translanguaging

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Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics
ISSN 2209-0959

https://journals.castledown-publishers.com/ajal/

Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3 (1), 42-59 (2020)

https://doi.org/10.29140/ajal.v3n1.299

Translanguaging as Transmediation:
Embodied critical literacy engagements in a

French-English bilingual classroom

SUNNY MAN CHU LAU a

a Bishop’s University, Canada
[email protected]

Abstract

Translanguaging theory highlights linguistic and semiotic resources as an integrated communicative

repertoire for knowledge construction (Li, 2018). Language is learned and used in conjunction with

other modalities through processes of resemiotization (Iedema, 2003) or transmediation (Suhor, 1984)

where meaning is made and remade across modes. Through this translanguaging lens, dynamic

integration of languages with expressive arts helps mobilize embodied resources, whether cognitive,

sensory, or affective, for alternate avenues of knowing and awareness, an aspect much neglected in

traditional critical literacy approaches focusing heavily on rational ideological critique (Janks, 2002).

A trans-systemic approach also facilities second language learners’ full agentive participation as their

multilingual and multisensory resources are valorized for complex learning often considered beyond

their abilities. This article describes a university-school participatory action research study in a Quebec

elementary classroom, where the English Language Arts and French Second Language teachers,

through coordinated translanguaging pedagogy (Gort & Sembiante, 2015), facilitated critical bilingual

learning while providing respective language models. The children were engaged in a yearlong inquiry

into the issue of refugees, through discussing stories of migration and interviewing with refugee-

background students in both languages while engaging in visual arts for deepened understanding and

embodied reflections. Students responded positively to the coordinated bilingual engagements and

multisensory approaches to critical literacy, which afforded an aesthetic experience that fostered

reflexivity and civic empathy (Mirra, 2018). The study points to the affordances of translanguaging in

critical education, underscoring how embodied multilingual engagements allow students to be affected

and to affect (Ahmed, 2010) others.

Keywords: translanguaging, trans-semiotization, transmediation, critical literacy, empathy, critical

aesthetics, refugees, French second language, English language arts, bilingual education

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Lau: Translanguaging as transmediation 43

Introduction

Translanguaging highlights an interconnected use of languages and other semiotic resources for

communication and knowledge construction. Everyday communicative practices involve processes of

resemiotization (Iedema, 2003) or transmediation (Suhor, 1984), whereby one discourse or semiotic

resource is transformed into another mode or a mixture of modes in time and space, mobilizing and

rendering new ways of knowing, being and acting. Translanguaging pedagogy hence values the

dynamic integration of languages, including the languages of arts (e.g., painting, dance, or drama) for

creative and critical bi/multilingual and pluriliterate learning (García, Bartlett, & Kleifgen, 2009).

Translanguaging and/or transmediation of embodied semiotic resources, be it linguistic, visual or aural,

gestural, etc. help disrupt the traditional logo- and verbo-centric notion of critical literacy (Janks, 2002)

that privileges rational textual critique over aesthetic or emotional engagements (Misson & Morgan,

2006). Such a trans-systemic approach challenges most deficit-oriented second language classrooms

where critical literacy and/or expressive arts are often considered beyond language learners’ abilities.

Elaborating on a university-school participatory research study, this article showcases the use of

coordinated translanguaging pedagogy (Gort & Sembiante, 2015) in an English-French bilingual

classroom whereby the two language teachers collaborated flexibly and creatively to provide target

language models while crafting a translanguaging space (Li, 2018) for multidirectional, pluriliterate

meaning-making possibilities. Engaging children in a yearlong inquiry into the issue of refugees, the

teachers of this multiage class (Grade 4-6) read and discussed related literature in both languages while

integrating visual arts to deepen understanding. Results showed teachers’ trans-systemic approach to

critical bi-literacies extended and expanded students’ understanding of refugees’ issues such as human

rights, discrimination, resilience, and hope. Particularly, these embodied multimodal engagements

helped open up creative and aesthetic spaces for students to be affected and to affect (Ahmed, 2010)

others through their expressive arts, affording an alternative avenue of critical awareness and

engagement that deepened reflexivity and civic empathy.

