Translanguaging Mestiça: Implications and Challenges of a Disobedient EpistemologyAbstract:
This article aims to share reflections on the concept of translanguaging and how it has been didacticized in the classroom, constituting what we refer to here as the principles of a translanguaging pedagogy mestiça. In alignment with the Theory/Pedagogy of Translanguaging (García; Wei, 2014; García; Johnson; Seltzer, 2017), we use in this article the Portuguese word “mestiça” to mark our standpoint and we also maintain the syntactic organization of the Portuguese language by placing the adjective after the characterized noun “translanguaging”, to reinforce this standpoint. Also, this is a gesture, as reflected in the title of this article, of epistemological disobedience (Mignolo, 2008), as well as a gesture of indiscipline in an effort “to explode the boundaries between theory and practice”, formulating knowledge which is “responsive to social live” (Moita Lopes, 2006b, p. 100). These discussions have been carried out by members of the Research Group named “Núcleo de Estudos Colaborativos em Contextos Escolares” (N.E.C.C.E.) (Center of Collaborative Studies in School Contexts, in English), affiliated with the Reading and Writing Research and Teaching Laboratory/Laboratório de Pesquisa e Ensino de Leitura e Redação (LabLeR) and the research line “Linguagem no Contexto Social” (Language in Social Context) of the Graduate Program in Language and Literature at the Federal University of Santa Maria (PPGL/UFSM), in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Firstly, we present the reasons why, within N.E.C.C.E., we have taken up these discussions in the UFSM context. Secondly, we problematize the concept of translanguaging and describe how we, at N.E.C.C.E., have been outlining teaching proposals that aim to materialize this concept into classroom practice. Finally, we share some pedagogical practices that attempt to didacticize the concept - practices that have already been implemented by N.E.C.C.E. researchers in a public preschool education context. Ultimately, we seek to engage in this discussion insofar as we agree with Pennycook and Makoni (2020, p. 128) who argue that proposals aligned with Global South perspectives must be open to public scrutiny, especially when they advocate for educational projects that interconnect theory, social context, and praxis.
Keywords:
Translanguaging mestiça; translanguaging repertoire; translanguaging praxis
Resumo:
Este artigo tem por objetivo compartilhar as reflexões acerca do conceito de translinguagem e de como ele começa a ser didatizado em sala de aula, constituindo o que nomeamos aqui como princípios de uma pedagogia translíngue mestiça. Alinhada à Teoria/Pedagogia da Translinguagem (García; Wei, 2014; García; Johnson; Seltzer, 2017), utilizamos neste artigo a palavra mestiça em língua portuguesa para marcar nosso lugar de fala, e também mantemos a organização sintática da língua portuguesa ao usarmos o adjetivo após o substantivo caracterizado, translinguagem, para reforçar esse posicionamento. Trata-se também de um gesto - como refletido no título deste artigo - de desobediência epistemológica (Mignolo, 2008), bem como de um gesto de indisciplina em um esforço para “explodir os limites entre teoria e prática”, formulando um conhecimento que seja “responsivo à vida social” (Moita Lopes, 2006b, p. 100). Essas discussões têm sido realizadas pelas participantes do Núcleo de Estudos Colaborativos em Contextos Escolares (N.E.C.C.E.), vinculado ao Laboratório de Pesquisa e Ensino de Leitura e Redação (LabLeR) e à linha de pesquisa “Linguagem no Contexto Social” do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (PPGL/UFSM), em Santa Maria/RS. Em um primeiro momento, relatamos as razões que nos fizeram, no N.E.C.C.E., encampar essas discussões no contexto da UFSM. Em um segundo momento, problematizamos o conceito de translinguagem e como, no N.E.C.C.E, temos delineado propostas de ensino que procuram materializá-lo em sala de aula. Por fim, compartilhamos algumas práticas de ensino que buscam didatizar tal conceito, práticas estas já implementadas por pesquisadoras do N.E.C.C.E. em um contexto de ensino pré-escolar público. Em última instância, buscamos fazer esta discussão na medida em que concordamos com Pennycook e Makoni (2020, p. 128) quando afirmam que propostas que se afiliam à perspectiva do Sul Global devem estar abertas ao escrutínio público, em especial quando defendem a formulação de projetos educacionais que relacionam teoria, contexto social e práxis.
Palavras-chave:
Translinguagem mestiça; repertório translíngue; práxis translíngue
1 Why were we compelled to reflect on the concept of translanguaging?1
Approximately three years ago, we observed in our city an increase in schools - primarily in the private sector - that began to self-identify as bilingual. In their market-oriented discourses, these institutions promoted what they referred to as a “bilingual program.” These are schools traditionally established within the Santa Maria community, offering early childhood, primary, and secondary education, and which have recently adopted this “new” identity, prominently featured on social media and in different advertising materials (billboards, flyers, radio and TV commercials). Basically, these advertisements typically highlight the adoption, by these institutions, of a bilingual program focused explicitly on instruction through the so-called Portuguese and English languages, with a strong emphasis on the future.
This reality is not unique to the city of Santa Maria. Megale (2018) had already noted a proliferation of institutions in the Brazilian context that claim to adopt bilingual practices within their curricula. Here in Santa Maria, these schools have increasingly sought pre-service or in-service teachers - particularly from the UFSM’s English Language and Pedagogy programs - to meet this demand. It is worth emphasizing that the implementation of these “bilingual programs” began within the early years of childhood education across various schools in the city.
According to Brazilian legislation - more specifically the Art. 62 of the LDB (Brasil, 2023)2, - the professionals qualified to work in such contexts are those holding degrees in Pedagogy or a high school diploma/degree in teacher education (Normal mode), as they are authorized to teach in early childhood and early primary education. However, at UFSM’s Pedagogy program3, for instance, students do not develop competencies related to teaching mediated through additional languages during their undergraduate development, as in the case of English, for example. While some of these professionals working in Santa Maria’s private schools may have developed fluency in languages other than Portuguese, we have observed an intense and competitive recruitment of in-service teachers from the English Language program to teach in early childhood contexts, as a way of handling this bilingual offer.
