Swedish as a Mother Tongue and MTI is only offered in one language, even when students may have multiple mother tongues. Accordingly, in this chapter a distinction is sometimes made between the use of the mother tongue on the one hand and the use of Swedish on the other. In the chapter we draw on interview and observational data from MTI to emphasize the need to take into consideration the ideologies that are articulated by the MTI teachers and embodied (Kroskrity, 2006; cf. Salö, 2015) in their pedagogical practices in order to be able to interpret multilingual practices that occur in interaction in the MTI classrooms. In light of this, we discuss whether neologisms such as translanguaging and pedagogical translanguaging are suitable terms to describe linguistic and pedagogical practices within MTI, considering that these concepts come associated with a particular set of theoretical assumptions about language and pedagogy that in many 208

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respects differ from the ideologies articulated and embodied by the MTI teachers. Our data are used to exemplify mismatches between surface-level observations of multilingual practices and the ideological underpinnings of the same practices. As will be demonstrated and argued, even multilingual practices can be modelled on monoglossic views of language if they are restricted and predefined in time and space, and viewed as necessary rather than desirable.

Ideologies of Language and Pedagogy In our subsequent discussion of MTI, we adopt a broad understanding of ideologies as ‘commonsensical and often normative’ (Blommaert & Verschueren, 1998: 25) beliefs and feelings about language that tend to reflect, maintain and (re)produce hegemonic power relations (Kroskrity, 2006; Woolard, 1998; Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994; see also Jonsson, this volume). Accordingly, we acknowledge the sociohistorical and political embeddedness of language use and language beliefs. Ideologies are, in this sense, seen as ‘power-linked discourses’ (Woolard, 1998: 7), which people eventually come to perceive and embody as neutral and universal truths by being socialized as members of different institutions, by engaging with state-enforced policies, and by interacting with other people. In particular, we are interested in how the MTI teachers come to maintain and reproduce dominant idealized conceptions of language and pedagogy. Considering that teachers often ‘become the main agents through whom ideology is spread’ (Shohamy, 2006: 79), it is important to investigate their beliefs and practices, as these are shaped by the underlying ‘dominant language ideology’ (Kroskrity, 1998) that is embodied in curricula, school manuals, teaching materials and teacher education. They are also constantly being reinforced and justified in the communicative practices in which teachers engage (cf. Busch, 2014). Nevertheless, notions of ideological embodiment and reproduction should not be viewed as static or non-contradictory, nor do they exclude possibilities for contestation and renegotiation (cf. Canagarajah, 2013). In this chapter, we focus on how ideologies of language and pedagogy were explicitly articulated by the teachers in our study during interviews and in informal conversations with the authors, as well as how these ideologies were being ‘embodied in communicative practice’ (Kroskrity, 2006: 496), that is, how the ideologies could be observed and ‘read from actual usage’ (Kroskrity, 2006: 505) during the MTI lessons (cf. Martínez et al., 2015; Salö, 2015). The analyses of the teachers’ articulated and embodied beliefs are also situated in a sociohistorical and political context, by taking into consideration the historical foundation of MTI in Sweden, and the subject’s possibilities and limitations in terms of policy and practice.

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Translanguaging and Pedagogical Translanguaging Recently, translanguaging has become a popular concept to describe and analyze language practices that occur in diverse settings (Canagarajah, 2011; García, 2009). Importantly, translanguaging and other similar concepts such as translingual practice (Canagarajah, 2013), heteroglossia (Bailey, 2007; Blackledge & Creese, 2014), metrolingualism (Otsuji & Pennycook, 2010) and polylingual languaging (Jørgensen, 2008) represent a shift in the ideology of language, where languages are seen as social constructs, and no longer believed to be static, discrete and separate systems (although the extent to which these concepts are able to do away with structuralist ideas of language as system can be disputed, e.g. Orman & Pablé, 2016). Accordingly, the main focus is on the language user and on how languages are negotiated in interaction rather than the language systems per se (e.g. Canagarajah, 2011; García, 2009). In this respect, translanguaging differs radically from the earlier concept of code-switching, which reflects a monoglossic ideology through which the languages of a bilingual speaker are conceptualized as two discrete systems that can be separated and regulated in time and space (e.g. García, 2009). Following Creese and Blackledge’s (2010) seminal research in complementary schools in the UK, it has also become increasingly popular to speak of translanguaging as pedagogy, or pedagogical translanguaging, in contexts illustrating pedagogical practices that endorse multilingualism and students’ flexible language use. In fact, García and Li Wei (2014) define translanguaging both as an act of performance and as a pedagogy for teaching and learning. However, in our view, pedagogical translanguaging goes beyond translanguaging as it includes how teachers deliberately try to draw on their students’ multiple linguistic resources in pedagogy in order to promote and mediate learning. In this chapter we argue that the concept of pedagogical translanguaging should be reserved for contexts where teachers have made a deliberate decision to include students’ flexible language uses, and where the multilingual practices employed in pedagogy harmonize with the teachers’ ideologies of language. Like many other researchers, we think it is important to link the interactions observed within a practice to the ideologies that influence these same interactions (cf. Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Heller, 2007; Hornberger & Link, 2012).

Mother Tongue Instruction in Sweden At the policy level, there is relatively strong support for MTI in Sweden. For example, the Swedish Education Act (SFS, 2010: 800) states that any student with a legal guardian who has a mother tongue other than Swedish is entitled to instruction in this language, if s/he has basic knowledge of the

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language in question and the language is used for daily communication in the student’s home. Recent statistics show that approximately 24% of the students in compulsory school are entitled to MTI, and that MTI is currently offered in more than a hundred different languages (SNAE, 2015). However, the access to instruction varies in different parts of Sweden, as does the attendance level for the different languages encompassed by MTI. What is more, despite the comparatively strong legal support, MTI has been associated with constant struggles of implementation and marginalization (e.g. Ganuza & Hedman, 2015; Hyltenstam & Milani, 2012). For instance, the subject is non-mandatory and the instruction is often restricted to less than a one-hour lesson per week. MTI also tends to be poorly integrated with other subjects in the curriculum. Furthermore, the MTI teachers often work under strenuous conditions as many of them have to ambulate between different schools and be able to cater to very heterogeneous student groups. The MTI subject syllabus (SNAE, 2011: 83) states that the aim of MTI should be to provide opportunities for students to develop knowledge in and about the mother tongue, with a main focus on the development of mother tongue language skills. Among other things, it is described how MTI should help students develop their abilities to read and write in the mother tongue and to be able to adapt their language use in relation to different purposes, interlocutors and contexts, and to comply with language norms. The students are also expected to reflect on cultural phenomena and traditions in the countries where the mother tongue is spoken. Furthermore, there is a comparative approach regarding language and culture, where language and cultural phenomena should be compared with Swedish and Swedish conditions.

