Translanguaging: Ofelia García in interview

Professor García (r) and members of the Language on the Move team during ISB14

The concept of translanguaging has been gaining increasing popularity but, at the same time, continues to confuse students, teachers, and researchers. In this interview, Professor Emerita Ofelia García, a key proponent of translanguaging, explains what it is all about.

Professor García answers four main questions:

1. What is translanguaging?
2. How is translanguaging different from codeswitching?
3. What are the pedagogical implications of translanguaging?
4. How can we engage those who are uncomfortable with translanguaging because to them it distracts from the objective of ensuring that language learners learn languages as proficiently as they can for full social and economic participation in society?

I conducted the interview on the sidelines of the International Symposium on Bilingualism, where Professor García delivered a keynote talk on Studying bilinguals and their education: A translanguaging-informed critique of research.

The inspiring and compelling keynote left me with many questions based on my own experience as a scholar and a multilingual, who has been seeing the ways I move in and out of the multiple languages in my repertoire through the lens of codeswitching (Lising et al., 2020).

I hope you will find the 20-minute interview helpful in your quest to understand the complex ways in which multilinguals navigate their diverse linguistic repertoires.

Reference

Lising, L., Peters, P., & Smith, A. (2020). Code-switching in online academic discourse: Resources for Philippine English. English World-Wide, 41(2), 131-161.