However, we also highlight that our English Language undergraduate course at UFSM does not certify or qualify teachers to teach in early childhood education and/or in the initial years of Elementary School. According to current legislation (LDB, 2023; BNC-Formação, 2019), Language (undergraduate) courses/programs are responsible for the linguistic and pedagogical education of teachers who will work in public and private schools in the final years of Elementary School and High School. Thus, these teachers may work in early education contexts in collaboration with the main classroom teacher - typically a pedagogue - as part of an integrated teaching model4 (DCN, 2013, p. 137, emphasis added).
This contextual reconfiguration has posed significant challenges to professors in UFSM’s English Language and Pedagogy programs. In response, in 2023, Professor Maria Eliza Rosa Gama, from the Department of School Administration of Education Center (CE), took the initiative to propose a Bilingual Pedagogy degree program/undergraduate course to the Educational Technology Coordination Office (CTE) and the UFSM Open University System (UAB/UFSM). The proposal was accepted and submitted to CAPES (Brazilian Federal Foundation for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education) in January 2024. With CAPES’ endorsement, a committee of specialists from UFSM’s Pedagogy and English Language programs was formed to begin curricular planning. Most likely, the Bilingual Pedagogy Course is expected to start in a blended (semi-presential) format in 2026 and, in the medium to long term, with an in-person (presential) version.
In sum, these events were the key trigger points that led us to embark on this journey of critical reflection in search of an epistemological perspective on language - and on education - that was sensitive to contextual needs and that, at the same time, acknowledged the multisemiotic nature of communicative processes, in which the production of meanings takes into account the relations established between “named language, language, and power” (Rocha; Megale, 2023, p. 3, our translation5). Our research group, therefore, has sought to problematize the concepts of translanguaging (García, 2009; García; Wei, 2014, among many others) and of translingual practice (Canagarajah, 2013), as discussed below, from an emic perspective6 (Davis, 1995; Watson-Gegeo, 1988), and always in light of the contextual specificities and challenges we face (Pennycook; Makoni, 2020, p. 133).
2 What do we understand (so far) by translanguaging pedagogy mestiça and an extended notion of repertoire?
It is no coincidence that we have organized the subsections of this text according to the guiding questions proposed by the New London Group (NLG, 1996), which challenge us to problematize our language and teaching practices by developing a meta-awareness about “why” we act pedagogically in one way or another highlighting “what” we teach and “how” we do it (Kalantzis; Cope; Pinheiro, 2020). Our theoretical starting point is grounded in the understanding of language as social practice (Motta-Roth, 2006). This means that we approach teaching in such a way that it focuses on práticas linguageiras7 (Motta-Roth, 2006, p. 8) that constitute the (lived) experiences of the social group in question. In this sense, we draw on the contributions of Critical Genre Analysis (CGA) to design pedagogical activities that are socially situated and historically constituted. Motta-Roth (2008a, p. 368) argues that CGA can be characterized from a “hybrid”, “mixed” or “mestiça” perspective, as it incorporates insights mainly from Sociorhetoric (Bazerman, 2006), Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday; Matthiessen, 2014), and Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1989). This hybridization or mestiçagem enables to make explicit the particularities of each research (and/or teaching) context, making them available to support social practices that question the relations between language and power, often naturalized, for example, in the discourses that permeate pedagogical activity.8
In this paper, we seek, above all, to make explicit our choice of the term “mestiça” to characterize translanguaging. Although Anzaldúa’s work (1987) is highly important and relevant, and it is also connected to the term mestiza and mestisaje, our primary inspiration for using the term “mestiça” comes from a rather different source. Thereby, our use of the term is influenced by what Moita Lopes (2006a) and Motta-Roth (2008a) discuss. In his text, entitled “Uma linguística aplicada mestiça e ideológica”, Moita Lopes calls for the need to think about an Applied Linguistics (AL) that “engages with theories that are crossing the field of social sciences and of humanities” (2006a, p. 149, our translation). The author names this movement as AL mestiça, of trans/interdisciplinary nature. Similarly, Motta-Roth (2008a, p. 36810, our translation), although not using this term to define her approach to genre analysis (CGA), states that “the possibility of using diverse theoretical references and adopting a perspective mestiça, which maintains an intertextuality with authors from various schools, is the most notable quality that the perspective of genre studies has to offer to language studies”.
Thus, we take these theorizations into consideration when we propose a translanguaging pedagogy mestiça. And, more specifically, through the conception of the translanguaging repertoire mestiço in the sense that we draw from not only the translanguaging pedagogy (García; Wei, 2014; García; Johnson; Seltzer, 2017, among others), but from other contributions, other areas and fields that, initially, were not conceived in the translanguaging approach.