Theoretical Frameworks

Translanguaging as Re-semiotization and Transmediation

Translanguaging theory recognizes languages as fluid, hybrid ecologies in individuals and

communities characterized by their mutual polydirectional interconnections and interdependence

(Cook, 2002, 2012; García, 2009). Languages, rather than being bounded, segregated or complete in

bi/multilingual individuals and communities, are constantly evolving and developing as people

language (Swain, 2006) and trans-language features and structures from different languages they learn,

adapt, use in creative and functional ways across their life trajectories. Li (2018) draws on ecological

psychology in his recent theorization of translanguaging as a practical theory of language, highlighting

particularly Thibault’s (2017) view of languaging as “an assemblage of diverse material, biological,

semiotic and cognitive properties and capacities which languaging agents orchestrate in real-time and

across a diversity of timescales” (p. 82). Thibault’s view (2011) extends social constructivism to

include ecological, biological, and material dimensions to understanding language behaviors as a

whole-body, intersubjective sense-making process that is “materially embodied,

culturally/ecologically embedded, naturalistically grounded, affect-based, dialogically coordinated,

and socially enacted” (p. 211). This ecological view of language reconciles psycholinguistics and

sociolinguistics to offer a more complex and integrated understanding of language as involving neural,

affective and sociocultural engagements while underscoring the multimodal and multisensory nature

of communication. Language cannot be processed independent of the auditory or gestural, spatial,

visual or other non-linguistic systems; communication is always enacted through an ensemble of

Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3(1)

44

multiple semiotic systems. This latest articulation of translanguaging theory transcends traditional

boundaries between linguistic and non-linguistic systems (Li, 2018), treating all languages and other

semiotic resources as an organic whole as individuals employ and deploy available cognitive and

bodily semiotic resources (of which language is one) to perform communicative acts and identities.

This ecological and multimodal view of language theorized by scholars in social semiotics theory

(Jewitt, 2008; Jewitt, Kress, Ogborn, & Tsatsarelis, 2001; Kress, 2009) has been widely adopted by

researchers and educators in literacy classrooms. As early as the 1990s, literacy scholars have been

advocating for engagements with expressive arts to deepen and expand children’s understanding (e.g.,

Dyson, 1988; Eisner, 1978, 2003; Hoyt, 1992; Leland & Harste, 1994). The term transmediation was

first coined by Suhor (1984, p. 250) to refer to the process of translating content from one system to

another, allowing generation of new meanings and more complex understandings. Language is taken

to mean “the language of art, of music, and more” (Harste, Short, & Burke, 1988, p. 56); altogether as

sign systems, these languages help mediate and make sense of the world around us. Pictures or

drawings allow the expression of images and feelings that often precede words, hence visual

representations can further assist students’ understanding of the world (Elkind, 1988). Sketch to Stretch

(Harste et al., 1988) has been widely used to foster students’ personal connections and interpretation

of texts and social worlds, strengthening the reading and writing connections, especially for those

whose language, culture and life experience are beyond the mainstream (Gallas, 1991).

According to Mills (2011), the term transmediation gradually diminished in its use when

Multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000) and social semiotics theory gained more currency in literacy

education. More recently, terms such as transduction (Kress, 1997) or resemiotization (Iedema, 2001,

2003) refer to the remaking of meaning across modes. Retracing these origins allows us not only to

pay tribute to past literacy research work but also to understand how concepts intersect, crisscross and

build on each other. Translanguaging is not new in the sense that it too draws on social semiotics theory

and Multiliteracies to challenge the artificial boundaries imposed on various semiotic systems.

