Translingual Practice
Translingual practice, as theorised by Suresh Canagarajah (2013), moves beyond Translanguaging and Code-Switching by questioning the very notion of separate, bounded languages. Rather than treating languages as discrete systems that speakers switch between, translingual practice sees all communication as drawing on a single integrated repertoire of semiotic resources — words, gestures, images, codes — that speakers deploy strategically to negotiate meaning across difference.
Core Arguments
Canagarajah's Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations (2013) makes several interconnected claims:
- Languages are not separate objects — the boundaries between "English," "Tamil," and "Sinhala" are social and political constructs, not cognitive realities. Speakers possess a unified repertoire, not a collection of separate systems
- Communication is negotiation — meaning is not transmitted via a shared code but co-constructed through negotiation strategies. Speakers use whatever resources are available to make meaning
- Diversity is the norm — monolingual, monovariety communication is the exception, not the rule. All English use involves negotiation across differences in dialect, register, accent, and proficiency
- Competence is performative — it emerges in practice rather than pre-existing as abstract knowledge. What matters is not what speakers "know" but what they can achieve in communication
Negotiation Strategies
Canagarajah identifies four strategies translingual speakers deploy:
- Envoicing — asserting one's identity through distinctive language choices
- Recontextualisation — adapting language resources to new contexts
- Interactional — using collaborative strategies (clarification, rephrasing, gestures) to co-construct meaning
- Entextualisation — creating new textual norms that blend resources from multiple traditions
Distinction from Related Concepts
| Concept | Key difference |
|---|---|
| Code-Switching | Assumes separate language systems that speakers alternate between |
| Translanguaging | Recognises a single repertoire but still operates within named-language categories |
| Translingual practice | Questions whether named languages exist as distinct cognitive entities |
Translingual practice is the most radical of the three positions. It does not merely tolerate multilingual behaviour — it reframes monolingualism as the aberration.
Implications for ELT
- Pedagogy — rather than enforcing English-only policies, teachers can treat students' full repertoires as resources for learning
- Writing instruction — translingual writing pedagogy (Horner, Lu, Royster & Trimbur 2011) values code-meshing and multilingual textual practices
- Assessment — monolingual standards of correctness become problematic when the goal is effective communication across difference
- Teacher education — teachers need awareness of their own translingual practices and the ideological nature of language boundaries
Recognition
Translingual Practice won the BAAL Book Prize (2014), the AAAL Book Award (2015), and the MLA Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize — reflecting its influence across applied linguistics, composition studies, and sociolinguistics.
Key References
- Canagarajah, A. S. (2013). Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. Routledge.
- Canagarajah, A. S. (Ed.). (2013). Literacy as Translingual Practice: Between Communities and Classrooms. Routledge.
- Horner, B., Lu, M.-Z., Royster, J. J., & Trimbur, J. (2011). Language difference in writing. College English, 73(3), 303–321.