Dynamics of Translanguaging: Analyzing the Literacy Narrative of a “Native Speaker”

Abstract

Many pedagogical studies on composition as well as programmatic and curricular structures tend to take for granted the fact that people fall either in the camp of monolingualism or multilingualism. Building on Horner, Lu, Royster, and Trimbur's translingual approach, which calls for a pedagogy that reflects the reality of language use, this chapter highlights how the concept of a linguistic continuum better serves us than that of the two diametrically opposite poles of monolingualism and multilingualism. Often, native English speakers are perceived as monolinguals and non-native English speakers as multilinguals. Reporting on a literacy narrative of a so–called native English speaker, whom the author calls Chrissie, the author seeks to illustrate how such a simple dichotomy is reductive and has negative consequences for acquiring literacies and potentially appreciating linguistic differences. Thus, this chapter has serious implications for the teaching of writing in particular, and pedagogy in general.