However, positioning itself from the marginal, the in-between and the borderlands (Flores, 2014;

García & Leiva, 2014), translanguaging theory and pedagogy help advance a political agenda to

advocate for the political and education rights of marginalized languages and bodies, disrupting not

only segregation between modalities but also that between majoritized and minoritized languages. It

recentres minoritized sociolinguistic practices and identities as crucial to knowledge construction and

performance. While the use of expressive arts and Multiliteracies are widely accepted pedagogies in

literacy classrooms, it is often not the case in second or foreign language classrooms, particularly those

in non-English majority contexts where teaching and learning of discrete and decontextualized

language features still prevail. Expressive arts are often devalued in those classrooms and might only

be considered relevant for more advanced learners. Promoting the importance of creative employment

and deployment of resources across semiotic boundaries, translanguaging pedagogy can potentially

close the traditional divide between pedagogy in literacy classrooms and that in second or foreign

language classrooms. Some leading scholars in Second Language Acquisition (The Douglas Fir Group,

2016) have recently put forward a transdisciplinary framework for additional language education

across material and digital multilingual contexts, urging for its reconfiguration within learners’ social-

local worlds to involve neurological, cognitive, sociocultural, and socioemotional dimensions at all

levels: micro (individual), meso (institutional), and macro (ideological structures). The fundamental

principles of this transdisciplinary framework dovetail neatly with those of translanguaging.

Affective Embodied Learning for Critical Literacy – Aesthetics and Affect

Recognizing the cognitive, sociocultural, socioemotional, and ideological aspects of language and

learning opens up new possibilities for critical engagements in additional language classrooms. The

Lau: Translanguaging as transmediation 45

affective turn (Clough, 2007) in literary and cultural studies has sparked a renewed interest in the role

of emotion in language education, apart from the cognitive-oriented concepts of anxiety, motivation

and self-confidence (cf. Krashen, 1982). Critical literacy education traditionally tends to privilege

logo- and verbo-centric approaches (Janks, 2002; Johnson & Vasudevan, 2012), prioritizing students’

cognitive abilities to dissect and deconstruct texts for ideological critique. This rational

deconstructionist approach reinforces the mind-body dichotomy, relegating critical inquiry to mere

intellectual exercise (Keddie, 2008).

Rosenblatt’s (1982) theorization of reading as a process along a continuum of efferent and aesthetic

stances reminds us of the importance of aesthetic experience in critical reading. As we read, past

experiences, sensations, and feelings are evoked and lived through in the process. Aesthetic response,

however, is not a simplistic reflection of the reader’s private pleasures or emotions existing in a cultural

or social vacuum; rather it is often charged with one’s social and political values and concerns (Cai,

2008; Lewis, 2000). When viewed fully in its “personal, social, cultural matrix” (Rosenblatt, 1985, p.

103-4), one’s aesthetic response can serve as a starting point for criticism and ideological explorations,

rather than the end of the reading process. This idea of emotions as the point of departure for critical

engagement is well argued by poststructuralist and feminist scholars who theorize emotions as visceral

bodily sensations that shape and are shaped by sociopolitical relations and worldviews (Ahmed, 2010;

Benesch, 2012; Misson & Morgan, 2006). As Ahmed elaborates, “To be affected by something is to

evaluate that thing. Evaluation expressed in how bodies turn toward things. To give value to things is

to shape what is near us” (p. 31). Critical education puts great emphasis on students’ criticality and

reflexivity through which they actively and constantly seek to engage with and question different

perspectives and to evaluate and examine our own critical practices (Freire, 1970). Holmes (2010)

argues that critical reflections are fundamentally “emotional, embodied and cognitive” processes (p.

