Translingual Inheritance

Honorable Mention, Rhetoric Society of America Book Award Translingual Inheritance tells a new story of the early days of democracy in the United States, when English had not yet become the only dominant language. Drawing on translingual theory, which exposes how language use contrasts with the political constructions of named languages, Elizabeth Kimball argues that Philadelphians developed complex metalinguistic conceptions of what language is and how it mattered in their relations. In-depth chapters introduce the democratically active communities of Philadelphia between 1750 and 1830 and introduce the three most populous: Germans, Quakers (the Society of Friends), and African Americans. These communities had ways of knowing and using their own languages to create identities and serve the common good outside of English. They used these practices to articulate plans and pedagogies for schools, exercise their faith, and express the promise of the young democracy. Kimball draws on primary sources and archival texts that have been little seen or considered to show how citizens consciously took on the question of language and its place in building their young country and how such practice is at the root of what made democracy possible.

This book addresses translingual identities through an innovative multimodal analysis of the language learning histories of a class of advanced learners of English in Japan who grew up between two or more languages. The author explores both the translingual experiences of those in the classroom and how they use language and gesture when describing their experiences to each other. This approach uses three perspectives: it looks at the worlds and identities the interviewees construct for themselves; at their interpersonal communication; and at the way they frame their experience. Finally, it offers some lessons based on the observations of the class which reveal the values they share and the key to their success as language learners. It will appeal to applied linguistic and educational researchers, particularly those with an interest in narrative approaches to exploring educational contexts, as well as language educators and policy makers interested in gaining a learner perspective on language learning.

Exploring the roles of students’ pluralistic linguistic and transnational identities at the university level, this book offers a novel approach to translanguaging by highlighting students’ perspectives, voices, and agency as integral to the subject. Providing an original reconsideration of the impact of translanguaging, this book examines both transnationality and translinguality as ubiquitous phenomena that affect students’ lives. Demonstrating that students are the experts of their own language practices, experiences, and identities, the authors argue that a proactive translingual pedagogy is more than an openness to students’ spontaneous language variations. Rather, this proactive approach requires students and instructors to think about students’ holistic communicative repertoire, and how it relates to their writing. Robinson, Hall, and Navarro address students’ complex negotiations and performative responses to the linguistic identities imposed upon them because of their skin color, educational background, perceived geographical origin, immigration status, and the many other cues used to "minoritize" them. Drawing on multiple disciplinary discourses of language and identity, and considering the translingual practices and transnational experiences of both U.S. resident and international students, this volume provides a nuanced analysis of students’ own perspectives and self-examinations of their complex identities. By introducing and addressing the voices and self-reflections of undergraduate and graduate students, the authors shine a light on translingual and transnational identities and positionalities in order to promote and implement inclusive and effective pedagogies. This book offers a unique yet essential perspective on translinguality and transnationality, and is relevant to instructors in writing and language classrooms; to administrators of writing programs and international student support programs; and to graduate students and scholars in language education, second language writing, applied linguistics, and literacy studies.

The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism provides a comprehensive survey of the field of multilingualism for a global readership and an overview of the research which situates multilingualism in its social, cultural and political context. This fully revised edition not only updates several of the original chapters but introduces many new ones that enrich contemporary debates in the burgeoning field of multilingualism. With a decolonial perspective and including leading new and established contributors from different regions of the globe, the handbook offers a critical overview of the interdisciplinary field of multilingualism, providing a range of central themes, key debates and research sites for a global readership. Chapters address the profound epistemological and ontological challenges and shifts produced since the first edition in 2012. The handbook includes an introduction, five parts with 28 chapters and an afterword. The chapters are structured around sub-themes, such as Coloniality and Multilingualism, Concepts and Theories in Multilingualism, and Multilingualism and Education. This ground-breaking text is a crucial resource for researchers, scholars and postgraduate students interested in multilingualism from areas such as sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, anthropology and education.

Pivotal Strategies examines the rhetorical contexts and motivations that determine how and why people choose writing studies as a discipline, especially as the field begins to take more seriously an antiracist imperative that requires more conscious listening and promotion of work from scholars representing traditionally underrepresented voices. Because undergraduate degrees in writing studies are relatively new, claiming the discipline has required reinvention and revision at personal and professional levels far different than any other discipline. Suspicions about the viability of the discipline linger in many departments and universities, as well as outside the academy, leading writing studies scholars to develop innovative strategies to deal with covertly hostile attitudes. Within the collection, contributors name explicit claiming strategies from the discipline’s beginnings to the contemporary moment, locating opportune spaces, negotiating identities and fostering resilience, and developing allegiances by foregrounding their embodiment as underrepresented members of academia through a commitment to social justice and equity. Responding to current conversations on the worth of education with honest stories about the burdens and joys of becoming and being an academic, Pivotal Strategies features a spectrum of voices across racial, gender, class, and age categories. This collection not only makes the discipline more visible but also helps map the contemporary state of writing studies.

