What is Translanguaging in Literature?
What Is Translanguaging in Literature?
“Yo-Yo Boing! or Literature as a Translingual Practice”
[Francisco Moreno-Fernández is a Spanish dialectologist and sociolinguist. He has studied Linguistics, Sociology, and Political Science and holds a PhD in Hispanic Linguistics. He has been Professor of Spanish Language at the University of Alcalá (Spain) since 1996 and he has been Professor of Ibero-American Linguistic, Cultural, and Social Studies at Heidelberg University since September 2019. Francisco Moreno-Fernández holds an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, which was awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and endowed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The following is an excerpt of his essay -Yo Boing!: Or Literature as a Translingual Practice which answers the question: What is Translanguaging in literature?]Yo-Yo Boing!: Or Literature as a Translingual Practice
In her review of Yo-Yo Boing! Jean Franco praises Giannina Braschi’s virtuosity at switching between English and Spanish. In the prologue to the novel, Doris Sommer and Alexandra Vega-Merino distinguish between the use of English, Spanish, and Spanglish, noting that these are the alternating linguistic realities of the narrative. Yet, what if these in fact are not alternations? Spaces of contact may lead to translingual practices where languages constitute a continuous reality, where bilingualism translates into translingualism and languages into translanguage. This is an analytical strategy based on the text itself.
From this standpoint, I propose a thesis that is basically twofold. On the one hand, the work under consideration is a translingual narrative, in its formal essence. On the other, it might be characterized as “liquid” in its content. For the first proposal, I build on the contributions made over the past ten years regarding the notion of “translanguaging,” a concept emerging from the field of learning and language acquisition, but which has expanded to encompass a far greater scope and a far more powerful explanatory capacity. For the interpretation of Yo-Yo Boing! as “liquid” literature, I rely on the hypothesis of the Polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, although I have my own approach to the “liquid” in this par- ticular application. According to Bauman, interpersonal relationships in the contemporary world are no longer rigid, stereotyped, or structured but, rather, flexible, adaptable, multiform, and unpredictable—in other words, liquid.
Why don’t bilingual children react when they are instructed to “translate”? Or why, when we move about in bilingual environments, do we lose consciousness of the language we are reading, or the one we are hearing, or even the one we are speaking (about)?
To understand why processes of this kind occur, resorting to the concept of “bilingualism” does not seem sufficient. This is why since the 1990s, there have been discussions concerning translanguaging, a term that was coined by Cen Williams (applied in Welsh as trawsieithu) in his unpublished thesis titled “An Evaluation of Teaching and Learning Methods in the Context of Bilingual Secondary Education.” However, the actual dissemination and consolidation of the term, and of the re- lated concept, have only gained traction over the past five years, thanks mostly to Ofelia García (García and Wei).
Translanguaging is the process by which multilingual speakers use their languages as an integrated communication system. It is a dynamic process in which multilingual users perform complex social and cognitive activities through the strategic use of multiple semiotic resources in order to act, know, and be. Translanguaging presupposes that, beyond mere linguistic production, the use of the language also involves effective communication, the functions of the language, and the processes of thought. Translanguaging is characterized by the unintentional integration of linguistic systems, becoming an interpretive alternative to the concept of bilingualism, which would be seen more as a “double monolingualism” or as an alternation between languages. From this perspective, the mono/multi and uni/pluri binaries would lead to a reductionist interpretation of communication and competence.
The prefix “trans” denotes that these are fluid practices, which go beyond (i.e., transcend) the systems and structures of socially construct- ed language, thereby involving different meaning-generating systems. Translingual practices have a transforming capacity that affects not only linguistic systems but also the cognition and social structures of the individual. This conception has transdisciplinary consequences, which lead to a reconceptualization of language, language learning, and the use of languages in the fields of linguistics, psychology, sociology, and edu- cation (García and Wei). Translanguaging is manifested in writing, the writing acts of the bilingual individual (Horner, Lu, Royster, and Trim- bur), in literacy studies (cross-cultural literacy, multi-literacy, heterography), in sociolinguistics (multilingualism, fragmented multilingualism), and in applied linguistics (dynamic bilingualism). I propose that these transdisciplinary consequences and this reconceptualization of the use of language also affect literary creation.
