Translanguaging – Educational Sociolinguistics

Interesting Translanguaging Phenomena

Shuhang Li

What is translanguaging?

Translanguaging is the act performed by bilinguals of accessing different linguistic features from their unique repertoire in order to maximize communicative potential. It’s also 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 (García,2009). Everyone has his own unique language, that is, personal idioms. No two people’s personal idioms are the same. The following are two examples of super language practice.
Example 1: Chinglish

Smilence 笑而不语= smile + silence, referring to the stereotypical Chinese reaction of smiling without saying anything.

Democrazy 痴心妄想 = democracy + crazy; mocking the so-called demo- cratic systems of the west and in some parts of Asia where certain legis- lations such as the ownership of firearms can be protected due to political lobbying and, in the case of Taiwan, parliamentarians get into physical fights over disagreements. The occurrence of the word was prominent after the news of Trump’s victory in the US presidential election broke.

You can you up, no can no BВ, meaning ‘If you have the ability then you do it. If you don’t have the ability, then say nothing.’, which is a translation of你行你上啊,不行别逼逼。

To interpret these expressions, we must understand the social and political context behind them, the history of Chinglish, the subjectivity of the Chinese people, and the ideology they challenge.
Example 2: Examples of Chinese Dialogue in Singapore

Seetoh: Aiyoh (discourse particle), we are all<aki nang> 自己人 = own people, meaning ‘friends’), bian khe khi (免客气 = don’t mention it). Ren lai jiu hao (ЛЖ = good of you to come), why bring so many ‘barang barang’ (‘things’). Paiseh (歹劳= I’m embarrassed). ‘Nei chan hai yau sum’ (你真有心= you are so considerate).

Jamie: Don’t say until like that. Now, you make me malu (‘shame’) only. You

look after my daughter for so many years, mei you gong lao ye you ku lao (没有功劳也有苦劳= you have done hard work even if you don’t want а prize). I feel so bad that I could not come earlier. ‘Mm hou yi si’ (不好意思 = I’m embarrassed). I was so shocked to hear about Seetoh, tsou lang ham ham (做人 ham ham -meaning life is unpre- dictable), jie ai shun bian. (节哀顺变= hope you will restrain your grief and go along with the changes)

Bold: Hokkien

In square brackets < > : Teochew

Underlined: Mandarin

In double quotation marks: Malay

In single quotation marks: Cantonese

Italics: Singlish

Sometimes people confuse the concepts of supralinguistic practice and code-switching. From the above examples, it is true that the two people switched between Hakka, Chaoshan, Putonghua, Malay, Cantonese, English, and Singaporean English, but such consideration is not very meaningful. Code-switching presupposes that monolingual mode is the default mode, and then people need to switch back to monolingual mode, but this presupposition does not apply to multilingual communities. The boundary between languages is dynamic and fluid.

Where did the practice of interlanguage come from?
The English translation of translingual practice is translated from Welsh trawsieithu to describe such a teaching practice: teachers teach in Welsh and students respond in English. Such a teaching practice can change the power relationship between teachers and students, and focus on meaning-giving and identity-building in the teaching process.
The concept of language practice is borrowed from Humberto Mathurana and Francesco Varela, Chilean biologists and neuroscientists, who emphasized that language should not be regarded as an established fact or finished product, but as a process that is constantly being shaped. Language practice refers to the coordinated combination of various physical, physiological, semantic, and cognitive attributes and abilities by language practitioners. The uniqueness of this way of looking at language practice is reflected in the following three aspects: first, it makes us regard language as a process; Secondly, it makes us realize that the distinction between linguistic, paralinguistic, and non-linguistic in language practice is meaningless. What is important is feeling, experience, history, memory, subjectivity, and culture; Third, language learners do not acquire a language but adjust their bodies and brains to adapt to the language practice around them.

What does the practice of translanguaging emphasize?
The addition of trans to language is not only to better summarize the dynamic and mobile practice of multilingual but also to illustrate the following two points: first, multilingual do not think in a monolingual system under the political definition; Second, human thinking needs to use a series of different cognitive, semantic and modal resources, not limited to traditional reading and writing.
Trans in the practice of translanguaging emphasizes its three characteristics:
First, transcend, that is, supralinguistic practice is a flowing practice, which transcends the language system and structure constructed by society.
Second, transformative, that is, supralinguistic practice can not only change the language system but also change personal cognition and social structure.
Third, translinguistic practice, that is, translinguistic practice, can bring a new understanding of language, language learning, and language use to different disciplines such as linguistics, psychology, sociology, and pedagogy.

