Description
Book SynopsisUsing data from multilingual settings in universities and adjacent learning contexts in East Asia, North Africa, Central and North America and Europe, this book provides examples of the heuristic value of translanguaging and epistemological decentring. Despite this and other theoretical and empirical work, and ever stronger calls for the inclusion of other languages, epistemologies and constructions of culture in higher education, decentring and translanguaging practices are often relegated to the margins or suppressed in research and education because of the organisational structures of education institutions and prevailing language norms, policies and ideologies. The authors draw on research on pluri- and multilingualism within education studies, as well as post- and decolonial theoretical contributions to the research on the role of language in education and knowledge production, to provide evidence that decentring cannot happen until learners have been given the tools to identify which sorts of centring dynamics and conditions are salient to their learning and (trans)languaging.
Trade ReviewWhile multilingual scholars are dazzled by the creativity in communication at local contexts of classroom and society, they overlook the larger epistemological shifts promised by translingualism. This book is timely in addressing the resistant knowledge embodied and enacted in language diversity through speech communities we don’t often hear in translingual scholarship. * Suresh Canagarajah, Pennsylvania State University, USA *
By tightening the nexus between translanguaging and epistemological decentring, the authors here confront us with how knowledges and languages are legitimized and taught in higher education. Blending students’ classroom experiences and analyses of educational policies in many national contexts, the book provides a multiplicity of perspectives that makes evident how language and knowledge are being manipulated in the struggle for power between people with competing interests. * Ofelia García, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA *
This book launches a challenge for us to decolonise language and culture through epistemological decentering as linguistic practice. It proves that neither northern nor southern epistemologies can remain irremediably apart or imprisoned in their geographical cages. Both travel with and around us, in-between us, ready to trigger immense intercultural wealth, which eventually re-establishes life sustainability, once we let them engage in listening and talking to each other. * Manuela Guilherme, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal *
Table of ContentsContributors
Chapter 1. Heidi Bojsen, Petra Daryai-Hansen, Anne Holmen and Karen Risager: Introduction: The Nexus of Translanguaging and Epistemological Decentring in Higher Education and Research
Chapter 2. Heidi Bojsen: Translanguaging, Epistemological Decentring and Power: A Study of Students’ Perspectives and Learning
Chapter 3. Marta Kirilova, Anne Holmen and Sanne Larsen: More Languages for More Students: Practice, Ideology and Management
Chapter 4. Deborah Charlotte Darling and Fred Dervin: Glimpses Into the ‘Language Galaxy’ of International Universities: International Students’ Multilingual and Translanguaging Experiences and Strategies at a Top Finnish University
Chapter 5. Petra Daryai-Hansen, Danièle Moore, Daniel Roy Pearce and Mayo Oyama: Fostering Students' Decentring and Multiperspectivity: A Cross-Discussion on Translanguaging as a Plurilingual Tool in Higher Education
Chapter 6. Rutie Adler, Annamaria Bellezza, Claire Kramsch, Chika Shibahara and Lihua Zhang: Teaching the Conflicts in American Foreign Language Education
Chapter 7. Heidi Bojsen, Joshua Sabih and Khalid Zekri: On Matrouzity: Translanguaging and Decentring Plurilingual Practices in Morocco
Chapter 8. Louise Tranekjær: Foreign Language Learning ‘in the Wild’ and Epistemological Decentering
Chapter 9. Karen Risager: Strategies of Decentring in Translingual Research: Reflections on a Research Project
Chapter 10. Introduced by Heidi Bojsen, Petra Daryai-Hansen, Anne Holmen and Karen Risager: Student Testimonies: Translanguaging and Epistemological Decentring from a Student Perspective
Chapter 11. Abstracts of Chapters 2-9. A Courtesy for Selective Readers
Index
