Editorial

RELC Journal
2022, Vol. 53(2) 305–312
Translanguaging in Language © The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00336882221114478
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Directions

Fan Fang
Shantou University, People’s Republic of China

Lawrence Jun Zhang

University of Auckland, New Zealand

Pramod K Sah
The Open University, UK

Introduction
The field of applied linguistics and teaching English to speakers of other languages has experi-
enced various reforms in relation to the ontology and epistemology of English language edu-
cation. From the early debate challenging the dichotomy of native and non-native speakers of
English (Liu, 1999) and the development of World Englishes (Kachru, 1992), to the more
recent acceleration of Global Englishes language teaching (Rose and Galloway, 2019) and
multimodal and translanguaging as a theory, method, or approach of language education
(García and Li, 2014; Li, 2022; Li and García, 2022), it seems that English language education
has witnessed more than a ‘multilingual turn’ (May, 2014); it is going through a critical ‘trans-
era’ that recognizes both linguistic and cultural diversity, and views social, cultural, and multi-
modal resources as valuable assets in learning for inclusive education (Dovchin and Lee,
2019). The question still remains regarding whether such native-oriented, fixed, elusive,
impossible but patronizing learning goals should respond to the new sociocultural and psy-
chological considerations and diversity of the landscape of English language education.
Given the complexity of how languages are used in various settings, it is essential that
English be viewed as a global language, with multifaceted linguistic, cultural and multi-
modal practices. The very essentialist view of English language learning and teaching,
which embodies the native-speakerism ideology, regards native-speaker ‘standard’

Corresponding author:
Fan Fang, Shantou University, 243 Daxue Road, College of Liberal Arts, Shantou 515063, People’s Republic of
China.
Email: [email protected]
306 RELC Journal 53(2)

English as the ultimate goal and learners’ first languages (L1s) and multilingual and
multimodal practices as linguistic deficits (c.f. Fang and Liu, 2020; Holliday, 2006;
Lippi-Green, 2012). As the English language has spread across the world as a global lan-
guage, non-native speakers of English have come to outnumber its native speakers, which
leads scholars, educators and policy-makers to rethink English language education, espe-
cially to re-consider the ways English is taught and assessed and placed within the entire
curriculum in schools. The sociolinguistic nature of English has recognized the linguistic
diversity of communication through the use of English as a global language. It is natural
that people incorporate their various linguistic, multimodal, multisemiotic resources in
communication where ‘native-speaker norms’ are no longer viewed as the panacea; in
fact, they can even be challenged through the ‘playfulness’ of language use (Li, 2018).
At the sociolinguistic level and from the perspective of English for international commu-
nication, English should thus not be viewed as the property of native speakers (Jenkins,
2007; Seidlhofer, 2011), as the focus of education has consequently been moving from
the traditional, monolingual perspective towards multi/translingualism (Cenoz and
Gorter, 2019; May, 2014). Ironically, in some parts of the world, the majority of
English as a foreign language (EFL) students and teachers still prefer native-speaker
models, despite them not being able to really speak like native speakers of, for
example, British or North American English in terms of the pronunciation and intonation
that they attempt to master (see e.g., Zhang, 2004). This is a time for all of us to be
reminded of the possibility that the ‘trans-era’ urges traditional second language acquisi-
tion to move beyond the restricted ‘native norms’ in English learning but instead focus on
the realistic language use for dynamic needs and goals of language learners, and for com-
munication in situ where people adopt various multimodal and semiotic resources.
From the perspective of multilingualism or Global Englishes language teaching (Rose
and Galloway, 2019), translanguaging in relation to practice and pedagogy has gained
attention because it recognizes both teachers’ and learners’ linguistic resources and cul-
tural capital (Bourdieu, 1991; García and Li, 2014). The adoption of translanguaging
inside and outside education settings has been explored, as by Cenoz (2017), in peda-
gogical translanguaging and spontaneous translanguaging. While translanguaging as
a theory and a pedagogical and linguistic tool has drawn attention (Cenoz and Gorter,
2019; Fang and Liu, 2020; Li, 2018), the effectiveness of implementing such a tool in
language learning and language use requires more exploration (Liu et al., 2020; Wang
and Curdt-Christiansen, 2019). This issue has prompted both established and emergent
scholars on translanguaging or translingual/multilingual education to explore both lan-
guage use in classrooms and social settings, to view the effectiveness of the translangua-
ging strategy in language/content learning and further to promote a decolonizing
pedagogy by recognizing learners’ linguistic repertoire as a whole, as well as to adopt
a translanguaging perspective to promote inclusiveness of language use and equity.
This special issue of RELC Journal intends to address several issues:

