Home Linguistics & Semiotics Clarifying the relationship between translingual practice and L2 writing: addressing learner identities
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Clarifying the relationship between translingual practice and L2 writing: addressing learner identities

  • Suresh Canagarajah

    Suresh Canagarajah is Erle Sparks Professor of Applied Linguistics and English at Penn State University. He teaches courses on Global Englishes, Language Socialization, and Academic Writing. He is currently doing research on how social networks, space, and objects mediate the language competence of international STEM scholars.

    EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: October 27, 2015

Abstract

This article re-examines the distinction between native and nonnative students that writing programs adopt in structuring their courses. It critiques the monolingual orientation based on ideologies of language ownership, homogeneity, and territoriality that this distinction is based on and develops a more expansive translingual orientation relevant to diversity in globalization and multilingualism. After articulating the changes involved in facilitating literacy acquisition, it examines the uptake of writing scholars to address their concerns. The article ends by illustrating how policy level changes can be made to accommodate the emerging orientations of translingualism by discussing how New York State secondary school teachers have implemented the Common Core State Standards.

About the author

Suresh Canagarajah

Suresh Canagarajah is Erle Sparks Professor of Applied Linguistics and English at Penn State University. He teaches courses on Global Englishes, Language Socialization, and Academic Writing. He is currently doing research on how social networks, space, and objects mediate the language competence of international STEM scholars.

References

Agha, Asif. 2003. The social life of cultural value. Language and Communication 23. 231–273.10.1017/CBO9780511618284.006Search in Google Scholar

Amicucci, Ann & Tracy Lassiter. 2014. Multimodal concept drawings: Engaging EAL learners in brainstorming about course terms. TESOL Journal 5(3). 523–531.10.1002/tesj.161Search in Google Scholar

Application of Common Core State Standards for English Language Learners. http://corestandards.org/assets/application-for-english-learners.pdf (accessed 1 December 2014).Search in Google Scholar

Atkinson, Dwight, Deborah Cruson, Paul Kei Matsuda, Christina Ortmeier-Hooper, Todd Ruecker, Steve Simpson & Christine Tardy. 2015. Clarifying the relationship between L2 writing and translingual writing: An open letter to writing studies editors and organization leaders. College English 77(4). 383–386.10.58680/ce201526924Search in Google Scholar

Auerbach, Elsa. 1994. Participatory action research. TESOL Quarterly 28. 693–697.10.2307/3587204Search in Google Scholar

Baca, Damian. 2009. Rethinking composition, five hundred years later. Journal of Advanced Composition 29. 229–242.Search in Google Scholar

Bizzell, Patricia. 2014. Toward “transcultural literacy” at a Liberal Arts college. In Bruce Horner & Karen Kopelson (eds.), Reworking English in rhetoric and composition: Global interrogations, local interventions, 131–149. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.Search in Google Scholar

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Search in Google Scholar

Canagarajah, Suresh. 2013a. Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. Print.10.4324/9780203073889Search in Google Scholar

Canagarajah, Suresh. 2013b. Negotiating translingual literacy: An enactment. Research in the Teaching of English 48(1). 40–67.10.58680/rte201324158Search in Google Scholar

Canagarajah, Suresh. 2013c. Reconstructing heritage language: Resolving dilemmas in language maintenance for Sri Lankan Tamil migrants. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2013(222). 131–155.10.1515/ijsl-2013-0035Search in Google Scholar

Canagarajah, Suresh. 2014. ESL composition as a literate art of the contact zone. In Deborah Coxwell-Teague & Ronald Lunsford (eds.), First-year composition: From theory to practice, 27–48. Anderson, SC: Parlor.Search in Google Scholar

Canagarajah, Suresh & Ena Lee. 2014. Negotiating alternative discourses in academic writing: Risks with hybridity. In Lucia Thesen & Linda Cooper (eds.), Risk in academic writing: Postgraduate students, their teachers and the making of knowledge, 59–99. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781783091065-007Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin and use. New York: Praeger.Search in Google Scholar

Cook, Vivian. 1991. The poverty-of-the-stimulus argument and multi-competence. Second Language Research 7. 103–117.10.1177/026765839100700203Search in Google Scholar

Common Core State Standards Initiative. http://www.corestandards.org/other-resources/key-shifts-in-english-language-arts/ (accessed 1 December 2014).Search in Google Scholar

Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_en.pdf#page=3 (accessed 1 December 2014).Search in Google Scholar

Cummins, Jim. 2008. Teaching for transfer: Challenging the two solitudes assumption in bilingual education. In Jim Cummins & Nancy Hornberger (eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education, vol. 5, 65–75. Boston: Springer.Search in Google Scholar

