Translanguaging as an everyday practice

Citation

Creese A (2017) Translanguaging as an everyday practice. In: Paulsrud B, Rosén J, Straszer B & Wedin Å (eds.) New Perspectives on Translanguaging and Education. Bilingual Education & Bilingualism, 108. Bristol: Channel View Publications, pp. 1-9. https://doi.org/10.21832/PAULSR7814

Abstract
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 summarise 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.

Journal
New Perspectives on Translanguaging and Education