Moita Lopes (2006a, 2013) uses the term to delineate an AL as a transdisciplinary, ideological, and political science, in the Freirean sense, one that is concerned with questioning “what - and whom - the knowledge it produces serves” (Moita Lopes, 2006a, p. 25, our translation11). In this sense, AL engages with other human and social sciences in order to dialogue with the contemporary world, “with the social practices that people live” (Moita Lopes, 2006a, p. 23, our translation12)
Therefore, characterizing translanguaging as a pedagogy mestiça means assuming the importance of investigating pedagogical practices in a situated manner, paying close attention to the socio-historical-cultural context in which both researcher and researched are embedded. The translanguaging mestiça, thus, entails a dialogue between the local and the global, also referred to by the author as research conducted in a glocalized world (Moita Lopes, 2013). According to Anzaldúa (1987), it is necessary to build a “consciencia mestiza”, which leads us to break with the rigidity of borders and to (re)cognize them as fluid, acknowledging, above all, that such fluidity enables encounters between cultures - what the author (1987) describes as a collision, a tensioning that carries creative power in and of itself. In other words, when we immerse ourselves in waters mestiça, we no longer belong to one world or another, but to something new, constructed from multiple meanings. Thus, teaching and learning developed under a translanguaging mestiça perspective presuppose recognizing the collision and what emerges from it. The teaching and learning proposal presented here assumes the encounter of two named languages and of all the social practices that emerge from them, situated on a piece of ground in the Global South. We depart from the definition of Global South proposed by Busi Makoni (Makoni, 2023, p. 272), according to which the Global South signifies much more than a geographical space; it is also a space of invisibility. In this sense, we seek to give visibility to - and to discuss the viability of - a perspective on language (and on translanguaging pedagogy) that takes into account the contextual specificities presented in the following section. Moreover, aligned with a disobedient epistemology (Mignolo, 2008), we ask permission not to italicize words that do not belong to the named English language, since we understand our languaging practices (Motta-Roth, 2008a) to cohabit a single repertoire (García; Johnson; Seltzer, 2017).
As aforementioned, we use in this article the Portuguese word mestiça to denote our stance, and we also maintain the syntactic organization of our language by placing the adjective after the characterized noun, translanguaging. In this sense, this is an act, as reflected in the title of this article, of epistemological disobedience (Mignolo, 2008), as well as of indiscipline (Moita Lopes, 2006a). Furthermore, drawing on Anzaldúa’s perspective (1987, p. 20), “today we ask to be met halfway”, as this is an invitation from us to you, reader, to remain open to what is different, somehow unfamiliar, as an attempt “to accommodate us” (Alzandúa, 1987).
Furthermore, we are also aligned with the theoretical principles of the Literacies Pedagogy (LP) (NLG, 1996; Kalantzis et al., 2016; Kalantzis; Cope; Pinheiro, 2020). The New London Group (NLG, 1996) draws our attention to the multiplicity of communication channels and the cultural and linguistic diversity we experience in contemporary times, arguing that these aspects need to be considered in any teaching practice that aims to be “responsive”, in the sense proposed by Bakhtin (1992, p. 290), to social reality. Thus, in the following subsections, we provide a brief historical overview of the concept of translanguaging in the light of the discussions proposed by García and Wei (2014), García, Johnson, and Seltzer (2017), Pennycook (2018; 2024), Diniz; Camargo and Bizon (2024), Lucena and Cardoso (2018), Makalela and Silva (2023), Rocha and Maciel (2024), Rocha and Megale (2023), Welp and García (2022), Kalil, Menezes and Welp (2024) (among many others), since we understand that these discussions contribute to the epistemological stance underlying the translanguaging approach mestiça we advocate here.
In this sense, this article seeks to problematize (Freire, 2005; 2020) translanguaging practices grounded in a context that is, to some extent, different from the one investigated by authors such as García (2009), García; Wei (2014), and Canagarajah (2013). We consider them different, because, although we experience cross-border proximity with Uruguayans, Argentines and Paraguayans - constructing a border language that we affectionately call “Portunhol” - and also being enriched by the heritage of cultures of the Indigenous and African peoples and also European immigrants who settled here, mainly Italian and German (but not exclusively, as pointed out by Neto and Bezzi (2008), formally institutionalized education, in public and private schools, legitimizes the Portuguese and English languages, and only to a much lesser extent and recurrence, Spanish.
Although there are around 250 languages spoken in Brazil (Megale, 2018), the formation of the Brazilian nation has been shaped by narratives that sought (and still seek) to homogenize this linguistic diversity, leading to its erasure and, consequently, to the promotion of a discourse that naturalizes the idea of a single, national language that crosses different territorial borders. Moura recalls how this history has been told in the school context:
The generations that today make up a large part of the teaching staff in schools were educated during a period in which education was heavily influenced by the authoritarianism that shaped the country’s politics, with periods of dictatorship and nationalist ideals that, in the name of a supposed patriotism, constructed narratives that erased the multilingualism that has historically characterized Brazil13 (2020, p. 24, our translation).
The prohibition of Indigenous languages, combined with the overvaluation of the Portuguese language in Brazil, occurred violently at different historical moments, constructing homogenized linguistic practices under the supposed aim of building a national identity (Moura, 2020, p. 24). In her semi-autobiographical book, “Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza”, Gloria Anzaldúa (1987, p. 53-54) recounts a very similar story, from a personal perspective, in which this violent homogenized process is made through language:
I remember being caught speaking Spanish at recess - that was good for three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler. I remember being sent to the corner of the classroom for ‘talking back’ to the Anglo teacher when all I was trying to do was tell her how to pronounce my name. If you want to be American, speak ‘American’. If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong.
In this sense, Anzaldúa, as a “borderlander”, explores issues of language tied to identity, power and culture living between two worlds. She describes situations of her life living on this border, a place of conflicts, contractions and oppression. Talking from these borderlands, a physical place (Texas-U.S. Southwest/Mexican border) as well a space “wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch […]” (Anzaldúa, 1987, p. 19), the author (1987, p. 58) coins the term “linguistic terrorism”, stating that “because we speak with tongues of fire we are culturally crucified”.
However, as Paulo Freire (2020) argues, these homogenizing practices imposed by the political-economic system are never entirely cohesive, and minority groups that find themselves on the margins develop strategies to transcend and transgress these impositions. In this case, through the creation and maintenance of different multilingual and multicultural communities. These communities and groups (although marginalized), organize themselves and transcend the limitations imposed by the “standard culture/language” considered “official”, enabling the linguistic heritage to be passed on to their future generations (Fortes, 2017). In other words, it is a process of transgression that enables the preservation and maintenance of these cultures and languages.