Question: What is your biggest difficulty in understanding translanguaging? If these examples appear in your English teaching, how can you help your students understand them?

Reference:
Li, W.(2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39 (1), 9-30.

García, O. (2009). Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective
Malden, MA; Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Expressions in different languages and how to translate them into other languages

Post by Rebecca Lin

The other day I was chatting with my roommate in the kitchen, and he started preparing a tofu dish. Shortly after he finished cooking, another roommate of mine asked him, “can I eat your tofu?”
Upon hearing that, my Chinese roommate and I started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” asked my roommates who don’t understand Chinese.
“Well,” I took a deep breath and held my urge to laugh. “In Mandarin, if you say to another person, especially of another gender, ‘Can I eat your tofu? (我可以吃你的豆腐嗎？wǒ kě yǐ chī nǐ de dòu fǔ má?)’ it means, ‘Can I flirt with you’ or ‘Can I touch you inappropriately’?, it usually has a sexual implication….” I couldn’t finish my sentence, it was too funny for me to explain this, especially to my non-Mandarin speaking roommates.
After my explanation, my roommates suddenly realized why we were laughing. They then asked, “so how are we supposed to ask for another person’s tofu dish without sounding creepy?”

“Well, usually in Mandarin, we would specify the way that the tofu was prepared, for exampled, deep-fried, stir-fry, boil, etc. So the way to not sound inappropriate would be ‘May I try that stir-fry tofu?’ Also, not adding a possessive pronouns would also remove the suggestive meaning, since the expression ‘eat someone’s tofu’, the tofu here would refer to a person’s body, therefore, not specifying whose dish is it would be the perfect way to express your desire to try to dish itself.”

I found it fascinating that a simple phrase about tofu could start a conversation that lasted about 20 minutes. It reminded me of another expression “eat vinegar (吃醋 chī cù)”, which implies jealousy. If you say someone is eating vinegar in Mandarin, it means that this person is jealous, and it usually involves being jealous because the target person is ignoring him/her for someone else. It made me wonder, where did this expression originate?
This tale dates back to the Tang dynasty, when the emperor himself gifted a favoured prime minister with a beautiful young concubine. The jealous wife of the prime minister was well-known for her meddling and henpecking ways. She threatened to drink poison to commit suicide rather than submit to the emperor’s will. This moved the emperor, but he also wanted to test her commitment to her husband. Therefore, he forced the wife’s hand by giving her a vial of poison and threatening her with death if she did not accept the concubine. She consumed the vial without hesitation, only to discover that it contained vinegar. Since then, vinegar consumption has come to symbolize jealousy and envy.

In some cases, like the example of my conversations with my roommates, these kinds of expression could be somehow translated into another language. However, in most cases, these phrases would be extremely hard to translate, and it usually would not make any sense to others who don’t speak the target language. This reminds me that even when certain words are translated, they don’t convey the original meaning perfectly either. Below are some examples of what a Native Chinese Speaker (NCS) and a Native English Speaker (NES) would say, according to Jiang (2000):

Steam bread vs. Hamburger
Noodles vs. Pasta
Jiaozi vs. Dumplings
Congee vs. Porridge
Rice vs. Risotto

As you can see, when certain words are being translated, sometimes it would be altered to something similar but not exactly identical due to localization purposes. Therefore, it would be interesting to observe how certain expression in your first language could be translated into another language.

Jiang, W. (2000). The relationship between culture and language. ELT journal, 54(4), 328-334.

Translanguaging: K-pop’s Magic Formula

Sam Lyn

After our group’s presentation in class many of you asked me about Korean pop music (K-pop) and its translanguaging trend, so I decided to gather some thoughts on this subject and put it in this month’s blog.

Trudgill (1997) posits that “Anyone with an interest in… rock and pop songs will have observed that there are ‘rules’ concerning the way in which the words of these songs are pronounced. The label ‘tendencies’ might be more appropriate than ‘rules’…, but… it is clear that singers… employ different accents when singing from when they are speaking, and that deviations from their spoken accents are of a particular and relatively constrained type” (p. 251). Although Trudgill is talking about British pop, the same observation applies to K-pop. Not only do K-pop singers alter their accents, the secret formula of recent success of Korean pop music is in the translanguaging we find in K-pop lyrics.