The Study In this chapter we draw on the same ethnographic data used in an earlier article that focused on MTI teachers’ ideologies concerning language, teaching and literacy (Ganuza & Hedman, 2015). The data were collected within the larger research project ‘The role of mother tongue instruction for the development of biliteracy among Somali-Swedish speaking children in the early school years’ (funded by the Swedish Research Council, 2013–2016). The ethnographic part of the project included audio-recorded and transcribed in-depth interviews with 15 MTI teachers of Somali and Bosnian/Croatian/ Serbian (henceforth BCS), and field notes taken during classroom observations conducted over a one-year period with the same teachers. In total, 67 MTI lessons were observed. Field notes, photos and copies of teaching materials are the sources of data from these observations. The authors also spent additional time at several of the schools where the MTI teachers worked, as

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part of collecting quantitative data for the larger project (e.g. Ganuza & Hedman, in press). On these occasions, field notes were taken of interactions in the corridors, the lunch hall and the staff room. All ethnographic data were analyzed thematically using QSR Nvivo Software. The observed MTI lessons varied widely in terms of the number of students attending the classes. Sometimes there were only two students, and at other times 25. Moreover, the student groups were often heterogeneous, both in terms of age and proficiency in the mother tongue. This was particularly the case for the BCS languages. The student enrolment and the attendance rate are often higher for Somali MTI than the BCS languages (Statistics Sweden, 2014), which is why the teachers of Somali were generally able to teach larger and more age-homogeneous student groups.

Ideological Context of Mother Tongue Instruction As described in the previous article (Ganuza & Hedman, 2015), we found that the MTI settings observed were ideologically dominated by a monolingual norm, reflective of the teachers’ beliefs in languages as separate entities and their beliefs in the ability and desirability to separate languages in time and space (cf. García, 2009), which is exemplified by teacher Naima in Extract 13.1. Please note that all teacher names used in this chapter are pseudonyms, and the interviews and field note extracts have been translated from Swedish into English by the authors, with the intent of keeping the translations close to the original.

Extract 13.1: Teacher Naima When they sit in the classroom I say, now we leave all other languages outside. In here, only Somali counts. In class, students were often reprimanded for using Swedish, and the teachers regularly urged them to repeat themselves in the mother tongue (e.g. Teacher Amina: ‘Say that in our language!’). At other times, the teachers’ strategies were less direct, for example by repeating in the mother tongue what students had stated in Swedish or by consistently answering back in the mother tongue whatever the language directed at them. We do not argue that the MTI teachers’ negative evaluations of their students’ uses of Swedish reflect negative attitudes toward Swedish per se. Instead, the data show that these represent the teachers’ fear of the diminishing value and space that they think Swedish imposes on the mother tongue in a Swedish context (cf. Kroskrity, 1998), especially as they consider most of their students to be much more proficient in Swedish than in the mother tongue (exemplified in Extract 13.2). They also see Swedish as the language of more prestige in the wider society.

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Extract 13.2: Teacher Ilyas None of them know Somali more than Swedish. There is no one. They all know better Swedish […] they have their friends, the environment, the teachers that help them many hours per week, homework, and everything. That’s why they learn Swedish so fast. As a result, the MTI teachers tended to regard the MTI lessons as a time and place reserved for protecting the mother tongue. They viewed MTI as a unique opportunity to help students increase their proficiency in and knowledge of the language and culture of heritage, which is exemplified in Extract 13.3 (cf. Martínez et al., 2015).

Extract 13.3: Teacher Naima I know I work only once a week. I can’t give all the um important but the only thing I want to show them is that we have this language that is well functioning […] I think it is really important that I come as a real language teacher who can show the students that they should feel WOW, we do have this language. The teachers’ strong advocacy for mother tongue use can also be seen as counter-hegemonic as they try to inculcate in their students the idea that not only Swedish is important in Sweden (cf. Martínez et al., 2015). Although all the teachers articulated the value of bilingualism in the interviews, and stressed the advantages of knowing several languages in order to be successful in school (e.g. Teacher Naima: ‘When the students know their mother tongue it facilitates the other subjects’), they also claimed that languages would be best developed separately; that is, they advocated ‘a one language at a time ideology’ (García & Li Wei, 2014: 67). They wished that their students would be able to attain an equally high command of both of their languages, and feared the undesirable alternative where their students would only manage to reach this goal halfway. This belief is exemplified in Extract 13.4, where teacher Sanela explains how she perceives that her students’ unequal opportunities for and use of Swedish and BCS may turn them into semilinguals.

Extract 13.4: Teacher Sanela […] then I knew from the start that they had difficulties speaking [BCS]. But I know that their mom speaks [BCS] to them because she’s not that good in Swedish and she would never speak Swedish to her children. But she’s all day at work and maybe she sees her children only for a short time, so they, their stronger language is Swedish. But the problem with those children is that they become semilingual. The teachers’ call for language separation, their beliefs in the possibility and desirability of developing an equal command of several languages, and

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their fear of semilingualism follow the logic of parallel monolingualism (e.g. García, 2009; García & Leiva, 2014), and ‘the container metaphor of competence’ (Martin-Jones, 2007: 167), through which language competence is conceptualized as a finite space (see also Stroud, 2004). Within the observed dominant monolingual ideological frame of MTI, the teachers also seemed to agree with the idea that language choice and use is primarily a matter of individual choice, and that multilingual practices can easily be replaced with monolingual practices (as illustrated in Extract 13.5).

Extract 13.5: Teacher Sanela I usually say, when you talk to me choose one language. If you speak Swedish, speak Swedish, yes, but do not mix. Considering the restricted teaching time for MTI, the teachers stressed the importance of using the mother tongue at home, and they tended to criticize parents who would allow their children to speak Swedish abundantly. The teachers said that they felt unable to make a change during their one hour of MTI per week unless the parents also made an effort to speak the mother tongue with their children at home. Consequently, some of them insisted that parents should impose language use regulations in the home in order to foster their children’s use of the mother tongue (as illustrated in Extract 13.6).