Bakhtin (1981) highlights the constant movement of creation and (re)creation of language based on the interplay of two forces: a) the centripetal force, which seeks to unify and centralize the linguistic-ideological world in a unitary, national and abstract language, in constant struggle with the b) the centrifugal force, which seeks to break away from these centralizing principles. This centrifugal force, embedded within a “unitary” language, projected outward from within, has been transformed at every moment of its evolution, resulting in the phenomenon known as heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981). It is within this profusion of forces, of cultures (and languages) -legitimized or excluded by the educational system - that we seek to reflect on the extent to which translanguaging can contribute to (re)configure a more inclusive education, taking into account the contextual specificities mentioned and the wealth of sociosemiotic resources this inclusive process can offer to the teaching and learning practices.
2.1 Translanguaging as an epistemological challenge: an approach mestiça
According to García, Johnson, and Seltzer (2017), translanguaging had its origins in the Welsh context with Cen Williams, a teacher who aimed at fostering the students’ development by exchanging languages, Welsh and English, with the objective to promote students’ access to academic content. However, this concept has been expanded by other authors (García; Wei, 2014; García; Johnson; Seltzer, 2017; Kalil; Welp, 2024; Flores, 2014; 2017, Rocha; Maciel, 2024) who see in it not only the promotion of academic practices through the use of different “languages”, but also the possibility of social justice by recognizing, welcoming and valuing students’ heteroglossic language practices in the school space; which is still predominantly monoglossic, in Bakhtin’s (1981) terms, and hegemonic. Flores (2013; 2014; 2017) has evidenced in his studies the influence of neoliberalism on educational discourse, especially in language teaching contexts. According to him, neoliberal discourse transforms all social spheres into a market/company/enterprise (Flores, 2017; Smyth, 1992). Education, like other areas of society, has been strongly influenced by this neoliberal marketization both at the macro level - where the school as an institution operates like a business - and the micro level of the individual, since the greater and ultimate goal of schooling is to produce individuals who conform to market demands (Flores, 2017, p. 504).
Thus, pedagogical practices developed under market-driven ethics become technicist and non-reflective, centered on individuality, as they prepare learners for the competitiveness of the “free” market (Flores, 2014; Freire, 2020; Smyth, 1992). This discourse significantly impacts language policies and the actions that stem from them. As a result, the teaching of prestigious languages, such as English, under a monoglossic and reproductive conception - aimed at mirroring native-like proficiency - becomes a tool for economic capital as represented by large corporations. Thus, it is common to find, as justification for the teaching and learning of prestigious languages, in official guiding documents (such as the BNCC and PCNs) or in Pedagogical Political Projects, and elsewhere, the inevitable phenomenon of globalization, as well as the opportunities of well-paid jobs in the market and many other reasons that tend to unify, standardize, and establish language practices as models to be followed.
By contrast, García (2009, p. 16) warns that this same globalization that seeks to homogenize all forms of existence and place the learner in a constant pursuit for a unique way of living is also the one that drives the intertwining of cultures and languages. Interactions in the 21st century are shaped by translanguaging practices; therefore, education must be designed to welcome, embrace and value diversity and difference, distancing itself from the assumptions of reproduction and competition embedded in neoliberal discourse. After all, globalization produces the phenomenon of linguistic superdiversity (Blommaert, 2010), characterized precisely by the hybridity and mixing of language practices of people in contact with difference - either through physical or virtual borders. In the light of this, Janks (2004) states that we, as English language teachers, face a paradox, the access paradox, because if we promote access to hegemonic and dominant practices in the context of reproduction, we are perpetuating domination; on the other hand, if we deny students access to these practices, we are perpetuating inequality, and these individuals remain in the margins of society.
In this sense, we agree with Kalil and Welp (2024, p. 10601) when they argue that “translanguaging emerges as an important critical pedagogy in socially marginalized educational settings” as well as in supporting pedagogical practices grounded in affection, respect, care, and the welcoming and valuing of multiple experiences. For this purpose, we rely on Vygotsky’s sociocultural approach, which considers the development of language and thought as socio-historically constitutive principles of interaction. Vygotsky (1984) states that learning is the process that triggers cognitive, social and affective development (Stetsenko; Arievitch, 2002; Vygotsky, 1984). Thus, in line with the sociocultural approach, translanguaging presents itself as a theoretical/epistemological perspective that challenges the concept of autonomous language - reduced to grammatical structures and codified, fixed, immutable lexical items - by equally considering its social, cultural, and ideological constitution (Bakhtin, 1981; García; Wei, 2014; Vygotsky, 1984).
Therefore, from translanguaging lenses, language is alive and is (trans)formed in actions and languaging practices that are always situated in a context, a place, a space and a time, constituting processes of identification, ways of thinking and being in the world (García; Wei, 2014; Motta-Roth, 2006). In short, it is artificial to think that language teaching and learning processes take place in vacuum, without identity-based interventions and influences from multiple and diverse practices, that are influenced by both concrete aspects of language, such as phonetic-phonological features, and more abstract ones, such as discursive ideologies (Motta-Roth, 2008a).
Translanguaging, thus, positions itself as a decolonial epistemology (García, 2019; Kalil; Welp, 2024), insofar as it advocates for equality and fairness related to the language practices and recognizes the school context as a space where cultures intersect, thereby disobeying the dominant monolingual and monocultural ideology in schools, in which certain practices are valued over others, the latter often being local ones (Candau, 2008). As the author (2008, p. 13, our translation) points out, “there is no education that is not immersed in the cultural processes of the context in which it is situated”.14 For this reason, teaching based on monocultural ideologies means de-culturalizing the pedagogical experience. In this scenario, translanguaging reveals itself not only as a critical epistemology for challenging monocultural ideology, but also as a disobedient epistemology (Mignolo, 2008; Rocha; Maciel, 2024), by crossing and transgressing borders and recognizing this borderland space as constituted by the intersection of cultures.
