Translingualism

Translingual refers to phenomena that are relevant in more than one language. In actual usage translingual may mean “existing in multiple languages” or “having the same meaning in many languages”. It could also mean “containing words of multiple languages” or “operating between different languages”. The latter definition conveys that a translingual speaker encodes a message from one language into a second language without altering the meaning of the original message. In the field of medicine, it is defined as “occurring or being measured across the tongue”. Translingual is related to the word translingualism.

Its etymology: from trans, meaning “across”, and lingual, meaning "having to do with languages or tongues", thus has the literal meaning “across tongues [i.e. languages]” or the “transfer from one language to another”; lingual is a combination of the Latin words lingua or “tongue” and –al or -alis, both -al and –alis are adjective suffixes in Latin grammar.

According to Steven G. Kellman, the author of Switching Languages: Translingual Writers Reflect on Their Craft, translingual writers are authors who write in more than one language or in a language other than their primary one. Kellman further explained that this type of writers are authors who “flaunt their freedom from the constraints of the culture into which they happen to be born” ... “by expressing themselves in multiple verbal systems”. Thus, the translingual writer is an author who has the ability to cross over into a new linguistical identity. Kellman cites the "Sapir-Whorf thesis, the principle of lingusitic relativity whose premise is that language determines thought" as an insight as to why translingual writers choose to switch languages within their literary works.

It is important to note the distinction between translingualism and similar linguistic concepts like bilingualism, multilingualism, and ambilingualism. While all of these terms relate to knowledge of multiple languages, translingualism specifically stresses the process of teaching a second language. According to Tung-Chiou Huang, "Translingualism is a term from Steven G. Kellman (2000) and David Schwarzer et al. (2006), who see teaching an L2 as bridge building between languages that allow one to retain a unified mind and not be cloven into two for the sake of being multilingual." Supporters of this use of translingualism focus on the fluidity of language systems, thoroughly eschewing concepts such as "Standard Written English" and unaccented speech. The past decade, in fact, has seen a gradual increase in the number of second language scholars theorizing about translingualism (see Canagarajah, 2012; Horner, NeCamp, & Donahue, 2011; Motha, Jain, & Tecle, 2012; Pennycook, 2007 ), perhaps in keeping with an emerging tradition of translingual activism (Pennycook, 2008 ), and suggests that a paradigm shift may be occurring in the way we think about language study, language teaching, and language use.

Recently, researchers have also begun to explore the idea of translingualism as a communicative competence citing the fact that "In multilingual scenarios, mastering the language for the exchange is not as relevant as achieving effective communication by means of strategies that go beyond communicative competence in any given language." In today’s global context, most scenarios involve speakers of various languages communicating primarily in English. These speakers will all have different cultural values which will affect their production and interpretation of speech and therefore the speakers will not adjust to any one language or culture but rather to the “common communicative arena”. Canagarajah(2013), for instance, identifies translinguals as speakers who demonstrate the ability to use their language(s) successfully across diverse norms and codes in response to specific contexts and purposes.