Multilingual representation matters: an in-depth analysis of translanguaging in “Dear Primo: A Letter to my Cousin”

Abstract

Language and literacy are inextricably linked with identity, yet most children experience children’s literature in schooling contexts in only one language. For many students, this language is not their home or preferred language, so they rarely, if ever, see their home language represented in school and children’s literature. While the number of bilingual children’s texts is increasing, the majority of these texts continue to privilege English and present a distinct separation of languages that is not representative of multilingual communicative practices. People who are multilingual engage in translanguaging, a dynamic and flexible process using all their linguistic resources that results in new and sophisticated communicative practices. This paper draws upon translanguaging theories (García The Reading Teacher, 73(5), 557–562, 2020; Wei Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9–30, 2018) and multimodal perspectives (Serafini, 2022) to investigate the linguistic representations and ways languages are privileged in Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin (Tonatiuh, 2010). Instances of translanguaging throughout the text are identified and analyzed for the ways the author/illustrator uses these instances to engage within a variety of purposes, systems, and structures (Wei Journal of Pragmatics, 43(5), 1222-1235, 2011). Building on the translanguaging analysis, a multimodal analysis is utilized to examine the use of semiotic resources in the representation of language, translanguaging, and multilingualism within the modes of written language and illustration.