According to Candau (2008), school culture in Brazil, under colonial assumptions, is naturalized and crystallized in discourses lived and experienced in coloniality, which reflects the Eurocentric legacies of ways of life. However, what does not fit the standard (the Eurocentric model) tends to be rendered unviable and silenced. On the other hand, difference is constitutive of all pedagogical action, which leaves us with no alternative but to embrace teaching grounded in interactive multiculturalism or interculturality15, opening space for critical-other thinking, critical thinking of/from another way of being, of existing, of knowing and of living (Walsh, 2012). In this sense, decolonial and intercultural teaching and learning processes develop from the recognition of dynamic, fluid, complex and plural cultural identities that intertwine in the school space.
Candau (2008, p. 26, our translation) also states that “schools suffer from cultural colorblindness”16 and therefore we need other epistemologies that allow us to recognize cultural hybridization and to value other ways of producing knowledge. For that matter, the concept of translanguaging mestiça enables us to problematize (and perhaps engage in an epistemological practice of rupture with) the colonial matrix (Mignolo, 2017; Quijano, 2007) that shapes educational contexts. Kalil and Welp (2024, p. 10601) state that “translanguaging emphasizes the pivotal role of repertoires in delineating the language practices” in linguistic education contexts, since, through the lens of translanguaging, these practices do not belong to two separate and autonomous systems, but rather to one single “linguistic repertoire with features that have been societally constructed as belonging to two separate languages” (García; Wei, 2014, p. 2).
In this sense, translanguaging is an approach that enables us to go beyond “linguistic forms per se, allow[ing] to understand deeper manifestations of translanguaging, which often reveal highly significant socio-historical and identity processes” (Diniz, Camargo, Bizon, 2024, p. 23, our translation17). For this reason, we understand it as mestiça, as it draws on dimensions other than linguistic ones in the construction and negotiation of meanings. Thus, in the next section, we discuss our proposal of a translanguaging repertoire that is constructed from a mestiçagem too, taking into account the contributions of Wei (2011, 2018), Canagarajah, (2013, 2017), Pennycook (2018, 2024), Lau, Tian e Lin (2021), Freire, (2020, 2022, 2024), Maturana, (1998), Busch (2015), Rocha and Maciel (2024); Kalantzis et al. (2016); Bonacina-Pugh, Da Costa and Huang (2021) and Makalela and Silva (2023).
2.2 Translanguaging and the translanguaging repertoire mestiço
The epistemology for the translanguaging repertoire mestiço evokes the construction of the untested feasibility18 (Freire, 2024) as a tool for social transformation within a language education system which is still grounded in neoliberal assumptions. It enables culturally situated perspectives, recognizing other ways of thinking, acting, feeling, being, and existing in the world (Rocha; Maciel, 2024; Freire, 2022; Walsh, 2012). Thus, we advocate for a repertoire that embraces the complexity of “being in the world” (Becker, 1995, p. 227, apud García; Wei, 2014, p. 8). We propose a repertoire mestiço whose boundaries merge - a repertoire not grounded solely in words, but in the universe that constitutes them. Authors such as Canagarajah (2013, 2017), García and Kleifgen (2019), Lau, Tian e Lin (2021), Rocha and Patel (2024), Wei (2018), Pennycook (2024), among others, have expanded the concept of translanguaging beyond language, through the notion of assemblage. This concept frames meaning-making not merely as a result of syntactic organization or lexical choice, but as entangled with space, time, and emotions.
Accordingly, the translanguaging repertoire is nurtured by broader cognitive and sociocultural processes that encompass full-bodied meaning-making with participants acting together in contexts situated in time and space (Lau, Tian e Lin, 2021). These authors (2021, p. 385), based on Thibault (2011) state that translanguaging “involves highly complex and heterogeneous interactions among the mind, body and culture across spatiotemporal scales”.
The term repertoire was coined by Gumperz in 196419 to understand how people experience and represent their linguistic practices. However, in the light of globalization, technological expansion, and migratory movements (Blommaert, 2010; Megale; Liberali, 2020; Liberali et al., 2022; Welp; García, 2022), this concept requires reinterpretation. Busch (2015, p. 14) proposes a repertoire not limited to “a set of competences, a kind of toolbox from which we select the ‘right’ language or ‘right’ code for each context or situation”.
Busch’s (2015) concept distances itself from a structuralist and monoglossic understanding of language, where practices are compartmentalized. This expanded view supports the understanding of educational contexts involving more than one named language as a medium of instruction. Thus, N.E.C.C.E.’s reflections move toward a proposal that considers the complexity and overlap of resources mobilized by people as they enter interactive processes. In this proposal (illustrated in Figure 1), we highlight three key dimensions that constitute any meaning maker’s interactive process: a) the spatiotemporal, b) the emotional, and c) the semiotic.
The innermost dimension of the repertoire, the spatiotemporal, relates to our positionality in the world - where we come from and where we first experienced social life. As we grow, we may (or may not) expand these interactive spaces by accessing new cultural frames and worldviews. This spatial emphasis has been discussed by Pennycook; Otsuji (2014), Busch (2015), Canagarajah (2017), and Wei (2018). According to Pennycook; Otsuji (2014, p. 166), spatial repertoire refers to “available and sedimented resources deriving from people’s repeated linguistic practices within sets of activities related to specific places.” This view connects individuals’ life trajectories to the resources available in specific spaces, highlighting both the broader social nature of space and the uniqueness of particular places.
Busch (2015, p. 4) adds that each space has “its own language regime - its own set of rules, orders of discourses, and language ideologies.” Similarly, Canagarajah (2017, p. 1) explores translingual practice through spatial repertoires, situating “communication in space and time, considering all resources as working together, as an assemblage in shaping construction.” Thus, spatiality is linked to the idea of language as social practice, so that language is always contextually grounded, physically or abstractly.