The use of the prefix “trans,” on the other hand, situates us on a plane where it is possible to understand or interpret globalization, superdiversi- ty (Vertovec), and globalized contexts, such as those experienced in large cities or among groups of speakers in open connection with multiple in- ternational referents. Hence, theories of translanguaging can be readily linked to Alastair Pennycook’s theories of globalization in his work titled Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows. Pennycook interprets global- ization as a multivocal and diverse phenomenon, in which any analysis cannot be approached from static positions but only through transversal standpoints. This is why he resorts to terms such as “transdisciplinary,” “transcultural,” “transtextual,” “translocal,” or “transidiomatic”; and it is also why he pays special attention to hip-hop as a worldwide phenomenon, as a reference for a transmodal semiotics incorporating music, writ- ing, dress, dance. Pennycook focuses on the local manifestations arising within and as a result of globalization, as a counterpoint that both ex- plains and complements it.
What is translanguaging in literature?
“Francisco Moreno-Fernández uses the concept and practice of translanguaging as a way to enrich understanding of Yo-Yo Boing! The term “translanguaging” identifies how multilingual speakers fluidly exist at the nexus of the integration of different linguistic systems. Moreno-Fernández prefers this to identifiers such as “Spanglish” or “code-switching,” which conceive of multilingual speakers’ use of languages as still distinctively different. Rather, by identifying Braschi’s use of translanguaging to shape Yo-Yo Boing! he explains how it ultimately creates the “liquid and translingual reality” experienced by Latinxs.
Frederick Luis Aldama,
Poets Philosophers Lovers
Examples of Translanguaging Practices
All of this fits perfectly into a translingual paradigm, the characteristics of which have been outlined by Suresh Canagarajah:
- Languages are always in contact and influence each other.
- Speakers treat all available languages as codes of a single repertoire in their daily communication, not as codes separated by labels. Speakers do not have separate competences, but an integrated skill. Languages are not necessarily at war with one another but complement each other in communication.
- Texts and speech form a whole mediated by different codes.
- In context, negotiations are common practices.
- Languages are always open to negotiation and reconstruction. Communicative norms are relocalized.
- Languages are mobile resources that adapt to each purpose.
- Semiotic resources are involved in a physical and social environment, aligned with contextual factors (participants, human body, scenario).
(This is an excerpt from an essay by Francisco Moreno who answers the question: What is translanguaging in literature? Click here to read the full chapter in the book “Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi”.)
Translanguaging Essays
- García, Ofelia, and Jo Anne Kleifgen. “Translanguaging and literacies.” Reading Research Quarterly 55.4 (2020): 553-571.
- Liu, Yang, and Fan Fang. “Translanguaging theory and practice: How stakeholders perceive translanguaging as a practical theory of language.” Relc Journal 53.2 (2022): 391-399.
- Cenoz, Jasone, and Durk Gorter. “Teaching English through pedagogical translanguaging.” World Englishes 39.2 (2020): 300-311.
- Moreno-Fernández, Francisco. “Yo-Yo Boing!.” Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi (2020). On what is translanguaging in literature.
- Cenoz, Jasone, and Durk Gorter. “Teaching English through pedagogical translanguaging.” World Englishes 39.2 (2020): 300-311. On what is translanguaging in literature.
- Spoturno, María Laura. “Reseña: Traducción y literatura translingüe: Voces latinas en Estados Unidos.” Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura 27.2 (2022): 452-457.
- Cantú, Norma. “EL VAIVÉN DE LA VIDA: LOS ESPACIOS FRONTERIZOS DE LA LITERATURA.” Ediciones de Iberoamericana: 17.
- Stanchich, Maritza. Leveling the English Playing. “Bilingual Big Bang.” Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi (2020).