Extract 13.6: Teacher Marija When they’re home, they should say no, now we have to speak the mother tongue when we’re at home. That should be a rule. Hence, the home, in addition to MTI, was by many teachers regarded as a place reserved for the mother tongue, and the parents were positioned as co-agents in the struggle for minority language maintenance. The advocacy of language separation was not only upheld by the MTI teachers in the schools that we visited, but often also by other staff. For example, in two of the schools we observed how several teachers explicitly asked the bilingual students not to speak their mother tongue in the corridors or in the lunch hall. The teachers explained to us that the school’s language policy was to use Swedish when in school (with the exception of the MTI lessons, the English lessons and the Modern Language lessons), and this language rule was also found to be practised by teachers and teaching assistants in the schools who shared other languages in addition to Swedish with the students. On several occasions, we also observed students articulating reprimands and regulation of other students’ language use, both within and outside MTI. Altogether, these observed actions regarding multilingual practices reflect how the Swedish school as an institution is strongly ‘rooted in a monolingual habitus’ (Gogolin, 1994, in Busch, 2014: 22), and how students

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and teachers have come both to articulate and to embody this dominant ideology (Kroskrity, 2006) in their communicative practices, both within and outside MTI (cf. Haglund, 2005). The MTI teachers’ ideas about language separation are clearly informed by monolingual and language purist ideologies. In their attempts to safeguard the survival of the mother tongue, they tended to construct MTI as a site and an opportunity to introduce, reproduce and promote not only a certain set of linguistic norms but also a certain set of cultural norms, based on an idea of a common heritage (cf. Kroskrity, 2006). The teachers also tended to assign to themselves the important function of acting as role models for these desired and highly valued norms (Ganuza & Hedman, 2015, see also Extract 13.3 above), and by doing that they were able to renegotiate power and dominant ideologies in their favour (Canagarajah, 2013: 29). However, this left almost no space for negotiation as to how diasporic languages and identities as practised in communication in Sweden may differ from how identities and languages have been practised in the ‘traditional homelands’ (Canagarajah, 2013; see also Eliaso Magnusson, 2015). It is also important to stress that the MTI teachers’ views of language and culture are a reflection of the MTI subject syllabus, in which an essentialist view of language and culture prevails over acknowledgements of hybridized cultural and linguistic expressions (cf. Ganuza & Hedman, 2015; Rosén, this volume; Spetz, 2014). Outakoski (2015) found a similar promotion of a ‘determined body of predefined knowledge’ (see Busch, 2011: 14) among teachers of Sami, who tended to support the transmission through education of only certain sets of Sami language, literacy and culture, namely those that were in alignment with their own beliefs about what constitutes valid representations of Sami traditions and culture.

Multilingual Practices in Mother Tongue Instruction Despite the teachers’ strong advocacy for double monolingualism, and their many efforts to try to keep languages separate and preferably leave Swedish outside MTI, Swedish still formed part of the classroom interactions in all the places visited, as both students and teachers used Swedish during MTI. This is in line with previous research that has shown that multilinguals have always resisted monolingual language policies enforced in educational settings (e.g. Hornberger & Link, 2012; Makalela, 2015; Shohamy, 2006). For example, all MTI teachers used and allowed Swedish for specific aims, such as in written translation tasks, to translate or explain words during reading of texts, and in order to continuously check students’ understanding of their lines of argumentation. During teacher-led text reading in

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the mother tongue, they often asked students to repeat words and sentences in Swedish in order to make sure that they had understood them correctly. One teacher also pointed out that the MTI syllabus prescribes that students should develop their ability to compare linguistic structures in the mother tongue with Swedish. However, students’ unsolicited use of Swedish during MTI was regularly met by explicit reprimands asking them not to use Swedish and/or by asking them to repeat themselves in the mother tongue. Altogether, our impression was that the use of Swedish was accepted by the teachers if it was used to facilitate students’ understanding of the mother tongue, and when it clearly geared students toward enhancing their proficiency in the mother tongue, but not for other purposes, as is also confirmed by the following statement by teacher Omar.

Extract 13.7: Teacher Omar I use Swedish for them to understand, but not for them to use and speak in the class. When asked in the interviews about their feelings concerning the use of Swedish during MTI, most teachers expressed a firm conviction about the inadequacy of using Swedish, while concurrently emphasizing the necessity for bringing in Swedish in order to help students who lack proficiency in the mother tongue. The teachers regarded the use of Swedish as ‘natural’ outside MTI (e.g. Teacher Ilyas: ‘They speak Swedish with each other sure, it’s only natural, but I always say, “During my lessons, you are not allowed to speak Swedish to each other.”’), but they rather consistently framed it as a ‘deficit practice,’ ‘a necessary evil’ and as ‘a last resort’ within MTI, and never as a valid strategy for learning (cf. Probyn, 2015). However, the teachers said that they made exceptions to the language separation rule with students whom they considered unable to use the mother tongue, and clarified that they would never force a child to speak the mother tongue if they thought s/he would be unable to do so (e.g. Teacher Omar: ‘There are some who don’t know Somali, there are one or two in each class. These children, I let them speak Swedish’). On the whole, students tended to be positioned as the scapegoats for the abundant use of Swedish during lessons; and the teachers explained their use of Swedish either as a consequence of sloppiness or due to students’ lack of proficiency in the mother tongue. In this way, the use of Swedish was found to be a constant dilemma for the teachers. However, we also have to ask ourselves to what extent our presence in the observed settings, as representatives of higher education who may be perceived as symbols of the Swedish hegemony, may have contributed to the reinforcement of monoglossic ideologies in our data, and whether our presence made the teachers stress the negative aspects of using Swedish in MTI more emphatically than they otherwise would have done.

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In larger student groups, and with older students, we observed some group work, which allowed for more peer interaction. During these occasions we observed how the students sometimes interacted with one another mainly in Swedish, as well as how they drew on various linguistic resources, for example while checking their answers with each other or when speaking about things unrelated to the exercises at hand. However, if noticed by the teacher, the students were often reprimanded for speaking Swedish, and as a result many of these conversations were hidden from the ‘front stage’ classroom activities (Goffman, 1959) and instead became part of illegitimate ‘back stage’ language practices. One observed exception to the language separation policy took place during a Somali MTI lesson in a secondary school class, where students had been assigned to work with drama. During the preparatory work, a large part of the teacher instructions and student interactions took place in Swedish, without comments on language choice by the teacher (although the written instruction for the assignment contained a request not to mix languages). We noted that this differed radically from the same teacher’s observed conduct when teaching younger students, where he constantly reminded them to use Somali, not Swedish. The teacher explained his more liberal stance toward the older students’ use of languages by the fact that these students were proficient in Somali, and that he knew that they would be able to perform the play in Somali, regardless of the languages used during preparation. It thus appears as if the assumed negative impact of the ‘wrong’ language use in MTI may be perceived as less of a threat for more proficient bilingual speakers. This is reminiscent of teacher Ms Birch’s remarks in Martínez et al.’s study (2015), where she considers the right to mix languages in writing to be reserved for older and more competent bilingual students.

