Shifting to the World Englishes Paradigm by Way of the Translingual Approach: Code-Meshing as a Necessary Means of Transforming Composition Pedagogy

Abstract

“English” classrooms in U.S. institutions of higher education are not linguistically homogeneous. It is not logical, ethical, or realistic to designate “standard” English as the only discourse acceptable for the writing classroom. This praxis-oriented article chronicles a U.S. composition instructor's process of re-envisioning a formerly monolingualist, unidirectional composition curriculum through a lens that acknowledges and celebrates the World Englishes paradigm. The revised curriculum is driven by the translingual approach to composition pedagogy, which understands hybridity and fluidity as the norms of language acquisition, usage, and development, and focuses on one of the approach's practical pedagogical applications: the code-meshing strategy of writing. The article provides an overview of the author's institutional context and offers observations about how the traditional monolingualist conceptual framework has marginalized and alienated students whose language practices do not fit within it. The article explains how the translingual approach to composition pedagogy, and specifically the teaching of code-meshing as a viable communicative tool, has contributed to positive changes in students' self-perceptions as language users in and out of the classroom. The article concludes with informed reflections, from the vantage point of a composition and TESOL teacher-scholar, on further ways that the World Englishes ethos might manifest in the paradigm of U.S. composition theory and instruction.