Accordingly, spatial repertoire is agentive as it contributes to the language production process. Canagarajah (2017, p. 3) notes that spaces are “active, generative, and agentive, […] holistic construct[s] that includes geography, history, and society.” He also emphasizes that space includes time, prompting our use of the term spatiotemporal, evoking Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of chronotope. Busch (2015, p. 13) echoes this by stressing that, although interactions happen in the “here and now,” they also resonate with what is spatially and temporally absent, yet “operating or resonating in the background, and therefore also intentionally or unintentionally present: relevant others, other spaces and times from which we take our bearings”.
The emotional dimension is intertwined with space and time, as both evoke different emotions. Hence, when designing contextually situated teaching and learning proposals, we consider emotions as central. Maturana (1998, p. 15, our translation20) defines emotions as “dynamic bodily dispositions that define and determine the different domains of action in which we move.” Changing our emotions alters our actions. Emotion does not oppose reason; rather, it coordinates it. Language manifests in the flow of actions - in inter-action - “not in the head, brain, body structure, grammar, or syntax” (Maturana, 1998, p. 28, our translation21). For Maturana, human action is the flow of emotion. He states,
if my emotional structure changes, my way of relating to others changes, and therefore my language changes. If my language changes, the space of my languaging changes, and so do the interactions I engage in (Maturana, 1998, p. 27, our translation22).
Thus, languaging is an ongoing process of autopoiesis, with the ability to create, recreate, and regenerate itself. Every action gives rise to new languaging, situated in emotion (feeling), action (doing), being (time), and presence (space). If we seek a transformative view of language and education, autopoiesis is essential, since, according to Rocha and Maciel (2024, p. 29) it “emphasizes the autopoietic marks of language, which nourish its internal fluidity and also its structural flexibility, allowing for situated processes of regeneration and recreation”. Similarly, Busch’s (2015) idea of lived language experience helps us understand how bodily and emotional factors shape language.
To illustrate this interrelation between emotion and language, we use two examples presented by Busch (2015): prelinguistic physical and emotional interaction with infants and the language teaching process. In the first, she draws on Hassoun (1994) and Kristeva (2002) to describe “our oldest and strongest feelings - of physical contacts, unarticulated sounds, words that the by the child hears without understanding them, and which the adult suddenly rediscovers in a turn of phrase or a change in mood” (Busch, 2015, p. 13). In the second, of utmost importance for us, language teachers, Busch (2015, p. 12), referencing Kramsch (2009), highlights that lately it has been recognized that teaching and learning are not purely cognitive; and that, therefore, there needs to be “a positive emotional experience of language”.
In relation to the emotional and bodily nature of the repertoire, Busch (2015, p. 8) also cites Butler (1997): “the constitution of the subject by the discursive, performative power of language shapes thought, speech, feelings and even bodily being.” This affirms that language is embodied, aligning with Maturana (1998). From this subjective and biographical perspective about the repertoire, Busch shows how emotional and bodily experiences shape our repertoires. Thus, languaging is emotional and affective, evoking emotions, sensations, and experiences, even if not linguistically explicit. Emotions are part of us, as is language. So, in social interaction, we mobilize not only named languages, but also feelings, reasoning, and bodies. We also consider the framework of ubuntu translanguaging, as proposed initially by Makalela (2016, 2018, 2022) and discussed by Silva and Makalela (2025), a very powerful reference since it is a humanist approach to complex co-existence (I am because you are and you are because I am) and, in this sense, takes into consideration the interconnections among all beings and the ways we are related to each other (through our feelings, emotions, affections and so on). By adding this emotional dimension, we echo Rocha and Maciel (2024, p. 32): “it is possible to think of other dimensions beyond linguistic and semiotic elements, which have broadly been discussed in translanguaging theory.”
The third dimension in Figure 1 refers to the semiotic aspect of the repertoire - resources used in meaning-making processes. These include tangible elements in our communicative practices through which we interact with others and the world. We draw on the New London Group (1996) and Kalantzis et al. (2016), who highlight culturally available modes of meaning: written, visual, spatial, tactile, gestural, audio, and oral. According to Kalantzis et al. (2016), meaning-making occurs in two realms: representation (creating meaning for ourselves) and communication (creating meaning to interact with others).
They also argue that while institutional/school focus often emphasizes reading and writing mechanisms, “our processes of meaning are always at least to some extent multimodal, bringing together written, visual, spatial, tactile, gestural, audio and oral modes” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 211). Hence, we must expand the notion of linguistic to the semiotic, since linguistic is traditionally understood as an integral part of semiotic and that, often, we rely on other resources (besides written and/or spoken language) to represent or communicate meaning.
Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 230) describe multimodality as “the theory of how these modes of meaning are interconnected in our practices of representation and communication” to account for understanding the highly hybrid, fluid and diverse nature of communication today. Both multimodality and social diversity are pillars of Literacies Pedagogy (Kalantzis et al. 2016). In this sense, this pedagogy helps us broaden our understanding of the resources used in various communicative practices across social contexts.
Relating this discussion to translanguaging, we highlight Bonacina-Pugh, Da Costa; Huang’s (2021) classification of translanguaging as a “fixed” or a “fluid” approach. According to the authors, the fluid approach involves dynamically using a set of semiotic signs, transcending the idea of named language (and arguably of language itself). Our description of this dimension of the repertoire aligns with their definition of translanguaging as “the practice of making meaning using different semiotic signs as one integrated system” (Bonacina-Pugh et al., 2021, p. 10). They note that, in the definitions and conceptualizations about translanguaging, “progressively a consensus arose: the term ‘semiotic sign’ became more frequently used rather than the terms ‘features’, ‘linguistic signs’ or ‘discursive practices’” (2021, p. 10).
