ERIC Number: EJ1482296
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1534-8458
EISSN: EISSN-1532-7701
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Teachers' Awareness and Management of the Social, Cultural, and Political Indexicalities of Translanguaging
Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, v24 n5 p1062-1077 2025
Translanguaging scholars have debated whether dismantling boundaries between "named" languages is necessary for social justice in education. To explore this issue, we examined teachers' reported use of named languages or translanguaging in classroom activities. We used a survey as an interview protocol to compare the extent to which four primary teachers in different international settings implemented two types of bi/multilingual practices with a recently taught class: "translanguaging" to learn without regard for boundaries between named languages, and "symbolic valuation" of students' (named) home languages and languages of affiliation. Using the sociolinguistic construct of "indexicality" as a lens of analysis, we found that only sometimes do teachers describe attaching positive indexicalities (social, cultural, or political meanings) to dynamic translanguaging or to named languages, and only sometimes are these indexicalities egalitarian--suggesting that the answer to the debate lies in positionings teachers create while marshalling translanguaging or named languages to manage classroom identities.
Descriptors: Code Switching (Language), Elementary School Teachers, Language Usage, Multilingualism, Foreign Countries, Elementary School Students
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China; Hong Kong; Canada
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Linguistics, School of Literatures, Cultures, & Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; 2University of Hong Kong; 3University of Toronto; 4Memorial University

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