Translanguaging and identity in educational settings

Abstract

This article reviews recent scholarship in language, identity, and education. It critically reflects on developments in sociolinguistics as researchers have engaged with the dynamics and complexity of communication in superdiverse societies where people from an increased number of territories come into contact with one another, and where people have access to an increased range of online resources for communication. The authors focus in particular on recent scholarship on “translanguaging,” examining research that has viewed identities as socially constructed in interaction and considering the relationship between language and identities in contexts where communication is mobile and complex. This article offers a critical summary of the implications of these developments for education in the 21st century. In order to illustrate these theoretical points, the authors present an empirical example of the performance of language and identity in education from their recent research.