Translanguaging in the academic writing process: Exploring Chinese bilingual postgraduate students’ practices at a British university

Abstract

Written translanguaging within educational settings has drawn increasing attention in recent years, but research which explores translanguaging practice in detail in the postgraduate dissertation writing process is still limited. This study focuses on five Chinese postgraduate students who studied at a British university. It investigates their translanguaging practice in the outlining, note-taking and drafting phases of their master's dissertation writing process with reference to Plakans' reading-to-write test task model. We collected and analysed the texts from our participants and conducted interviews to introduce emic perspectives to our analysis. The findings reveal six translanguaging practices in the academic dissertation writing process, showing that translanguaging supports students' development of self-regulation and serves as an efficient self-regulation tool for them to control the recursive and extensive dissertation writing process, to reach their immediate and global writing goals. The paper problematizes and challenges the orthodox academic discourse and practice and highlights the need for EAP tutors and dissertation supervisors to encourage translanguaging in students' writing practice in response to the potential issues raised by the monolingual norms in the academic communities.