This broadening helps us understand how meaning makers “convey meanings not just by drawing on multiple linguistic systems but also by drawing on other non-verbal and visual systems” (Bonacina-Pugh et al., 2021, p. 10). They also revisit García and Wei’s (2014) idea of a trans-semiotic system, proposing that “in their repertoire, sign makers do not separate gestures, gaze, emoticons, languages to communicate and interpret meaning; all semiotic signs form one trans-semiotic system” (Bonacina-Pugh et al., 2021, p. 10) and that all these resources construct this trans-semiotic system.
In this view, translanguaging could be conceived as a process by which we mobilize named languages and various semiotic resources or modes of meaning-making that integrate our repertoire to enact our languaging. In other words, our repertoire is activated to materialize our meaning-making, using, in this process, all available resources - verbal, audio, gestural, sensory, visual, emotional, temporal, and spatial (Kalantzis et al., 2016). Ultimately, the idea of a translanguaging repertoire mestiço invites us to (re)think constructs like named languages and semiotic modes through a broader lens that includes the dimensions aforementioned in our languaging and meaning-making processes.By linking the emotional and spatiotemporal dimensions to the semiotic, we aim to show how emotions, bodies, space, time, and material objects shape our ways of using language and of constructing knowledge in socially and historically situated interactions. However, it is worth emphasizing that we construct, throughout our lived experiences (Megale; Liberali, 2020), our repertoire, mobilized in situations of meaning construction and negotiation. In this sense, those three dimensions are constantly influenced by others, which are part of different repertoires. Thus, we do not conceive of the translanguaging repertoire from a cognitivist perspective, as something that “the individual possesses but as something formed and deployed in intersubjective processes located on the border between the self and the other” (Busch, 2015, p. 7).
The proposal of a translanguaging repertoire mestiço presented here becomes “a practical proposal for overcoming, at least in part, the oppressive aspects perceived in reality” (Freire, 2020, p. 41, our translation23). It also acts as a space for reflection and action against the limiting conditions imposed by the current educational context. It is through the mobilization of this repertoire that we take a more conscious stance on our praxis - acknowledging centripetal forces from neoliberal thinking while recognizing the importance of centrifugal forces through new designs that embrace diverse translanguaging practices capable of unsettling ideological foundations of homogenous language concepts. Thus, we pursue a constant shift in language education, seeking for one that promotes access through learning practices that honor the contextual specificities where such processes are rooted (García; Johnson; Seltzer, 2017).
3 How are we experiencing these concepts in research and teaching practices at N.E.C.C.E.?
Between August 2023 and December 2024, the group N.E.C.C.E. has offered an initial and continuing teacher education program24 aimed at problematizing the concept of translanguaging. The program was grounded in the three strands proposed by García, Johnson, and Seltzer (2017): stance, design, and shift. Alongside theoretical discussions carried out in the stance module (from August to December 2023), participants were challenged to develop a translanguaging teaching unit for their respective educational contexts (March to July 2024), which was then implemented in the final phase, the shift module (August to December 2024).
The group of participants was highly diverse and included: a) preservice teachers in the final semesters of their English Language and Pedagogy undergraduate programs, interested in bilingual education; b) English teachers and pedagogues working in bilingual early childhood education in private schools in Santa Maria; c) English language teachers from higher education institutions undergoing internationalization policy implementation; and d) a Spanish teacher working in the early years of the public municipal education system in Santa Maria. The teacher program ultimately included eight participants and was conducted by the second and third authors of this article, under the supervision of the first author.
In this section, we present a case study illustrating a translanguaging pedagogical activity developed by three preservice English teachers, who were participants in the teacher program and members of N.E.C.C.E. As part of their final undergraduate paper, they collaboratively created a Translanguaging Teaching Unit (TTU) to be applied in a public early childhood education setting with five-year-old, non-literate children. After implementing the unit in the school, the TTU became the object of analysis for their final paper work. The public school in question had approached the university seeking to develop collaborative pedagogical projects. Therefore, before designing the unit itself, the preservice teachers engaged in an immersion experience in that school context, enabling them to understand its specificities and establish a pedagogical-affective relationship with both the children and the in-service teachers.
It is important to note that the school’s coordinator suggested the unit be implemented in three pre-kindergarten B classes with children aged five and six. During the school immersion in April 2024, the state of Rio Grande do Sul experienced catastrophic flooding - reported as the worst in its history. With the state plunged into chaos and the destruction of basic infrastructure in many cities (including Santa Maria, especially in peripheral neighborhoods where many of the children lived), this climate disaster, its causes and consequences, inevitably emerged as the generative theme of the TTU being developed.
We worked on re-signifying and didactizing this event to problematize it in the classroom with five-year-old children who were also living through its impacts daily.25 The unpredictability of the theme materialized the spatiotemporal dimension discussed earlier, grounded in the sociocultural and historical context experienced at that moment by the school community and, more broadly, by the people of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. It was impossible to ignore this phenomenon in class when it dominated concerns outside the classroom. However, it is worth noting that the unit’s objective was not to directly address the tragedies of the floods with five-year-olds, because these children were already living it. Instead, the focus was on exploring the idea that we live on a planet that breathes, feels, and responds whenever it is harmed or nurtured. Through this perspective, we discussed our role as beings who not only inhabit but also interact with the territory we live in.
In this way, the unit also aimed to include the emotional and semiotic dimensions of the translanguaging repertoire by allowing space for children to express ideas, desires, and feelings about the proposed literacy events. To explore the idea that we coexist within a living planet, the children participated in an exploratory activity using different modes of meaning-making to express how they relate to their surroundings. They used various semiotic resources (Kalantzis et al., 2016). First, they explored the schoolyard (Example 1 - Part A), then returned to the classroom to record their impressions (Example 1 - Part B).
Example 1 refers to the first activity of the unit and is connected to the spatiotemporal, emotional, and semiotic dimensions of the repertoire. At this stage, after walking around the schoolyard, students were invited to draw elements of nature they encountered that evoked four of the five senses (see, smell, hear, and touch). The aim was to help children recognize, through sensory perception, the various elements present in nature and, from that recognition, learn to appreciate, observe, and value nature and its diversity surrounding them daily.
