The Complex and Dynamic Languaging Practices of Emergent Bilinguals

This expanded edition of the International Multilingual Research Journal’s recent special issue on translanguaging ― or the dynamic, normative languaging practices of bilinguals ― presents a powerful, comprehensive volume on current scholarship on this topic. Translanguaging can be understood from multiple perspectives. From a sociolinguistic point of view, it describes the flexible language practices of bilingual communities. From a pedagogical one, it describes strategic and complementary approaches to teaching and learning through which teachers build bridges between the everyday language practices of bilinguals and the language practices and performances desired in formal school settings.

The Complex and Dynamic Language Practices of Emergent Bilinguals explores the pedagogical possibilities and challenges of translanguaging practice and pedagogy across a variety of U.S. educational programs that serve language-minoritized, emergent bilingual children and illustrates the affordances of dynamic, multilingual learning contexts in expanding emergent bilingual children’s linguistic repertoires and supporting their participation in formalized, school-based language performances that socialize them into the discourses of schooling. Taken together, the chapters in this volume examine the dynamic interactions and complex language ideologies of bilinguals―including pre- and in-service teachers, preK-12 students, and other members of multilingual and multidialectal sociolinguistic communities throughout the United States―as they language fluidly and flexibly and challenge the marginalization of these normative bilingual practices in academic settings and beyond. The articles in this book were originally published in the International Multilingual Research Journal.

Mileidis Gort is Professor of Bilingual Education and Biliteracy at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA. Her research focuses on the complex and varied ways in which emergent bilingual children use their dynamic linguistic and cultural funds of knowledge to learn and interact with teachers and peers in dual language classrooms.