The formula is simply as follows: English words at key positions inside mostly Korean lyrics. The “key” positions are the first few words, repeating portions of the chorus, beginning and the ends or rap interludes, and the song endings. What this does is it creates a communicative link with the audiences which may or may not speak Korean, and especially non-Korean listeners can hum in at the key sections of the song without needing to understand the rest of the lyrics which are in Korean.

Consider the following lyrics by Aespa for their recent hit, “Girls:”

Oh my gosh!
Don’t you know I’m a savage?

I’m a killa 너를 깰, æ
아직도 가리고 환각을 펼친 너
팰라, we holler
두렵지 않아 너, 너, hit you harder

날 밀어 넣어, deep fake on me
준비가 안된 무대로, 몰아넣어, fake on me
Got everybody mock up to me
수치를 느끼게 멘탈을 흔들어놔
싸늘한 관중 무너져, æ (ooh)
더는 널 못 참아, say no (yeah, yeah)

두고 봐, 난 좀 savage
너의 dirty 한 play, 더는 두고 볼 수 없어
나를 무너뜨리고 싶은
네 환각들이 점점 너를 구축할 이유가 돼

I’m a savage, 널 부셔 깨 줄게, oh
I’m a savage, 널 짓밟아 줄게, oh

Get me, get me now, get me, get me now (zu, zu, zu, zu)
지금 나를 잡아 아님 난 더 savage (zu, zu, zu, zu)
Get me, get me now, get me, get me now (zu, zu, zu, zu)
이젠 내가 너를 잡아, now I’m a savage

(Complete lyrics for the song are found here: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/aespa/savage.html )

The video is highly recommended as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPdWvnAAurg

As you can see, the “formula of success” is fully implemented: first words, chorus, sentence endings, repetitions, etc. are all in English.

Of course, there is more than the language formula to Aespa’s success. The band championed the story – a narrative running through all the texts of their songs – about a parallel world found on the Internet, where all our personal activities create our AI avatars. These avatars gain consciousness of their own as a result of our virtual activities, and they try to communicate with us from their world. However, our negative actions also produce an evil AI called Black Mamba – the nemesis of our avatars who wants to thwart them away from a relationship with us… What a story! You can watch the video introducing this metanarrative here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbH4Lk5wYWg

Another important fact is that one of the band members is Chinese, and another one a Korean raised in Japan. This openness of K-pop bands to international members provides the fans around the world a new incentive: when I was in Korea as an exchange student, it was not uncommon to meet international students who aspired to stardom in K-pop industry.

But let’s return back to the lyrics. Upon careful observation one can discover that the English parts are far from being grammatically perfect. Consider, for example, a refrain from another Aespa’s hit, “Dreams Come True:”

You make it feel me good
Do you wanna upside down?
You make it feel me good
Don’t you wanna up and down?
I’m in twilight zone

(Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H69tJmsgd9I)

Hah? You make it feel me good? I know… I had the same reaction! Hahaha
Despite the flops in grammaticality the songs are immensely popular among East Asian audiences, and now in the West, too. Perhaps, the pidgin-like quality adds a special charm to the songs?

The sociolinguistic effects extend from simple appreciation into the classrooms: Korean classes are immensely popular these days. Before the Korean Wave, university Korean programs struggled to match the popularity of Chinese and Japanese programs. Not anymore! For instance, Korean courses at McGill are full. Certainly, popularity of Korean pop culture extends beyond music into TV series, movies, fashion, etc. But in my opinion, it is this translanguaging quality of K-pop that draws new fans in by feeding them its welcoming lingua franca chunks. The next stage of fandom then becomes the motivation to learn Korean and to dive deeper into the story. What do you think? Did you recently have an aesthetic experience with Korean music? Did it draw you in? Are you on your way to your next Korean class? Or applying for an exchange at a Korean university?

Finally, consider doing the following exercise: watch this new Aespa’s videoclip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYRITmpFbJ4

Do you feel the success formula working its magic inside your mind? Do grammatical mistakes turn you off? What else do you notice?