• How can the adoption of pedagogical translanguaging facilitate language and content learn-
ing? What are the challenges regarding the use of translanguaging in academic settings?
• What are stakeholders’ perceptions of the use of translanguaging in both academic and non-
academic settings?
• How can the adoption of translanguaging promote inclusive education and a decolonizing
pedagogy?
Editorial 307

Translanguaging to Facilitate Learning

Translanguaging has been applied in classroom settings to empower learning, regardless
of pedagogical translanguaging where teachers carefully plan the language used for
teaching, or spontaneous translanguaging, where stakeholders are able to maximize
their linguistic repertoire for language and content learning. The various translanguaging
strategies are adopted to challenge the monolingual ideology. From the theoretical per-
spective, for instance, in this special issue, Cenoz and Gorter (2022) described peda-
gogical translanguaging and its application for language classes. With the focus on
activating students’ multilingual and multimodal repertoires, pedagogical translangua-
ging plays a key role in facilitating learning. In particular, both strong and weak forms
of pedagogical translanguaging were introduced for different purposes of teaching.
There is also a misconception that translanguaging simply refers to the inclusion of
learners’ L1s in learning, and that translanguaging is adopted mainly for language acqui-
sition. This misconception has been challenged by Sohn et al. (2022), where they argued
for the need and incorporation of translanguaging pedagogy with more critical content
and language integrated learning (CLIL). With the recognition of translanguaging in
CLIL, some traditional notions, such as ‘English-only’, ‘target-language-only peda-
gogies’ and ‘native-(English-) speakerism’ are challenged for more inclusive CLIL pro-
grammes. In a thematic review, Liu and Fang (2022) traced the development of
translanguaging from the perspective of multilingualism, with a specific focus on stake-
holders’ attitudes towards the implementation of translanguaging in foreign language
classroom settings. It is found that stakeholders generally hold positive attitudes
towards translanguaging practices in various English language teaching (ELT) contexts.
This review hence calls attention to the importance of re-examining the significance of
translanguaging in ELT practices and concludes with relevant pedagogical implications.
Again, the challenge to monolingual ideology is not new in the field of applied linguis-
tics or ELT, but many proposals seem to be offered to pay lip service. To highlight the
benefits of translanguaging in learning, some empirical findings regarding how trans-
languaging can be adopted to facilitate learning are shown in studies in this special
issue. First, Sun and Zhang (2022) explored the effects of translanguaging in online
peer feedback for enhancing English writing performance. Their findings showed that
the adoption of translanguaging for online peer feedback was more effective, compared
with English-only online peer feedback, at least in the first round of the experiment, while
this was not shown in the second or third round. Interestingly, other factors, such as motiv-
ation, agency, self-efficacy and translanguaging awareness were also discussed to further
understand the effectiveness of translanguaging in order to facilitate learning. Another
study by Jiang et al. (2022) investigated Chinese university students’ perceptions of trans-
languaging in order to understand some predictive effects of factors contributing to trans-
languaging practices in language teaching and learning. Their one-way analysis of
variance of the data revealed that non-English major freshmen were more accepting of
their teachers’ and peers’ use of translanguaging compared to their English major counter-
parts. Their results of multiple regression analysis further showed that the amount of
teacher translanguaging and student attitudes to translanguaging explained a significant quan-
tity of the variance in the amount of student translanguaging.
It seems that the effectiveness of translanguaging has been discussed and proven in the
contexts of the studies in this special issue. However, we also need to understand that the
308 RELC Journal 53(2)

