In this article, we analyze how linguistic terms have been borrowed and reinterpreted across disciplines. Specifically, we describe how terminology associated with Applied Linguistics (AL) changed meaning as it entered the new disciplinary context of Writing Studies (WS), often resulting in confusion and turbulence between the two fields. As in…

How we talk about bilingualism has an effect on how others think about bilingual individuals, and in turn, how "active bilingual learners/users of English" (ABLE) students are assessed and taught in schools. I use a transdisciplinary approach of bridging social semiotics, applied linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive linguistics…

This paper explores two prominent strands of inquiry within new materialism -- Deleuze and Guattari's assemblage thinking and Karen Barad's agential realism -- and situates them in relation to language studies. While a singular definition of new materialist scholarship is not feasible, we argue that the selected approaches have potential to come…

This book brings applied linguistics and translation studies together through an analysis of literary texts in Chinese, Hindi, Japanese and Korean and their translations. It examines the traces of translanguaging in translated texts with special focus on the strategic use of scripts, morphemes, words, names, onomatopoeias, metaphors, puns and…

Considering the contradictions in the structured and static approaches to the nation and national identity observed world-wide and fluid "trans-" approaches to language in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, the paper explores how national identity is constructed and sustained nowadays, specifically in digital spaces both…

This paper explores the use of testimonio methodology, born from Chicana/Latina feminist thought and epistemologies as a way of exploring the languaging and knowledge production practices of minoritized communities as a platform to share their/our wisdom/voices in applied linguistics. As such, testimonio is a methodology that allows racialized…

Suresh Canagarajah is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor and Director of the Migration Studies Project, Departments of Applied Linguistics and English, Pennsylvania State University, USA. Having a BA with a major in English from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin, USA, Professor…

The current research set out to explore how Chinese-English bilingual scholars utilize their linguistic and cultural resources in teaching and academic inquiry. Adopting the theoretical lenses of translanguaging and multilingual perspective on creativity, I explored the teaching, research, and academic writing practices of three bilingual…

This conceptual paper aims to review some commonalities between two paradigms: Global Englishes and translanguaging. It does so by considering the postcolonial varieties of English, the challenge of native speakerism ideology and the inclusion of multiple discursive practices in classroom discourse. This paper argues that both paradigms should be…

This Perspectives article proposes a renewed vision of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) through a translanguaging (TL) stance, grounded in critical sociolinguistic inquiry and embodied practice. A TL theory of language asserts an activist agenda to dismantle mono/lingualism, inviting a more dynamic and expansive view of…

Critical applied linguistics remains deeply relevant today, arguably more than ever, but it needs constant renewal. This paper returns to these concerns to assess where this project has got to and where it may be headed. I review first both long-term and short-term political trends, from the rise of neoliberalism to the COVID pandemic. Next, I…

Via an account of the genesis, development, and enactment of a seminar in translingual writing, this paper represents an attempt to indicate the extensive amount and interdisciplinary nature of the knowledge that one needs to be familiar with in order to develop a rich and nuanced understanding of the phenomenon as well as to provide a resource…

Prevalent approaches to classroom languaging and bilingual education interpret the practices of multilingual groups of people through a monolingual lens that obscures the fluid languaging and semiotic practices of contemporary communities who engage in dynamic semiotic and linguistic practices, rather than 'add' one language to another in the form…

The study of what has come to be known as family language policy has evolved and expanded significantly over the last hundred years, from its early beginnings in the diary studies of Ronjat and Leopold, to the interdisciplinary and transnational research found in this thematic issue of the "Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural…

A Grade 4 English language teacher in a township school in Cape Town, South Africa, in her quest to equip learners with new target language resources, is not held back by the perceived boundaries dividing named languages. Instead she employs language in creative and goal-directed ways that we believe have not received enough focused linguistic…