Unravelling translanguaging: a critical appraisal

Abstract

Abstract The concept of translanguaging is one of the most successful ones in the recent history of multilingualism research. But what does it really mean? It covers such a wide semantic field that users seem to be free to decide its meaning in whatever way they wish. A key uniting idea of the different approaches is that teachers should ‘draw upon’ the first language(s) of learners in language teaching or allow the learners to do so to scaffold the learning process. However, this is by no means novel or controversial. The conceptual vagueness of the term translanguaging invites researchers and practitioners to propose a flurry of operationalisations, and make recommendations for practice for which there is no empirical evidence. The concept and the pedagogical applications fall apart as soon as one digs a little deeper. It is timely to either radically revisit the concept and narrow it down or abandon it altogether.