The first concerted effort of writing studies scholars to interrogate isolationism in the United States, Writing on the Wall reveals how writing teachers—often working directly with students who are immigrants, undocumented, first-generation, international, and students of color—embody ideas that counter isolationism. The collection extends existing scholarship and research about the ways racist and colonial rhetorics impact writing education; the impact of translingual, transnational, and cosmopolitan ideologies on student learning and student writing; and the role international educational partnerships play in pushing back against isolationist ideologies. Established and early-career scholars who work in a broad range of institutional contexts highlight the historical connections among monolingualism, racism, and white nationalism and introduce community- and classroom-based practices that writing teachers use to resist isolationist beliefs and tendencies. “Writing on the wall” serves as a metaphor for the creative, direct action writing education can provide and invokes border spaces as sites of identity expression, belonging, and resistance. The book connects transnational writing education with the fight for racial justice in the US and around the world and will be of significance to secondary and postsecondary writing teachers and graduate students in English, linguistics, composition, and literacy studies. Contributors: Olga Aksakalova, Sara P. Alvarez, Brody Bluemel, Tuli Chatterji, Keith Gilyard, Joleen Hanson, Florianne Jimenez Perzan, Rebecca Lorimer Leonard, Layli Maria Miron, Tony D. Scott, Kate Vieira, Amy J. Wan

Translingual and Transnational Graduate Education in Rhetoric and Composition investigates the implications of composition studies’ changing terminological and ideological landscape around language and nation for the professionalization of future university writing teacher-scholars. As the collection editors argue, incorporating translingual and transnational theories into graduate pedagogy and curricular structures is necessary if they are to shape professional practices in rhetoric and composition long term. Contributors to the collection articulate the need for translingual and transnational sensibilities in rhetoric and composition graduate programs in light of the material conditions of graduate students’ lives and labor. They further present pathways for rethinking the design of graduate-level coursework, foreign language learning policies and labor, mentoring practices, writing teacher and writing center tutor training, and other professionalization initiatives. Offering a range of conceptually and empirically driven pieces, the collection brings together the voices and lived experiences of graduate students, faculty advisors, and administrators involved in the constant, necessary reworking of rhetoric and composition graduate education in a variety of institutional locales. Translingual and Transnational Graduate Education in Rhetoric and Composition provides inspiration for graduate programs working to enact well-grounded curricular and pedagogical changes to counter the long-standing effects of the dominant racist and monolingualist ideologies in higher education generally, and rhetoric and composition studies specifically. Contributors: Lucía Durá, Patricia Flores, Joe Franklin, Moisés Garcia-Renteria, Bruce Horner, Aimee Jones, Corina Lerma, Kate Mangelsdorf, Brice Nordquist, Madelyn Pawlowski, Christine Tardy, Amy Wan, Alex Way, Anselma Widha Prihandita, Joe Wilson, Xiaoye You, Emily Yuko Cousins, Michelle Zaleski

Racing Translingualism provides both theoretical and pedagogical reconsiderations of the translingual approach to language diversity by addressing the intersections of race and translingualism. This collection extends the disciplinary conversations about translingualism by foregrounding the role race and racism play in the construction and maintenance of language differences. In doing so, the contributors examine the co-naturalization of race and language in order to theorize a race-conscious translingual praxis. The book begins by offering generative critiques of translingualism, centering on the ways in which the approach’s democratic orientation to language avoids issues of race, language, and power and appeals to colorblind racist tropes of equal opportunity. Following these critiques, contributors demonstrate the important intersections of race and translingualism by drawing upon voices typically marginalized by monolingual language ideologies and pedagogies. Finally, Racing Translingualism concludes by attending to the pedagogical implications of a race-conscious translingual praxis in writing and literacy education. Making the case for race-conscious, rather than colorblind, theories and pedagogies, Racing Translingualism offers a unique take on how translingualism is theorized and practiced and moves the field forward through its direct consideration of the links between language, race, and racism. Contributors: Lindsey Albracht, Steven Alvarez, Bethany Davila, Tom Do, Jaclyn Hilberg, Bruce Horner, Aja Martinez, Esther Milu, Stephanie Mosher, Yasmine Romero, Karen Rowan, Rachael Shapiro, Shawanda Stewart, Brian Stone, Victor Villanueva, Missy Watson