Practical Consequences for Students We argue that the teachers’ attempts to always regulate the languages used during MTI had the effect of silencing the students. As discussed in Ganuza and Hedman (2015), we found the MTI lessons at large to be dominated by teacher monologues and teacher-dominated interactions following a pattern of initiation-response-evaluation (IRE; e.g. Mehan, 1979). Thus, the teacher’s role within MTI was mainly framed as an ‘interactional-structural authority’, in control of the interactional floor (Karrebaek, 2012: 33), which left relatively limited space for student interactions and student input. Activities during MTI were often organized so that every student, despite their varying levels of proficiency, would be able to provide an answer in the mother tongue. This was achieved by asking questions to which the answers could be found directly in the pedagogical context (e.g. in a text, on a worksheet or on the whiteboard). If students provided more extensive answers,

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which included the use of Swedish, they were often asked to repeat themselves in the mother tongue. Also, when working in pairs or groups, students were reproached if the teacher noticed that they were speaking Swedish among themselves. Although the teachers’ intent with these strategies was to promote the use of the mother tongue instead of Swedish, these strategies were found to be counter-productive (cf. Shohamy, 2006), as this resulted in relatively little verbal input from students during MTI. This is in line with earlier arguments that ‘controlling devices over language use are ineffective, futile and often counter-productive to language and content mastery’ (Makalela, 2015: 1). Another consequence of the observed deficit discourse surrounding students’ use of Swedish in MTI, as well as their use of languages other than Swedish outside MTI, is that they were consistently being stigmatized for not conforming to the monolingual norm. This implies that many bilingual students face a reality at school where they just cannot get it right. They are under linguistic surveillance and control wherever they go. BCS teacher Marija’s comment in Extract 13.6 above indicates that the effort to regulate the students’ language use may also follow them home. A consequence of this type of language surveillance could be an experience of exclusion where students feel that their linguistic repertoires never fit in with the surrounding demands, thus resulting in a negative ‘lived experience of language’ (Busch, 2015).

Is There a Space for Pedagogical Translanguaging in Mother Tongue Instruction? Without an in-depth analysis of the MTI teachers’ explicitly articulated language ideologies, and the ideologies embodied in their pedagogical practices, we might have concluded, based on the descriptive surface-level observations of multilingual practices that occurred in MTI, that translanguaging formed a natural part of MTI. Yet our findings in MTI do not harmonize well with the theoretical-ideological assumptions about language and communication that come associated with the label and concept of translanguaging. If we used translanguaging to describe the observed multilingual practices, we would be imposing a view of language and pedagogy from the outside, an etic perspective, rather than analyzing them on the basis of the conditions revealed in our data. In the observed settings, the terms multilingual practices or even code-switching are perhaps more suitable, as these two notions, similar to the MTI teachers’ articulated views of language, conceptualize languages as separate entities, even if they are used in co-existence (cf. Canagarajah, 2013; García, 2009). In line with other scholars (e.g. Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Heller, 2007; Hornberger & Link, 2012; Martin-Jones, 2007), we maintain that a merely descriptive analysis of classroom interactions can

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disguise the ideologies and the pedagogical challenges at stake. The observed regulation of language use in MTI and the teachers’ articulated beliefs regarding the possibility and desirability of separating languages differ quite radically from settings where students are encouraged to draw freely on their linguistic resources, and translanguaging is defined as a valid pedagogical practice (e.g. Busch, 2014; Creese & Blackledge, 2010). By using the term pedagogical translanguaging in contexts where multilingual practices are used by teachers and students without reflection and/or without a deliberate aim to mediate learning, we argue that the concept runs the risk of losing its inherent power, and researchers may thereby also lose access to a powerful tool for describing possibly rare multilingual educational practices. The question remains as to whether there is room for change in MTI, to possibly allow for the introduction of pedagogical translanguaging. What we found striking during our observations of MTI was the limited space for peer interaction, despite the teachers’ firm belief in the importance of collaborative work and oral language development, as expressed in the interviews (Ganuza & Hedman, 2015). We find that the restricted space for interaction is problematic, as it silences the students, narrows their opportunities for using the mother tongue orally, and infringes on their possibilities to voice their own ‘concerns or topics of interest’ (Busch, 2014: 37). It keeps them from being able to actively participate in the (re)formulation, (re)construction and resistance of concepts such as identity, language and culture within MTI. In short, the observed MTI settings do not create the conditions needed for stimulating multidiscursivity or multivoicedness (see Busch’s 2014 use of these Bakhtinian concepts). The challenge for MTI is, in our view, to create pedagogical milieus that can motivate students to use the mother tongue as much as possible, without having to set up the firm interactional constraints that we have observed; that is, the key should be motivation rather than regulation. One way of addressing the existing monolingual ideologies in MTI would be, in discussions with MTI teachers, to highlight the important role of interaction and oral language development and stress how language regulations in educational settings can become counter-productive for students’ oral participation. It may also be fruitful to present examples of good practice, as an embryo for possible change, for example from complementary schools in the UK (Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Creese et al., 2011) in order to show that the acceptance of more flexible language use does not automatically lead to a diminished use of the mother tongue. The quality of interaction would also need to be addressed, for example through critical reflections on what the students do with language, what language does to them, and what language means to them (Blommaert, 2010: 188). This could be a means to raise the teachers’ awareness of how languages are always in contact and how languages tend to complement each other in communicative practices rather than compete with each other in the way that follows from

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the logic of the container metaphor of language competence (Canagarajah, 2013; Martin-Jones, 2007). Such discussions could also bring attention to the pedagogical potential of inviting the students’ backstage interactions to take front stage.