Davidson, Catherine & David Goldberg. 2004. Engaging the humanities. Profession 2004. 42–62.10.1632/074069504X26386Search in Google Scholar

Fennell, Barbara. 2001. A history of English: A sociolinguistic approach. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Ferris, Dana. 2014. Review: ‘English Only’ and multilingualism in composition studies: Policy, philosophy, and practice. College English 77(1). 73–83.10.58680/ce201426074Search in Google Scholar

Ferris, Dana & John Hedgcock. 2015. Teaching L2 composition: Purpose, process, and practice. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Flores, Nelson. 2013. The unexamined relationship between neoliberalism and plurilingualism: A cautionary tale. TESOL Quarerly 47(3). 500–520.10.1002/tesq.114Search in Google Scholar

Flores, Nelson & Jamie Schissel. 2014. Dynamic bilingualism as the norm: Envisioning a heteroglossic approach to standards-based reform. TESOL Quarterly 48(3). 454–479.10.1002/tesq.182Search in Google Scholar

Garcia, Ofelia. 2009. Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Grosjean, Francois. 1989. Neurolinguists, beware! The bilingual is not two monolinguals in one person. Brain and Language 36. 3–15.10.1016/0093-934X(89)90048-5Search in Google Scholar

Gutierrez, Kris. 2008. Developing a sociocritical literacy in the third space. Reading Research Quarterly 43(2). 148–164.10.1598/RRQ.43.2.3Search in Google Scholar

Harklau, Linda. 2000. From the ‘Good Kids’ to the ‘Worst’: Representations of English language learners across educational settings. TESOL Quarterly 34(1). 35–67.10.2307/3588096Search in Google Scholar

Hartwell, Patrick. 1985. Grammar, grammars, and the teaching of grammar. College English 47(2). 105–27.10.2307/376562Search in Google Scholar

Heller, Monica. 1999. Linguistic minorities and modernity: A sociolinguistic ethnography. London: Longman.Search in Google Scholar

Holliday, Adrian & Pamela Aboshiha. 2009. The denial of ideology in perceptions of ‘Nonnative Speaker’ teachers. TESOL Quarterly 43(4). 669–689.10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00191.xSearch in Google Scholar

Hopper, Paul. 1987. Emergent grammar. Berkeley Linguistics Society 13, 139–157.10.3765/bls.v13i0.1834Search in Google Scholar

Hornberger, Nancy & David Johnson. 2007. Slicing the onion ethnographically: Layers and spaces in multilingual language education policy and practice. TESOL Quarterly 41(3). 509–532.10.1002/j.1545-7249.2007.tb00083.xSearch in Google Scholar

Horner, Bruce, Min-zhan Lu, Jaqueline Jones Royster & John Trimbur. 2010. Opinion: Language difference in writing: Toward a translingual approach. College English 73(3). 303–321.10.58680/ce201113403Search in Google Scholar

Jain, Rashi. 2014. Global Englishes, translinguistic identities, and translingual practices in a Community College ESL classroom: A practitioner researcher reports. TESOL Journal 5(3). 490–522.10.1002/tesj.155Search in Google Scholar

Jay, Paul. 2001. Beyond discipline? Globalization and the future of English. PMLA 116(1). 32–47.10.1632/pmla.2001.116.1.32Search in Google Scholar

Jordan, Jay. 2012. Redesigning composition for multilingual realities. Urbana: CCCC/NCTE.Search in Google Scholar

Khubchandani, Lackman. 1997. Revisualizing boundaries: A plurilingual ethos. New Delhi: Sage.Search in Google Scholar

Krall-Lanoue, Aimee. 2013. “And yes I’m venting, but hey I’m writing isn’t I?”: A translingual approach to error in a multilingual context. In Suresh Canagarajah (ed.), Literacy as translingual practice, 47–56. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Kubota, Ryuko. 2014. The multi/plural turn, postcolonial theory, and neoliberal multiculturalism. Applied Linguistics 35(3). 1–22.Search in Google Scholar

Lantolf, Jim & Stephen Thorne. 2006. Sociocultural theory and the sociogenesis of second language development. New York: OUP, 2006. Print.Search in Google Scholar

Lee, Melissa. 2014. Shifting to the World Englishes paradigm by way of the translingual approach: Code-Meshing as a necessary means of transforming composition pedagogy. TESOL Journal 5(2). 312–329.10.1002/tesj.121Search in Google Scholar