References

Trudgill, P. (1997). Acts of Conflicting Identity: The Sociolinguistics of British Pop-song Pronunciation. In: Coupland, N., Jaworski, A. (eds). Sociolinguistics. Modern Linguistics Series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25582-5_21

Translanguaging pedagogy in second language teaching

Jundong Ma

Translanguaging can refer to a pedagogical process of utilizing more than one language within a classroom lesson or it can be used to describe the way bilinguals use their linguistic resources to make sense of and interact with the world around them. The term “translanguaging” was coined in the 1980s by Cen Williams in his unpublished thesis titled “An Evaluation of Teaching and Learning Methods in the Context of Bilingual Secondary Education.” Williams used the term to describe the practice of using two languages in the same lesson, which differed from many previous methods of bilingual education that tried to separate languages by class, time, or day. More information about translanguaging can be seen in this video:

There are many advantages to using translanguaging pedagogy. First of all, the goal of including translanguaging as an aspect of second-language acquisition pedagogy is to move beyond sentence-level and grammatical concerns in second-language teaching strategies and to focus more heavily on discourse issues and on the rhetoric of communication. Students should be focused on the real applications of language that suit their purposes of communication based on the context in which they are communicating, rather than a one-variety-fits-all mode of learning the language. Reinforcing only English in academic situations is disadvantageous for students since students will ultimately encounter many varied communicative contexts, and as society becomes more digitally advanced, many of those communicative contexts will be transnational.

Apart from this, students will always reference what they already know from their first language when working with a second language. This helps students process the information and improve communication in their second language. Take me as an example, my mother tongue is Chinese, when I tried to learn Japanese, translanguaing is of great help to me. Since Chinese and Japanese share many similarities in vocabulary, like 手纸vs手紙，人间vs人間，翻译vs 翻訳, I can use my L1 knowledge to better understand my L2 language. As a result of using this translanguaging pedagogy, I become one of the best Japanese learners in school.

Question:

Are there any teaching strategies can teachers use to better facilitate translanguaing pedagogy?

References:

Wei, L. (2017). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9–30. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amx039

Creating a Translingual Classroom: Is It Effective?

Shelly

Traditionally, educational systems have been monolingual, and in the language of the elite (Lewis 1976). According to Van Herk (2018), it is easier to “introduce multilingual education in societies where multilingualism is the norm” (p. 180). In this case, translanguaging can be considered as a way into ESL/EFL teaching and learning to support students in making metalinguistic connections and in leveraging all of their content and linguistic knowledge.

What is a translingual classroom?

Let’s have a look at what translingualism is. Translingualism means users gain meaning through their relations to other modes, particularly those drawn from popular culture (Pennycook 2007; Sultana, Dovchin &Pennycook 2015). Translingual pedagogy is by nature a hybrid practice, recontextualizing students’ translanguaging experiences to accomplish new goals using a hybrid set of routines and resources (David, Pacheco, & Jiménez, 2019).

Why do we create a translingual classroom?

As an ESL learner and teacher, I am wondering if it is more important to teach a standard accent or help students express themselves clearly and explicitly when learning a new language. From my perspective, comprehensibility plays a more crucial role than accent. Especially in some Asian countries, under the exam-oriented education system, teachers and students pay more attention to getting higher scores than using the language in their daily life. In this sense, students may suffer from awkward silences when they communicate with others. Therefore, it is necessary to change the mindset and welcome the translingual approach in a language classroom.

To begin with, it can support students as they engage with and comprehend complex content and texts. Next, it provides more opportunities for students to develop linguistic practices for academic contexts. Moreover, it can make space for students’ bilingualism and bilingual ways of knowing and support their socio-emotional development and bilingual identities.

How do we create a translingual classroom?

First, based on my experience, free talk at the beginning of the class is a great way to integrate the translingual approach and help students learn some new words, phrases, and expressions. Especially during the pandemic, online classes make it harder to build relationships with each other. Through this communication, students could have a chance to talk and learn the practical English they really need in daily life.

Second, we could encourage students to use their linguistic repertoire to communicate in class and emphasize both languages in a positive light. Creating a safe and comfortable language learning environment fosters all students, regardless of their native language. The video below shows how the ESL teachers use the translanguaging pedagogy in his multilingual learning class.

Moreover, we could also try to integrate multimedia in the ESL and EFL classrooms and find more appropriate songs with multiple languages to help students use their linguistic repertoire and enjoy the learning process. In my summer teaching, I tried song activities, which worked quite well, and students were highly motivated. Moreover, we could also have music and digital resources in multiple languages in the classroom, it will give all students the opportunity to build upon their native language and learn a second language. If possible, you could also use bilingual digital content that shows two languages side-by-side to help students make the connection between their native language and the second language.