process and results in terms of how translanguaging could facilitate learning is compli-
cated. Cenoz and Gorter (2022) also mentioned some challenges of pedagogical trans-
languaging in practice because language teachers may perceive them differently. Apart
from various attitudes from the teachers, the struggle of applying translanguaging in lan-
guage teaching and learning is also related to various policy initiatives, and the imple-
mentation of translanguaging should be understood with due consideration of
institutional policies and national or state policies regarding the medium of instruction,
such as English as a medium of instruction (EMI), to further unravel the complexity of
translanguaging as a pedagogical strategy in relation to its effectiveness in application
(Fang and Liu, 2020; Paulsrud et al., 2021; Sah and Kubota, 2022).

Translanguaging for Inclusive Education and as a Decolonizing

Pedagogy
Apart from facilitating language or CLIL, another recurrent theme of the adoption of trans-
languaging is to empower the unfairly treated individuals for a more equitable and inclusive
education, and further promote a decolonizing pedagogy. First, the implementation of trans-
languaging for inclusive education needs the professional development of the key stake-
holders: teachers, to raise their awareness of the benefits of translanguaging and their role
in creating dialogues with other stakeholders; and students and parents, for example, as
active agents to challenge native speakerism during the education process. Cinaglia and
De Costa (2022) emphasized the need for cultivating critical translingual awareness
among teachers, whose main role is that of teacher educators. They draw on three elements
of Seltzer’s critical translingual approach – personal stance, political stance, and pedagogical
stance – for teacher educators to help teachers readdress the complexity of language from
their own personal teaching experiences, the broader power and ideology connecting to
systems of power, and thus return to classrooms ‘to recognize and leverage students’
entire repertoires of communicative resources’ (Cinaglia and De Costa 2022: 456).
‘Not a first language but one repertoire’, Li and García (2022) in this issue respond to
the misunderstanding that translanguaging is simply viewed as the recognition of stu-
dents’ L1s. They challenged the ‘name languages’ in understanding the concept of trans-
languaging and shared two stories of bilingual students in London and New York, to
further elaborate how the translanguaging lens would challenge the raciolinguistic ideolo-
gies and recognize students’ full repertoire to facilitate learning as a decolonizing project.
Readers will find it thought-provoking that the two teachers represented in Li and García
(2022) viewed some new understandings and started to incorporate students’ multilingual
resources and regarded them as legitimate learners. Li and García summarized at the end
of their paper that it is important for teachers to recognize the difference between process
and product if they want to incorporate translanguaging into their teaching as ‘a top pri-
ority in decolonizing education in the 21st century’ (Li and García, 2022: 322). Another
piece of empirical evidence can be found in Tian et al.’s (2022) collaborative efforts. As
a team of teacher educators, researchers and students, they worked together to promote
educational equity during the teaching and researching cycles. Despite hardships, the
authors shared some lessons they learned from this journey, and provided valuable
stories and resources for teachers, researchers and students who want to know more
about translanguaging.
Editorial 309