Leitch, Vincent B.2000. Postmodern interdisciplinarity. Profession 2000. 124–131.10.1525/9780520922686-008Search in Google Scholar

Liu, Lydia. 1995. Translingual practice: Literature, national culture, and translated modernity – China, 1900–1937. Stanford: Stanford University Press.10.1515/9781503615755Search in Google Scholar

Lu, Min-zhan. 1994. Professing multiculturalism: The politics of style in the contact zone. College Composition and Communication 45(4). 442–458.10.2307/358759Search in Google Scholar

Lu, Min-zhan. 2009. Metaphors matter: Transcultural literacy. Journal of Advanced Composition 29. 285–294.Search in Google Scholar

Lu, Min-zhan & Bruce Horner. 2013. Translingual literacy, language difference, and matters of agency. College English 75(6). 582–607.Search in Google Scholar

Lyons, Scott. 2009. The fine art of fencing: Nationalism, hybridity, and the search for a Native American writing pedagogy. Journal of Advanced Composition 29. 77–106.Search in Google Scholar

Makoni, Sinfree. 2002. From misinvention to disinvention: An approach to multilingualism. In Geneva Smitherman, Aruthur Spear & Arenetha Ball (eds.), Black linguistics: Language, society and politics in Africa and the Americas, 132–153. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Mao, Lu Ming. 2013. Redefining indigenous rhetoric. In Suresh Canagarajah (ed.), Literacy as translingual practice, 47–56. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Marshall, Steve & Danièle Moore. 2013. 2B or not 2B plurilingual? Navigating languages, literacies, and plurilingual competence in postsecondary education in Canada. TESOL Quarterly 47(3). 472–499.10.1002/tesq.111Search in Google Scholar

Matsuda, Paul Kei. 2014. The lure of translingual writing. PMLA 129(3). 478–483.10.1632/pmla.2014.129.3.478Search in Google Scholar

Morita, Naoko. 2004. Negotiating participation and identity in second language academic communities. TESOL Quarterly 38(4). 573–603.10.2307/3588281Search in Google Scholar

Motha, Suhanthie & Angel Lin. 2014. “Non-coercive rearrangements”: Theorizing desire in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly 48(2). 331–359.10.1002/tesq.126Search in Google Scholar

New York State Bilingual Common Core Initiative. https://www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-bilingual-common-core-initiative (accessed 1 December 2014).Search in Google Scholar

Ortmeier-Hooper, Christina. 2008. English may be my second language, but I’m not “ESL.” College Composition and Communication 59(3). 389–419.Search in Google Scholar

Pratt, Mary Louise. 1991. Arts of the contact zone. Profession 1991. 33–40.10.1016/0950-5849(91)90158-8Search in Google Scholar

Rampton, Ben. 1990. Displacing the “Native Speaker”: Expertise, affiliation, and inheritance. ELT Journal 44. 97–101.10.1093/eltj/44.2.97Search in Google Scholar

Ruecker, Todd. 2014. “Here they do this, there they do that.” College Composition and Communication 66(1). 91–119.Search in Google Scholar

Sayer, Peter. 2013. Translanguaging, TexMex, and bilingual pedagogy: Emergent bilinguals learning through the vernacular. TESOL Quarterly 47(1). 63–88.10.1002/tesq.53Search in Google Scholar

Sohan, Vanessa Kramer. 2009. Working English(es) as rhetoric(s) of disruption. Journal of Advanced Composition 29(1–2). 270–275.Search in Google Scholar

Swales, John. 1990. Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: CUP.Search in Google Scholar

Tardy, Christine. 2011. Enacting and transforming local language policies. College Composition and Communication 62(4). 634–661.10.58680/ccc201115874Search in Google Scholar

Taylor, Shelley. 2009. Paving the way to a more multilingual TESOL. TESOL Quarterly 43(2). 309–313.10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00169.xSearch in Google Scholar

Toohey, Kelleen. 1998. “Breaking them up, taking them away”: ESL students in grade 1. TESOL Quarterly 32(1). 61–84.10.2307/3587902Search in Google Scholar

Trimbur, John. 2010. Linguistic memory and the uneasy settlement of US English. In Bruce Horner, Min-zhan Lu & Paul Kei Matsuda (eds.), Cross-language relations in composition, 21–41. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Search in Google Scholar


Note

I am referring to “L2 writing” as a pedagogical activity in the title. The article problematizes the separation of L2 in writing practice.


Published Online: 2015-10-27
Published in Print: 2015-11-1

©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton

Downloaded on 31.12.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/applirev-2015-0020/html
Scroll to top button