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 Garcia 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.

Ofelia Garcia is Professor in the Ph.D. programs of Urban Education and of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA. She is the Associate General Editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language.

Li Wei is Pro-Vice-Master of Birkbeck College, University of London, UK, where he is Chair of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Birkbeck Graduate Research School. He is Academician of Social Sciences, and Chair of the General & Applied Linguistics, UK, and is Principal Editor of the International Journal of Bilingualism.