Teacher agency through translanguaging was also reported in Phyak et al.’s (2022)
ethnographic study in Nepal. Different from Li and García’s (2022) cases where teachers
did not raise the awareness of translanguaging in education, Phyak et al.’s data showed
how teachers resisted the official English-only monolingual ideology and incorporated
students’ L1s in classroom activities to facilitate teaching and learning. We learned
that the role teacher transformative agency played in empowering students to invest
their language abilities in learning. The story shown in this paper well responded to
Cinaglia and De Costa’s (2022) argument as regards the need for cultivating critical trans-
lingual awareness among teachers. Clearly, teacher agency plays a key role because the
teachers in Phyak et al.’s (2022) study were self-empowered before empowering their stu-
dents through the adoption of translanguaging strategies to facilitate teaching and
learning.
Another issue regarding translanguaging and assessment is that translanguaging is
often regarded as challenging and as a result becomes an insufficiently researched area
of the topic. Steele et al. (2022) presented a picture of Australian aboriginal students,
who were able to adopt their various linguistic resources, dialects and repertoires for
various purposes in their daily lives, may be disadvantaged regarding their language
use, particularly in terms of assessment. The authors concluded with the need to
embrace students with aboriginal backgrounds in assessment practices. While the experi-
ences of Australian aboriginal students only present a case in point, the idea of trans-
languaging may allow other unfairly treated individuals or groups to be treated more
fairly.
Zhang’s (2022) interview with Suresh Canagarajah adds clarity on the various issues
relating to translingual practices and translanguaging in domains beyond daily life. This
is particularly the case with regard to writing in English as an additional language in aca-
demic contexts. Readers will find in Canagarajah’s personal experiences and histories
what translingual practices can do and in what ways they impact English learners’ and
users’ personal and professional lives, especially in working towards social justice and
equity.
We are grateful that this special issue also features a technology review by Zheng and
Peng (2022) , who introduced the ELAN (EUDICO Linguistic Annotator) software to
analyse multimodal aspects of translanguaging. The special issue also features three
book reviews with books dealing with ‘translanguaging in EFL contexts’, ‘translangua-
ging in multilingual English classrooms’ and ‘translanguaging and EMI’.

Conclusion
Contributions to this special issue addressed various issues regarding translanguaging
and language education from educational and social aspects. The topic of translanguaging
itself is not ideologically free – we hope that readers will view all the contributions of this
issue from a critical perspective to unpack the concept of translanguaging as a practical
theory of language (Li, 2018), or even translanguaging as method (Li, 2022), to under-
stand the benefits/effectiveness/challenges of translanguaging for educational contexts
(Bonacina-Pugh et al., 2021; Fang and Liu, 2020; Ho and Tai, 2021), as well as to
promote social justice through the use of language (García and Leiva, 2013; Li, 2022).
Readers may also ponder: Is the use of translanguaging most effective in learning, or
is the adoption of translanguaging a must in education or daily language use? To make
310 RELC Journal 53(2)

it more specific, we also want to make it clear that translanguaging could not and should
not be imposed as a language policy or set of social practices. It is a natural phenomenon
of language performance. Empirical evidence has shown the effectiveness of translangua-
ging in this issue and beyond; still, the social, psychological and emotional level of how
translanguaging would facilitate learning needs to be further tackled. Translanguaging
should also be understood as more than a pedagogical, methodological, or theoretical per-
spective but a political and decolonizing stance (Giroux, 2022; Li, 2022). This special
issue has addressed the importance of translanguaging to facilitate learning, as well as
a key concept to promote inclusive education and a decolonizing pedagogy, particularly
for those unfairly treated individuals, to promote social justice and linguistic equality. Of
course, we acknowledge that it is a huge task to deal with the concept of translanguaging
in different contexts: for example, through both pedagogical translanguaging and spon-
taneous translanguaging, and translanguaging for education and translanguaging to
promote social justice.
As guest editors, we express our gratitude to the RELC Journal editorial team that has
given us such a valuable opportunity to showcase all the important works in this special
issue. We hope that the discussion and debate on translanguaging through this platform
will enable the advancement of the field of applied linguistics and language education to
the ‘trans-turn’ and to move the field forward for an equitable orientation in language edu-
cation for different stakeholders.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

ORCID iDs
Fan Fang https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4210-9042
Lawrence Jun Zhang https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1025-1746
Pramod K Sah https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6200-8898

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