Reciprocal multilingual awareness for linguistic citizenship

Abstract

In this paper, we build on southern and decolonial theories of multilingualism and invite a south-north conversation through a concept we propose as ‘reciprocal multilingual awareness’. Reciprocity is a core value of southern societies that balance pluralities of episteme, language, and communality. Central features of southern multilingualisms, including transknowledging (reciprocal exchanges and translation of knowledge), and linguistic citizenship (the exercise of linguistic agency and choice), are usual moves that people make every day. Here, we lift forward southern reciprocities and linguistic citizenship together in conversation with northern conceptualisations of ‘multilingual awareness’. We draw attention to the longue durée of expertise and knowledge of multilingualism in post-colonial societies to invite conversation with critical multilingual language awareness (CMLA) as a contribution to this special issue. In this frame, we recognise the potential in ‘multilingual awareness’ for a dynamic and reciprocal process situated within specific place, time and ideology. We offer eirical experiences of multilingual reciprocities from Australia and Brazil in which community, student and teacher agency are foregrounded to illustrate and amplify southern theorisation of multilingualisms and linguistic citizenship. In conceptualising reciprocal multilingual awareness as a practice of linguistic citizenship our primary concern is to offer a contribution to teacher education that can more fully engage with organic, community and student-generated language ideologies.