Translanguaging as a rhizomatic multiplicity

Abstract

ABSTRACT Translanguaging is an increasingly popular concept used in the description of multilingual practices and in language policy and language pedagogy research. In this paper, I argue that the main reason for the rapid increase in the use of this concept is that it has rhizomatic characteristics. My argument is supported by evidence supplied by a project conducted among members of a Romani-Hungarian bilingual Roma community in a small town in Hungary. After introducing Deleuze and Guattaris’ rhizome-metaphor (1987) and its reception in sociolinguistics, I survey dimensions of translanguaging and point out that its interpretation as a rhizomatic multiplicity opens up new possibilities for the description of multilingual practices and helps to understand the versatility of the concept. Based on evidence supplied by the project referred to above, I claim that the concept of translanguaging, in virtue of its rhizomatic features offers new emphases in the interpretation of multilingual linguistic practices, and that the concept itself has the characteristics of a rhizomatic multiplicity, enabling it to connect to other multiplicities. Such an understanding of translanguaging may help determine pedagogical stance or influence and shape efforts made to maintain minority languages.