Potential Pitfalls One important question that still needs to be addressed is whether pedagogical translanguaging in MTI is desirable at all, considering the hegemony of Swedish in Sweden, the marginalization of MTI within the Swedish school system, and MTI’s long history of implementation problems. The role of language as a medium of instruction – or not – is also relevant to this discussion. It is, for example, easy to see the potential for pedagogical translanguaging in the teaching of content subjects in the Swedish school in general. Historically, most subjects in Sweden are taught through Swedish only, and various studies have shown how the Swedish school participates in sustaining the dominant social order where Swedish and ‘Swedish experiences’ are constructed as ‘natural’ and ‘superior’ to other languages and experiences, despite the fact that it caters to increasingly diverse student groups (e.g. Eliaso Magnusson, 2015; Gruber, 2007; Haglund, 2005; Runfors, 2003). The introduction of purposeful pedagogical translanguaging in mainstream content subjects might have the ability to better endorse the validation and valorization of students’ varying funds of knowledge, and at the same time act as resistance toward – or even have the potential to overcome – the hegemony of Swedish and the dominance of monoglossic pedagogies (cf. Martínez-Roldán, 2015). Study guidance (i.e. content learning support in the mother tongue for newly arrived students) is another area where pedagogical translanguaging could have the potential to mediate students’ learning (see, for example, Reath Warren, 2016; Dewilde, 2013, in a Norwegian context). The introduction of various languages as resources in regular content subjects, as well as in study guidance, would present no ‘threat’ to Swedish. The stakes for introducing the same practices in MTI could, on the other hand, be much higher considering the generally low status of MTI in school and the low status of many of the languages taught through MTI in Swedish society (e.g. Hult, 2012). Furthermore, the teachers’ observation that most of their students are more proficient and more willing to speak Swedish than the mother tongue cannot be disregarded. García (2009: 297) claims that there is reason for concern if the introduction of flexible linguistic practices only ‘are put to the service of the majority language’ and if they ‘progressively take time and space away from the minority language’ (García 2009: 297; see also Martínez-Roldán, 2015). In addition, one has to take into consideration the subject syllabus for MTI. The syllabi for most other subjects prescribe language and content

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integration, whereas the MTI syllabus focuses predominantly on the development of language skills in the mother tongue, without linkage to subject content (cf. Ganuza & Hedman, 2015). The lack of language and content integration in the syllabus may therefore decrease both the incentives for and the possibilities to introduce pedagogical translanguaging in MTI. Nevertheless, some of the MTI teachers interviewed expressed a yearning for collaboration with other teachers and emphasized the advantages if content and language integration could be accomplished within MTI (e.g. Teacher Vesna: ‘I think the teaching somehow needs to be more synchronized, with more joint planning, integrated in other subjects’, see Ganuza & Hedman, 2015: 133). However, the few experiences that they had of collaboration were often on unequal terms, where the initiative and effort was left mainly to the MTI teacher.

Conclusions In this chapter we have argued why it may not be suitable to adopt theoretical neologisms such as translanguaging and pedagogical translanguaging to describe multilingual practices occurring in pedagogical settings that are still informed by monoglossic ideologies. By drawing on data from MTI in Sweden, we have highlighted some mismatches between surface-level observations of multilingual practices among teachers and students and the monoglossic ideological underpinnings of these practices. In line with a number of other scholars, we have used our data to emphasize the importance of linking interactional practices to the local ideologies that influence the practices, as well as to the wider social and ideological order in which the Swedish school system is embedded (Martin-Jones, 2007). We have found that the MTI teachers’ articulated and embodied beliefs about languages as pure and bounded entities that can be regulated in time and space negatively affected the students’ possibilities for verbal interaction. Consequently, the students had few opportunities to voice their own interests and opinions, thereby limiting their chances to contribute to the (re) formulation of notions such as language, identity and culture within MTI. The teachers’ control and domination of the interactional floor was found to function as a language-controlling device, through which they tried to enforce the use of the mother tongue and restrict the use of Swedish to particular tasks and purposes. However, even this restricted use of Swedish tended to be regarded as a ‘necessary evil’ rather than a valid pedagogical practice (cf. Probyn, 2015). These observed patterns of communicative practices contrast quite sharply with the notion of pedagogical translanguaging, which refers to a deliberate flexible use of students’ various linguistic resources to mediate learning, and which is made explicit through pedagogy.

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Although we have shown that the teachers’ regulation of the use of Swedish in MTI did not necessarily lead to an increased use of the mother tongue, we have problematized whether attempts to incorporate pedagogical translanguaging in MTI are desirable, given the subject’s marginalized position within the Swedish school system and its long sociopolitical history of implementation problems. We have considered the teachers’ articulated concerns regarding the possibilities for minority language maintenance in Sweden, and their counter-hegemonic attempts to inculcate in their students the idea that not only Swedish is important in Sweden. We have also argued that the lack of language and content integration in the MTI subject syllabus does not provide the incentives needed to introduce more flexible linguistic pedagogical practices. Nevertheless, we think it would be fruitful for agents within MTI to reflect on how to create pedagogical milieus that can motivate students’ use of the mother tongue without having to impose the counterproductive, and possibly guilt-generating, language regulation rules that were observed. Finally, we conclude that we think the term pedagogical translanguaging should be reserved for settings where multilingual practices are embraced and made explicit in pedagogy, and where the multilingual practices observed harmonize with the ideologies that are articulated and embodied in communicative practice, by both teachers and students. We also argue that misapplications of the term pedagogical translanguaging may disguise relevant ideological discourses, and that researchers need a concept that can be used exclusively for educational contexts that are based on multilingual norms – particularly as these contexts may be rare within the school as an institution.

Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council [Grant No. 721-2012-4275]. We are thankful to Jeanette Toth for correcting our English.

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14 Epilogue BethAnne Paulsrud, Jenny Rosén, Boglárka Straszer and Åsa Wedin

The Contributions of this Book The aim of this volume was to examine translanguaging as a theoretical and analytical lens in educational settings, thus contributing to ongoing conceptual discussions in the field and to an understanding of different scales in multilingual processes. This volume offers a timely and consolidated compilation of studies. In the book’s chapters, the concept of translanguaging is explored using diverse perspectives such as agency and identity (Mary & Young; Toth & Paulsrud), language ideology (Jonsson), language policy (Rosén), multimodality (Allard & Wedin), social justice (Hopewell), translanguaging space (Rosén; Straszer) and transliteracy (Dewilde). The authors cover a range of educational levels, from young learners (Mary & Young; Rosiers; Straszer) to young adults (Allard & Wedin; Dewilde), both in the classroom (Rosiers; Toth & Paulsrud) and out of the classroom (Slotte & Ahlholm), in addition to a variety of named languages, including sign languages (Allard & Wedin) and migrant and national minority languages (Ganuza & Hedman; Straszer). Although most studies utilize an ethnographic framework, they draw upon different methodological approaches in order to carefully analyse translanguaging practices, such as conversation analysis (Slotte & Ahlholm), linguistic landscaping (Straszer), participant observation (Dewilde; Toth & Paulsrud) and interviews (Allard & Wedin; Ganuza & Hedman). Finally, the authors offer critical views on translanguaging in relation to other concepts in the field, such as codeswitching (Jonsson), as well as a consideration of the usefulness of translanguaging in understanding policy on macro levels (Rosén) and micro levels (Rosiers; Toth & Paulsrud). In this final chapter of the book, we wish to briefly consider the contributions that the chapters have added to the growing field of research on translanguaging, including a view of translanguaging beyond the limits of linguistic landscapes dominated by the English language and a critical consideration of how translanguaging is used in educational research. Stemming from the original work in the Welsh context in the 1990s, the work of García has had a major impact on the evolution of the concept of 226

