Article published In: Positive synergies: Translanguaging and critical theories in education
Edited by Zhongfeng Tian and Holly Link
[Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts 5:1] 2019
► pp. 5–28
Translanguaging in culturally sustaining systemic functional linguistics
Developing a heteroglossic space with multilingual learners
Published online: 10 January 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/ttmc.00022.kho
https://doi.org/10.1075/ttmc.00022.kho
Abstract
In today’s globalized multilingual classrooms, deficit ideologies tend to disregard the cultural capital and
mobile semiotic resources that immigrant and culturally diverse students bring with them (Blommaert, Jan. 2010. The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ). There is a growing need to focus on culturally sustaining pedagogies that reframe how we think about
teaching multilingual learners (Paris, Django, and H. Samy Alim, eds. 2017. Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.). By bringing two perspectives –
Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (SFL) (Halliday, Michael. 1993. “Towards a Language-Based Theory of Learning.” Linguistics and Education 5 (2): 93–116. ) theory and García, Ofelia. 2009. Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. notion of translanguaging – into dialogue, we explore their conceptual
alignments and complementarities. Building upon this, we envision culturally sustaining SFL as an integrative framework which
holds the promise of fostering meaningful heteroglossic contexts of learning for multilingual learners in supporting their
multiliteracies (see . 2017. “Translanguaging in Systemic Functional Linguistics: A Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy for Writing in Secondary Schools.” In Bilingual Learners and Social Equity: Critical Approaches to Systemic Functional Linguistics, ed. by Ruth Harman, 153–178. New York, NY: Springer.; Harman, Ruth, and Nihal Khote. 2018. “Critical SFL Praxis with Bilingual Youth: Disciplinary Instruction in a Third Space.” Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 15 (1): 63–83. ). Data from one of the author’s English Language Arts (ELA) classroom will further illustrate: (a) how students’
complex linguistic repertoires were mobilized as a foundational resource for developing disciplinary literacy, and (b) how
multilingual students engaged with the curriculum to interrogate discourses that diminish their authentic participation in the
classroom.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.SFL and translanguaging: Conceptual alignment
- 2.1The emphasis on context
- 2.2Moving away from school/home binary
- 2.3The focus on inherent minoritized voices
- 3.Culturally sustaining SFL: An integrative framework
- 4.Developing a heteroglossic, dialogic space with multilingual learners
- 4.1Research context
- 4.2Participation in and access to disciplinary literacy
- 4.3Fostering reflexive frames in a third space
- 5.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
References
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