Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education

The emergence over the last 10 years of the analytic concept, ’Translanguaging’, has had a forceful impact on the field of Applied Linguistics. This book addresses how it has contributed to our understandings of language, bilingualism and education. Ofelia García and Li Wei trace the development of the theory of Translanguaging and consider its relationship with traditional theories and models of language and bilingualism. Based on practices by students and teachers in a variety of educational contexts, this book describes how Translanguaging is used by bilingual learners to learn and by teachers to teach. Ultimately, the book affirms the transformative nature of Translanguaging; it involves the act of languaging between and beyond systems that have previously been described as separate, and in so doing, new meanings emerge and new understandings are generated, transforming not only semiotic systems and speaker subjectivities, but also social structures.