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translanguaging, especially with regard to bilingual education. While García has been a pioneer in the field, her research in schools is firmly placed in the US context. García and Li Wei together offer a broader view of the development of the theory and practice of translanguaging in education, but again the focus is mainly on North American perspectives supplemented by Li Wei’s and Blackledge and Creese’s contributions in the British context. Likewise, the emphasis has tended to be limited to spaces where English is the dominating language and other named languages are present in the environment. With this book, however, the field has been extended to other settings, representing a wide variety of contexts, mainly from different European countries (including Sweden, Norway, Finland, France and Belgium) but also a US context not previously covered extensively in publications (Colorado). As such, a greater range of linguistic spaces is considered, with a variety of majority and minority languages in use in educational situations. These studies of named languages other than English also offer new insights into language hierarchies (Mary & Young), access to language (Rosiers) and identity through language (Allard & Wedin). The extension of the field adds new perspectives to the understanding of the multifaceted field of education in modern society. Both earlier and recent migration trends, and the current sociopolitical debate in European societies in particular, have resulted in an increase in linguistic diversity in school settings. Pedagogical translanguaging offers a theoretical lens to analyze this diversity. Many of the empirical studies in the volume take place in educational settings where more than one named language is actively invited into the educational discourse (Ahlholm & Slotte; Mary & Young; Straszer), but also where the interlocutors have varying access to the linguistic resources of the others (Dewilde; Rosiers; Allard & Wedin). Moreover, they illuminate spaces where the interlocutors cross linguistic boundaries, such as teachers including words or phrases from the linguistic repertoires of the pupils that are not from a named language known to her (Mary & Young), and multilingual teachers offering their monolingual colleagues exposure to minority languages (Straszer). Studies such as these offer new insights for practitioners who may be reluctant to welcome other languages than the dominating language or languages into the classroom. Through an understanding of the potential of including students’ various linguistic resources in learning processes, the valuable and innovative approaches to classroom interaction offer a means to overcome the challenges presented by the current waves of migration across the globe. The chapters in this volume add a new awareness of how teachers and learners can act as agents that develop the practices they are included in, as they accept, resist and perhaps even oppose official norms. The ways in which the deaf student in the chapter by Allard and Wedin claimed social rights to education and future opportunities in his life, and the way the preschool teacher and children in the chapter by Mary and Young resisted

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official dominant-language-only policies show the importance of creating an understanding of power relations related to languaging in education (see also Rosiers; Straszer). Translanguaging then offers a theoretical lens to analyze the complex and intricate practices in which teachers and students are included, and include themselves in, as a way to oppose a categorization of students and classrooms as ‘monolingual’ or ‘bi-/multilingual’. Finally, while the different studies all utilize translanguaging as a theoretical lens to some degree, this does not mean that the researchers use the concept in exactly the same way, or that they are in agreement on all aspects of the concept. Translanguaging puts the focus on language users and on the complexity in communication, but how we as researchers view this may vary. Some similarities and disparities exist in this volume. One example is found in the different views among researchers and practitioners as to how to use ‘pedagogical translanguaging’. According to Ganuza and Hedman, ‘pedagogical translanguaging’ ‘goes beyond translanguaging as it includes how teachers deliberately try to draw on their students’ multiple linguistic resources in pedagogy in order to promote and mediate learning’ (Chapter 13). They argue that the simple presence of languages in a learning situation may not constitute translanguaging, but feel that the use of ‘pedagogical translanguaging’ needs to be reserved for explicit focus on access to content in these learning situations. Other researchers use ‘pedagogical translanguaging’ mainly to describe how students and teachers use their different named languages as resources in all learning practices, although the informants themselves may not use the concept of translanguaging to define what they are doing (Toth & Paulsrud). This highlights just one of the challenges of how we as researchers interact with and investigate teachers and policy makers in our quest to understand translanguaging as a pedagogy.

Research on Translanguaging: Looking Forward Translanguaging allows us to imagine new ways of being in the world in general and in educational settings in particular. More than just a method for education in bilingual settings, translanguaging constitutes a new approach to languaging, learning and identity by shaping our understanding of the fluidity of language practices in diverse settings. The empirical studies here may contribute to the growing field of research on translanguaging in education, offering fresh views on translanguaging as a theory and practice and contributing to the development of an exciting and necessary concept – but there is still work to be done in the evolvement of the concept. For example, while we see as a strength of this volume the presentation of varied educational contexts, we also see the need for more research in others as well, such as studies of newly arrived adult immigrants learning the majority language in their new country and studies of

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family language policies in relation to the linguistic repertoires promoted in schooling. Also, as noted earlier, current migration trends mean that language repertoires intersect in different ways, creating both unique challenges and new possibilities for educators to explore concerning the use of multiple repertoires in the classroom. In order to do this, teacher education needs to be studied and developed to ensure that pre-service and in-service training is available for teachers so that they are equipped to meet the needs of a more linguistically diverse student population. Thus, teacher education needs to address the ways in which the students’ whole linguistic repertoires in classroom discourse may be combined with the majority language(s) of the school. Another area of related research concerns named languages in relation to translanguaging in written discourse in educational settings and in academic language. How may standardized linguistic forms, such as standard British English and Swedish for academic purposes, develop in classrooms where translanguaging is allowed to thrive? Students need to develop advanced reading and writing strategies, and at the same time acquire standardized norms in named languages. Accordingly, future research may also be needed in areas of student performance and assessment.