140) of individuals who seek to understand and feel about their lives in relation to others and the

environment. In the same vein, Gallagher (2016), drawing on Ahmed’s conceptualization of affect,

posits that “our ability to act in the world is inherently relational, as the outcome of both affect and

reason by means of the imagination” [original emphasis] (p. 84). To imagine is to go beyond where we

are, to engage in dialogue with “a critical other” (Bleazby, 2012, p. 102), just as we do in communal

inquiry with empathetic understanding of the others’ perspectives. Relations with and feelings about

others are hence central in one’s critical, reflexive practices. This brings us to the importance of

empathy in critical literacy education–its goal is to promote not only students’ comprehension of texts

but also their empathy and emotional capacity to relate to people and community with a sense of

agency and efficacy to act within it (Mirra, 2018). Empathy refers to the ability to “imaginatively

embod[y] the lives of our fellow citizens while keeping in mind the social forces that differentiate our

experiences as we make decisions about our shared pubic future” (p.7). Rather than a mere popular

feel-good gesture of seeking to establish a “nicer” and more understanding society, empathy is

conceptualized within the broader sociopolitical constructs and power relations, or what Mirra calls

critical civic empathy—it propels us to examine and recognize how our own social privilege or

marginalization influences our interpretation of others’ experience, and to seek ways to promote

democratic dialogue and civic action for equity and justice (p.7).

Visual arts, like other forms of expressive arts, provide a “material-discursive tool” (Murris &

Thompson, 2016, p. 2) for meaning-making. As the material properties of each medium influence how

a concept is expressed, felt and experienced, the transformation from one to the next generates new

meanings, raised awareness, and enhanced understanding. Arts affords what Matthews (1991) calls

somatic knowing: “an experiential knowing that involves sense, percept, and mind/body—whole

organism–action and reaction–a knowing, feeling and acting that is independent of distancing,

disembodying, discursive conceptualization” (p. 89). Mallan (1999) argues that aesthetic engagements

might seem to run counter to the tenets of critical literacy, yet visuals often stimulate interest and

Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3(1)

46

prompt inquiry which may result in intellectual, emotional and personal shifts. Artistic representations,

he explains, give a sense of the real, recasting experience in a different light, thus providing means for

discussion, reflection and action (p. 201).

Context and Methodology

The project adopted a participatory action research (PAR) model to seek dialogic inquiry through

university-school collaboration, with researchers working and thinking together with practitioners and

inquiring into educational theories and practices of concern and interest to both parties. PAR aims to

disrupt the university-school and research-practice dichotomies to foster bi-directional flow of

knowledge between academe and the classroom (Duckworth, 2005; Paugh, 2004).

The teacher participants were two elementary teachers – English Language Arts (ELA) and French

Second Language (FSL) – who shared a multiage classroom (Grades 4-6) with 43 students. Mrs. Smith

and Madame Desbiens were experienced ELA and FSL teachers. They firmly believed in language

and literacy education as a conduit for fostering critical readers, writers and actors. Both were

conversant in the other’s language (not academic writing) and both adopted a dynamic, integrated view

toward bilingualism. They had previously tried out some ways to connect the FSL and English

curricula but not in a systematic manner. Eager to learn more about translanguaging and explore how

a coordinated use of both English and French might facilitate social justice education, the two teachers

participated in this university-school participatory/collaborative action research project. The project

first started as pilot study, which then evolved into a two-year research partnership when we obtained

government funding. The research study aimed to explore the educational potential of cross -curricular

and -language connections, seeking to answer these questions: 1) In what ways do the FSL and ELA

teachers collaborate?, and 2) How does their collaboration facilitate students’ complex bi-literacies

and critical learning?

The school was located in a small town, which originated as an anglophone community but has now

become a mix of both anglophones and francophones. The majority of the children were white and

most (61%) came from families with both anglophone parents. A quarter of the class indicated use of

both languages with either parents (23%), while a small portion used French only with both parents

(16%). Close to two-thirds felt comfortable with reading (n=33) and writing (n=30) in English while

7 found themselves equally confident in reading and writing in both languages. Only 3 felt strong in