However, some people argue that using their first language in an English class may affect students’ communicative competence in the target language and they may rely on their first language too much unconsciously. In this sense, language teachers may take more responsibility and give clear instructions in order to better practice the target language.

Questions:

1Do you think it is feasible to use translanguaging in ESL/EFL classrooms？

2 Have you experienced or used translanguaging pedagogy in the classroom?

References：

David, S. S., Pacheco, M. B., & Jiménez, R. T. (2019). Designing translingual pedagogies: Exploring pedagogical translation through a classroom teaching experiment. Cognition and Instruction, 37(2), 252-275.

Dovchin, S., Sultana, S., & Pennycook, A. (2015). Relocalizing the translingual practices of young adults in Mongolia and Bangladesh. Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts, 1(1), 4-26.

Lewis, G. (1976). “Bilingualism and bilingual education: The ancient world to the Renaissance.” In Bilingual Education: An International Sociological Perspective, ed., J. A. Fishman, 150–200. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Pennycook, A. (2007). Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows. London: Routledge.

Van Herk, G. (2018). What is sociolinguistics? (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.

Translanguaging for linguistic equality

By Anonymous

For the week where we read about linguistic differences between age groups and generations, we did an activity in class where we talked to a partner about the way we used to speak when we were teenagers. In this activity I talked to my partner who happens to speak Spanish as a first language about how people in my age group used to use Spanish words and phrases, because we thought it made us look cool or funny. Sometimes the Spanish words and phrases were real and sometimes they were not. Then the more I thought about it the more I realized that many age groups in the United States do this, not just teenagers, and it is very common in the popular media. Towards the end of the semester when I was trying to figure out my topic for my final project I was talking to Professor Sarkar about this aforementioned linguistic phenomena, and she told me it’s called mock Spanish and referred me to a good article by Jane Hill (1998) that explains why this is linguistic racism.

This article was enlightening. I learned of a term I had never previously heard of before: linguistic appropriation. This happens when hispanophones who speak Spanglish in public are called impolite, harsh English-only policies are created to restrict their language use, and their accents are criticized whether they truly have a Spanish accent or not, while simultaneously anglophones borrow from Spanish, speak with heavy accents, and carelessly use the language incorrectly without reproach. It is clearly a case of linguistic inequality, in addition to making a mockery of the language and culture and trivializing hispanophones’ contributions to American culture (Hill, 1998).

Is Translanguaging an Ideal Method to Use in an ESL or FSL classroom?

Posted by Cheryl Lingjuan Yan （Post #3)

Translanguaging has had a forceful impact on the field of Applied Linguistics. It also has contributed greatly to our understandings of language, bilingualism and education (Garcia & Wei, 2013). Translanguaging is such a powerful method of language teaching, that it has been applied widely into a great number of ESL or FSL classrooms by language teachers. It reminds me of how a second language classroom is like in China. Learning English is mandatory in the Chinese Education system starting from the 3rd grade in elementary school through college. As a Chinese student, I acquired English as a second language since 9 years old. I remember when I was learning English, teachers did the code-switching all the time. Of course he/she would speak English in class in order to make us get more English exposure, but the good part is he/she would switch back to Mandarin as long as we had something hard to understand. English, to many L2 learners in China, represents a better future, more job opportunities and higher living standard. Therefore, people in China really have a strong motivation in learning it. Doubtlessly, it is not only in China, thanks to English’s dominant stance in in almost all facets in our society, such as politics, economy, education, etc. L2 English users continue and will continue to grow, far exceeding the the number of native English speakers.

Continue reading “Is Translanguaging an Ideal Method to Use in an ESL or FSL classroom?”

Translanguaging: the answer to the multilingual classroom?

Yuting Zhao:

“In a multilingual classroom, students not only bring their different languages to the classroom, but they bring their families as well”. After the class, these words have continued to resonate in my mind. I have a feeling that this sentence is meaningful in education but I was a little confused why students can bring their family to the classroom. Now I have an answer. I think the sentence means that students’ knowledge are shaped by their families, community, and cultural histories. Teachers are supposed to build on students’ diverse family-shaped knowledge (including language) to conduct their teaching practice. This understanding makes me realize that translanguaging may be a better answer to a multilingual classroom. To support this idea, I also want to share my former experience both as a teacher and a student.

Continue reading “Translanguaging: the answer to the multilingual classroom?”