Final Comments This volume stems from an initial idea to gather researchers and practitioners together to discuss translanguaging, in what we four editors originally envisioned as a small workshop. The interest in this workshop, however, was great and soon we were instead planning an international conference: ‘Translanguaging – Practices, Skills and Pedagogy’. Held in April 2015 at Dalarna University in the small city of Falun, Sweden, this was the first ever international conference devoted to translanguaging, with participants comprising more than 150 researchers from around 20 countries as well as numerous in-service teachers. It became clear that researchers from near and far were interested in the concept and that empirical studies using a translanguaging lens were taking place all over the world. In his presentation of the historical development of the concept, Dr Bryn Jones, a lecturer from Bangor University, Wales, aptly captured the momentum translanguaging is gaining in the field of education, with the metaphor ‘from a little acorn a mighty oak grows’. From the early origins as trawsieithu in Welsh schools to the current explorations of the applications of translanguaging as theory and pedagogy in a wide range of educational contexts, the seed has taken root and is growing strong. The conference was one step in that process and now this volume offers another. New questions and new discussions have arisen – and translanguaging will surely continue to develop as a useful, dynamic concept in our field.

230 New Perspec t ives on Transl anguaging and Educat ion

Acknowledgements The editors wish to thank the following organizations for making both the conference ‘Translanguaging – Practices, Skills and Pedagogy’ (April 2015) and this volume possible: Dalarna University, Stiftelsen Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, and the Dalarna Centre for Educational Development. We are grateful to the conference participants for sharing their rich and varied experiences and knowledge. We extend our warmest thanks to the 13 fantastic authors of the chapters in this volume – especially for their enthusiasm and dedication in a very intense year of writing and revising. Last but not least, we are grateful to Professor Angela Creese for her inspiring support at the conference and with this volume.

Index

Additive bilingualism 30 Affordance 191, 203, 204 Agency (agent) 5, 14, 70, 93, 99–100, 102, 134, 140, 189, 191, 203–204, 227 Attitudes 15, 25, 68–69, 115, 117, 132, 140, 153, 155, 174

Democracy 16, 93 Diaspora 14 Discursive practice 3, 15, 25, 42, 93, 110 Diversity 2, 4, 7–8, 15, 17, 26, 30, 46–47, 56, 64, 149, 152 Double monolingualism norm 26–28, 32, 41 Doubly monolingual 41

Bilingualism 6, 11, 12, 20, 22, 24, 27, 30, 73, 74, 172, 193 Bilingualism norm 21, 27–28, 33, 41 Biliteracy 12, 57, 72, 76, 79–80, 84, 211 Border-crossing 73, 100 Border zones 14 Boundaries 1, 6, 14–15, 21–22, 27, 42, 51, 58–59, 69

Educational policy 2, 51, 72, 150 Emergent bilingual 108, 112, 114, 117 Empowerment 14, 26, 51, 151, 157, 164 English-medium instruction (EMI) 5, 189 Flexible bilingualism 6, 22, 28 Footing 151, 158 Foreign language 1, 38, 47, 50–51, 108–109, 189 Functional multilingual learning 151

Categorization (categorizing) 44, 47, 228 Citizenship 16 CLIL 173 Codemeshing 22 Code-switching 11, 20, 27, 29, 31–33, 73, 172, 210, 218 Common underlying proficiency 12 Communication strategy 8 Communicative ecologies 57 Communicative practice (communicative repertoire) 1, 15, 56, 59, 69, 86, 209, 222 Comprehension 5, 81 Conceptualization (concept) 170, 185 Constraint 190, 204 Content instruction 189, 194 Continua of biliteracy 12, 57 Conversation analysis 153, 175 Cross-contamination 6 Cultural translation 39, 58

Genre 60, 63, 65, 70 Geopolitical space 16 Gestures 92, 96, 172 Globalization (globalized) 16, 23, 43, 64, 70 Grounded theory 152 Hard of hearing 3, 90–91, 96, 105 Heritage 45–47, 51, 76, 144, 215 Heritage language 109, 135 Heterogeneity 1, 26, 149 Heteroglossia (heteroglossic) 6, 20, 29, 30, 34 Hierarchy (hierarchies, hierarchizing) 2, 6, 30, 34, 38–39, 47, 91, 116, 133 Home language 44, 64, 85, 110–111, 113–115, 117–119, 121–122, 124–125, 150, 152–154, 186 Homogeneity 1, 2, 14, 26, 28, 149

Deaf, 3, 40, 50, 90–94, 96–101, 103–105 Decoding 170–171 231

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Homogenizing practices (homogenizing powers) 57, 59 Humanizing pedagogies 73, 76 Hybrid language practice 21, 59 Hybridity 21, 46 Identity (identities) 2, 7, 11, 15, 17, 20, 25, 39, 41–43, 45, 48, 51–52, 57–58, 65, 69, 72–73, 86, 95, 99–100, 102–103, 124, 131, 133–134, 142, 144, 145 Identity position 11 Ideology (ideologies) 1, 4, 5, 14, 15, 17, 20, 25, 26, 27, 29, 34, 39, 41, 52, 69, 125, 129–130, 134, 140, 208 Immersion 109, 173 Indigeneity 1 Integrated bilingualism norm 21, 28, 41 Integrated bilingual practice 29 Interaction (interact, interactional) 4, 7–8, 11, 22, 31, 47, 58, 64–65, 77, 96, 121, 134, 150–151, 155–157, 158, 175, 196, 200–201, 217, 219 Interdependence hypothesis (interdependence) 12, 75, 111 Interpersonal relationships 159, 166 Interpretative approach 32 Interrelationship 41 Involvement strategy 7 Language Act 43, 130 Language awareness 100, 142 Language choice 15, 110, 132, 142, 151, 190, 195, 203, 214 Language deficiency 11 Language ecology (ecologies) 1, 5, 77 Language maintenance 16, 214, 222 Language norms 20, 26, 28, 211 Language planning 40 Language policy 40, 109, 129, 152, 164, 173, 214 Language separation 174, 214–215, 230 Language shift 185 Language support 39, 114 Learner-centered 151 Learning 1, 5–7, 11, 17, 38, 45–48, 50, 52, 57, 72–73, 75–76, 98, 105, 121, 150–151, 166, 170–171, 201–202, 205 Legitimizing (legitimize) 12, 26, 124 Linguistic culture 76 Linguistic diversity 4, 8, 15, 26, 150, 227 Linguistic ethnography (linguistic ethnographic approach) 59–60, 131, 152, 192