French reading and 6 in French writing. As an active participant-observer, I made class visits, taking

detailed field notes and videotaping class interactions and activities (36 hours in total). Using

purposeful sampling (Creswell, 2015), based on the teachers’ initial assessment, three students of

different language proficiencies (2 girls and one boy) were invited for case studies and in-depth focus

group interviews (pre, during and post; 30 minutes each) about their opinions on translanguaging

approaches and their learning on social topics. Two teacher interviews (pre and post; 45 minutes each)

were conducted to collect opinions on student progress and implementation of translanguaging

pedagogy. Our bi-monthly research meetings allowed us to plan and evaluate our collaborative action

research cycles, discussing ongoing data to build and refine interpretations to co-develop emerging

curricular foci and strategies aimed to meet the students’ learning needs. Work samples of the nine

focal students together with the other data sets helped triangulate our analysis and interpretation of the

different literacy events.

Recursive process of qualitative analyses included the use of descriptive codes in the first cycle coding

(Saldaña, 2013) to establish the basic topic of data segments, then in vivo and emotion codings to

capture the students’ and teachers’ voices and gain insight into their felt experiences in class. In the

second cycle coding, data were clustered and reconfigured in an iterative manner to generate patterns

on which the narrative description of the findings were based.

Lau: Translanguaging as transmediation 47

Process and Findings

In response to increasing newcomers to our town, a yearlong theme on Refugees and Immigrants was

chosen at the beginning of the school year. Unbeknown to us, the issue of refugees and migrants would

become an international crisis by the fall, when the effects of the Syrian civil war resulted in the biggest

displacement of people in the world’s history. We hence recentred our focus on the refugees’ experience

aimed to promote: an understanding of the personal and sociopolitical circumstances that force people

to leave their countries; an awareness of related social and ethical issues (e.g., human rights,

discrimination, resilience, and hope); and an empathetic understanding towards social challenges faced

by refugees.

We started with Four Feet, Two Sandals (K. L. Williams & Mohammed, 2007), an illustrated picture

book about how a friendship between two pre-teen girls in a refugee camp in Pakistan is forged over

the sharing of a pair of sandals, each getting to wear the pair for a day. Our original plan was to follow

our previous practice to read alternately English and French storybooks on the chosen theme, with

French texts at a lower language level to meet the students’ needs. We found it relatively difficult to

find an appropriate French text in terms of content and language level, so after Four Feet, the teachers

used a UNHCR video titled To be a Refugee (Foster, 2010, March 11) to generate French discussions

based on English content. The video, featuring interviews with children and teenagers fleeing their

countries for different environmental, sociopolitical and economic reasons facilitated a better

understanding of the lived realities faced by refugees. We reached out to my university’s Refugee

Sponsorship Committee, a post-secondary college as well as a French elementary school to invite their

students and/or young adults with refugee backgrounds to share their life stories with the children. We

obtained ethical consent from the refugee-background students/adults to be “interviewed” by the

school children. To prepare for the literacy activity, the class brainstormed and formulated interview

questions in both languages. Most spoke English and/or French as their third or fourth language. After

each interview, the children discussed the lived experiences shared by the visitors, based on which

they wrote a report similar to a reading response. The life stories of the refugee-background students

offered complex and authentic texts for the children to collaboratively explore issues such as world

sociopolitical conditions, human rights, discrimination, resilience, and so on. The class also read other

texts about migration, for example, Brothers in Hope (M. Williams, 2005) and The Arrival (Tan,

2007)—a wordless picture book used for French discussion, to continue recursive inquiry into the

varied refugee experiences. Towards the year end, the teachers engaged the class in a drama project,

including playwriting and performance, recreating the story of a refugee family’s journey leading to

their resettlement in Canada. Given the expansive nature of the project, this paper focuses mainly on

the bilingual inquiry process, particularly the use of the two languages as well as the children’s

drawings to promote reflexive and empathetic understanding of refugees’ experiences.

