EVENT DETAILS

Toward Pedagogies of Translingual Practice: A Conversation with Suresh Canagarajah on Challenges & Possibilities.

Abstract: The translingual orientation questions the definition of languages as monolithic and self-contained. This emergent orientation treats languages as always in contact and mutually influencing each other. Though this orientation has provided useful insights into the ways in which communication works in the context of migration (Collins et al, 2009), popular culture (Pennycook, 2010), and globalization (Blommaert, 2010), it raises difficult questions for pedagogy. In TESOL and composition, for example, dominant pedagogical approaches focus on normative varieties of English and isolate English from other languages. In this discussion, we will analyze sample texts of multilingual students and scholars to consider how they display a translingual orientation in their literacy and language practices. We will debate whether a translingual pedagogy will facilitate socially empowering and linguistically complex proficiency for multilingual students. After an interactive theoretical introduction, the session will involve a collaborative analysis of a student text to consider its pedagogical value.

Bio: Suresh Canagarajah is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Applied Linguistics and English at Pennsylvania State University. He is a former editor of TESOL Quarterly and President of the American Association of Applied Linguistics. His latest publication Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations (Routledge, 2013) won the Mina Shaughnessy Award from the Modern Language Association and the best book award from the British Association of Applied Linguistics.