Linguistic human rights 14 Linguistic inequality 42 Linguistic landscape (linguistic landscaping) 40, 43, 50, 129, 132–133, 135, 143, 145 Linguistic repertoire (linguistic repertoires) 15–16, 31, 75, 85–86, 104, 111–112, 149–151, 165, 229 Linguistic resources (language resources) 12, 74, 91, 101, 125, 129, 132, 144, 190–191, 204, 227 Linguistic rights 11, 17, 131, 144 Linguistic space 173, 227 Literacy (literacies) 3, 12, 57, 59, 64, 70, 73, 75–77, 82–84, 93, 96, 113–114, 121–122, 124 Literacy practice 2 Majority language 4, 91, 143, 205, 229 Marginalized (marginalization) 102–103, 130, 142 Meaning-making 3, 41, 42, 45, 52, 110, 125, 134, 185 Mediating tool 5, 48, 96, 199 Merging 158 Metalinguistic awareness 5, 80, 184 Migrants (immigrants) 1, 39–40, 57, 90–94, 104–105 Migration 2, 16, 227 Minority 11 Minority language 6, 41, 57, 74, 91, 111–112, 114–115, 129–131, 134, 142–143, 145, 208, 227 Minority language rights 140 Mobility 2, 8, 14, 17, 23, 25, 61, 62 Monocultural 64 Monoglossic ideologies 14, 216, 221 Monolingual approaches 73, 87, 173 Monolingual language practice 30 Monolingual norm 16, 20, 26–27, 32, 38, 41, 130, 172, 212 Monolingual policies 4, 149, 215 Monolingualism 6, 24, 26–28, 30, 38, 74, 164, 173 Monolingualization 40, 41, 51 Mother tongue 5, 41, 44, 488–50, 208, 211–214, 216, 219–222 Mother tongue instruction (MTI, mother tongue tuition, MTT) 2, 26, 44, 48, 52, 208, 210–222 Multicompetence 75 Multicultural 76, 132, 149 Multidiscursivity 219

Inde x

Multilingual 1–3, 5–7, 11–12, 16, 20, 22, 26, 29–31, 34, 38–39, 41–42, 52, 58–59, 64–65, 67, 73, 85–86, 90, 109, 111, 117, 129, 132–134, 136, 148–149, 151, 156–158, 165, 171– 172, 174, 186, 208–210, 214–215, 218–219, 221–222, 226–228 Multilingual languaging 20, 29–30 Multilingual leisure activities 174 Multilingual repertoires 151–152, 164 Multilingual turn 12–13 Multilingualism 3–4, 6, 12, 16, 20, 24, 25, 47, 50, 62, 75, 76, 92, 133, 149, 152–154, 156, 164, 166, 210 Multimodal 23, 90, 133, 140, 172 Multivoicedness 219 Multiple discursive practices 3, 15, 58, 110, 151, 186, 190 Multiple identities 15 Multiple linguistic resource (multiple discursive resource) 38, 73–74, 85, 190, 210 Named languages 47, 75, 190 Narrative 3, 4, 91, 94–97, 99–100, 102–104, 171–172, 175, 177, 179, 181, 183, 185–186 National minority (national minorities) 40, 47, 130–131 Nationalism 14, 42 Negotiation (negotiating) identities 15 Negotiation (negotiating) meaning 21 Normalization 40 Oracy 3, 14, 81, 96 Overlapping language shifts 185 Parallel monolingualism 6, 27, 30, 74, 173, 180, 214 Participation 43, 50, 73, 119, 158, 195 Pedagogy (pedagogies) 1, 6–7, 13, 16, 76, 85–86, 105, 209 Pedagogical translanguaging 165, 209–210, 222 Plurality 46 Plurilingual repertoires 115 Policy (policies) 3–5, 26–27, 38–41, 43–44, 51–52, 57, 72, 86, 109–111, 114–115, 125, 130, 135, 143, 159, 165, 190, 215 Policy maker 16, 149, 228 Policy making 11 Polylingual languaging (polylingual language practice) 22, 24, 29

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Polylingualism (polylingualism norm, polylingual norm) 27, 28, 33, 41–42 Positioning (position) 11, 21, 25, 30, 50, 69, 93–94, 101, 142–145, 151 Postcolonial 14, 42 Post-multilingual (post-multilingualism) 15, 16 Poststructuralist 42 Pre-primary (pre-school) 108–109, 112, 114, 116, 129–132, 135–137, 139–145 Primary education/school 152, 189 Repair 178 Repetition 7, 181, 183–185 Revitalization 16 Safe space 4, 110, 119, 124, 129–130, 134, 140–142 Scaffold, scaffolding 4, 80, 111, 117–118, 120, 148–151, 165–166, 201, 205 Scientific concept 171–172, 176 Semantic coding 171 Semilingualism 214 Separate bilingualism 6, 27 Signacy 3, 14, 96 Sign language (signed language) 41, 49, 90–91, 96, 98–101, 103–104, 138 Social inequality 40 Social justice 11, 14, 16–17, 30, 90–91, 100–103, 105, 108 Social space 6, 39, 56, 58, 69–70, 111, 129–130, 134, 140, 144–145 Socialization (socializing, socialized) 2, 6, 43, 46, 50, 63 Standardization (standardized) 43, 51, 229 Stigmatization 25 Strategy (strategies) 7, 65, 79, 81, 85, 104, 113, 118, 165, 190, 205 Subjectification 2, 43, 51 Subject-specific vocabulary 198 Superdiversity 1, 148, 164 Teaching 1, 6–7, 74, 79, 98, 101, 111, 172, 193, 217 Teacher training 86, 93 Third space 21, 22, 134 Topicalize 180 Transcultural flow 23 Transdisciplinary (trans-disciplinary) 13–14 Transfer theory 75 Transformative 14, 16, 20–21, 26, 30, 34, 38–39, 42–43, 58, 111

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Transformation 16, 42, 46, 57 Translanguaging act 58–59, 63 Translanguaging space (translingual space) 2, 4, 39, 57–59, 63–66, 68–70, 104, 125, 130, 134, 136, 143, 145, 153, 165 Translanguaging strategies 79, 105, 152, 202 Translingual landscape 140 Translingual practice 22 Transliteracy 59, 73 Transnational (transnationalism) 56–59, 64, 68–70, 73

Transnational literacies (transnational literacy practice) 58–59, 69, 73 Trans-contextual network 23 Trans-spaces 13 Trans-subject 13 Turn-taking 151, 159 Upper secondary school 56, 189, 193 Whiteness 76 Zone of proximal development 150