To answer Research Question 1, I focused the analysis on the process of cross-curricular and cross-

language collaborations. Below are some key translanguaging practices that disrupted linguistic and

non-linguistic boundaries:

Coordinated Collaborative Translanguaging between English and French

The teacher-led translanguaging practices were mostly coordinated and collaborative, meaning they

both adhered to their respective language when leading class discussions and posing questions or

comments on the side when not leading. Their adherence to their own language of teaching was

intended to provide a target language model. Their co-presence and collaborative dialogue, however,

opened up a hybrid space where students participated in meaning-driven discussions using the target

language as much as they could and only the other language when lacking the appropriate vocabulary

Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3(1)

48

or expressions. Here is an example of their collaborative translanguaging practice. The class was

discussing Brothers in Hope (M. Williams, 2005), a fictional story about the real-life experiences of

the “lost boys” of Sudan who trekked for miles to find shelter when the civil war broke out in mid-

1980s. Garang, an eight-year-old boy, makes his way to Ethiopia and settles in a refugee camp. Garang

takes up a leadership role for a group of boys and takes personal care of Chuti who is only five. When

the class was discussing the story’s main message, one student connected Garang with Terry Fox, a

Canadian teenager, often revered as a national hero who, despite his illness, ran a marathon across the

country to raise money for cancer research:

Mally: Garang and Chuti, they kept going, not afraid.

Smith: So what did he need a great deal of? What do we call that word?

Mally: Bravery We are available in any corner of the world to provide you with the best assignment help. Whether you are a freshman in college or you are in the final semester, whether you are taking help with assignment writing online for the first time or already have an experience of the same, know that we always give reliable help with assignment writing online. We can make your academic days tension-free with our student assignment help service. So, if you want to experience the same again, know why you should choose our hassle-free assignment help online. Kind of like Terry Fox.

Desbiens: Qu’est-ce que c’est pareil avec Terry Fox? (What is the same with Terry Fox?)

Mally: He walked across the country even he was sick.

The conversation above showed how the two teachers worked together to help Mally extend and

elaborate his connections between Garang and Terry Fox on the theme of bravery. As the dialogue

continued, Grade 5 student Janet expanded the notion of bravery by building on an earlier remark made

by her classmate Mark that being brave is to have the ability to “look at the world different.” She

illustrated it by referring to Garang’s appreciation of the comfort offered in the refugee camp after

roaming in the wild for some time:

Janet: Well, it’s kind of like what Mark said about how [Garang] looked at the world different

We are available in any corner of the world to provide you with the best assignment help. Whether you are a freshman in college or you are in the final semester, whether you are taking help with assignment writing online for the first time or already have an experience of the same, know that we always give reliable help with assignment writing online. We can make your academic days tension-free with our student assignment help service. So, if you want to experience the same again, know why you should choose our hassle-free assignment help online. They didn’t have big houses, but/

Smith: Yes, so it is in comparing. You said on one of the pages when you go without food for

so long and then you get a few lentils and some flour, it seems like a feast, doesn’t it?

And he said the huts [in the refugee camp] look like/

Students: Castles.

Smith: Castles. You’re absolutely right, compared to what they had before. It depends on your

perspective.

Desbiens: Est-ce que quelqu’un sait comment on appelle ça? Cette qualité-là que le monde a

quand les choses sont difficiles. Quand tu vis des moments difficiles dans la vie mais

tu continues. Tu peux avoir… C’est plus que du courage. C’est un peu comme ce que

George disait : il faut que tu oublies ce que tu as vécu mais tu continues à aider le

monde autour de toi. Il y a un mot pour ça. Et moi je pense que c’est un thème

extrêmement important dans ce pays-là. C’est … la résilience. Ok, la résilience. En

anglais c’est quoi donc ?

(Does anyone know what it’s called. This quality that people have when things are difficult.

When you live difficult moments in life but you continue. You can have … It’s more

than courage. It’s a bit like what George said: you have to forget what you’ve been

through, but you continue to help the people around you. There is a word for that. And

I think it’s an extremely important theme in that country. …