This activity activated various semiotic resources, such as drawings, colors, named languages (English and Portuguese) in both written and oral modalities, based on their observation of the space. Designed as a collaborative exercise, it encouraged interaction among peers, sharing ideas and different perceptions of the same space, the school environment and its integration with natural resources. The activity also fostered respect for diverse ways of seeing the same space or object, as well as different ways of representing it, as seen in the children’s productions and their sharing with peers.
The second example also explores the emotional dimension of the translanguaging repertoire by inviting students to expand the idea of the Planet as a living being that also needs help when it is “sick.” The activity involved storytelling (“The Planet Has a Fever”26, written by Luciana Rosa and adapted by one of the unit’s authors), which was explored orally. Following Motta-Roth (2008b), based on Wallace (1992), the activity included pre-reading, reading, and post-reading moments. Initial questions opened up a discussion on the central problem (Example 2, Part A - Speech Bubble), which then guided the questions leading into the reading (Example 2, Part A - Activity with starry background). Finally, the children discussed how they could help the Planet and the feelings generated by such actions (Example 2, Part B).
Emotions are not merely feelings, but dispositions that enable interactions; therefore, without emotion, interaction is not possible. According to Maturana (1998, p. 68, our translation27), “insofar as different emotions constitute domains of distinct actions, there will be different types of human relationships depending on the emotion that sustains them.” For the author, there are two fundamental types of emotions in human interactions: rejection and love. The former results in the denial of the other, while the latter presupposes acceptance of the other. The TDU (Translanguaging Didactic Unit) sought to highlight the fact that we treat the planet with rejection as we neglect it and allow it to become ill, while simultaneously encouraging small acts of care (saving water, managing waste, planting trees, etc.) that materialize love.
For Maturana (1998), to educate within the biology of love means to act from the acceptance of the other as a legitimate other in their diversity and difference. However, this first implies the acceptance of ourselves and, as we add here, the recognition of how we act in relation to others.
Therefore, educating within the biology of love as a rule means not denying the other (be it a person, an animal, an object, or a space); it is to educate not for competitiveness and individuality, but for solidarity, understanding the act of educating as a reciprocal and supportive act, since meaning-making occurs through interaction with others. In this sense, by proposing multisemiotic reflections (through reading, listening, looking, observing, drawing, touching, etc.) on the environment, we are proposing a reflection on our actions and their consequences in the space and time of which we are an integral part.
In this light, our proposal aimed to counter the individualistic worldview by sowing a pedagogical practice focused on affection, care, respect, and love for the other. This path was taken as the activities allowed children to exercise agency in their learning processes. Thus, in the concluding activity of the TDU, the children produced “a book” to take home and read with their families, offering suggestions on how to protect the Planet so that it does not “get sick” again (Example 3).
4 Final Considerations
In this article, we problematized the concepts of translanguaging and translanguaging practice, and how these can support pedagogical activities grounded in a reflective and situated view of teaching aimed at social emancipation. In this sense, we highlighted translanguaging as a pedagogy/epistemology capable of contributing to a praxis that respects “the cultural identity of students, a cultural identity that implies respect for the language of the other […]” (Freire, 2020, p. 92, our translation28). Thus, we understand translanguaging to be capable of challenging the cultural and linguistic hierarchies so present in the classroom, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, as well as destabilizing rigid boundaries by (re)acknowledging that students mobilize different resources, (re)constructed in a constant process of hybridity with each production of meaning.
By proposing the concept of translanguaging repertoire mestiço, we ultimately shed light on a praxis that does not shy away from considering the spatiotemporal, emotional, and semiotic dimensions that constitute learning practices. This implies the recognition of differences and the emergence of various identity practices that are often silenced by neoliberal education (Flores, 2013; Freire, 2020).
Neoliberalism’s main goal is to blur differences, placing individuals, as well as their spaces and identity practices, within an egalitarian ideology in which everyone must reproduce a hegemonic and monoglossic standard (Flores, 2013; Freire, 2020). As Flores (2013) points out, the school as an institution has contributed to the production of the “neoliberal subject”, who is constantly accumulating knowledge in order to become as close as possible to a so-called “successful” individual. It is in this pursuit of idealized cultural, linguistic, and identity standards that students have experienced the erasure of their own identities.
For this reason, in this article we sought to problematize access to and the use of different repertoires (spatiotemporal, emotional, and semiotic) without hierarchizing language practices in educational settings. In this regard, considering teaching and learning processes through the lens of a translanguaging repertoire mestiço can open up spaces for a critical-reflexive praxis, in which teachers and students are co-participants in the construction of an education aimed at transforming the society we live in. After all, as Freire (2020, p. 51, our translation29) states, “we must strive to create a context in which people can question fatalistic perceptions of the circumstances in which they find themselves, so that we may all fulfill our role as active participants in history.” We are aware that pedagogical practices alone are not sufficient to challenge an entire neoliberal system entrenched in the educational environment. However, we align with Flores (2013, p. 518), who states that by providing spaces for students to experience practices and identities that challenge the neoliberal universalizing narrative, we are planting seeds so that children may imagine different ways of growing, being, and existing in the world.
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Data Availability Statement
The data are part of the research database conducted by the Research Group N.E.C.C.E. (Núcleo de Estudos em Contextos Escolares), within the scope of the Guarda-Chuva Project "FORMAÇÃO INICIAL E CONTINUADA DE PROFESSORES PARA O ENSINO DE PRÁTICAS LETRADAS TRANSLINGUES", registered and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) - GAP Registration No. 059245.
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Funding
Use of AI
Responsible editor
Declaration of Conflict
Authors’ Contribution
Review 1
Review 1
O trabalho é relevante, muito bem embasado teoricamente, com metodologia, objetivos e resultados claros. É um texto muito bem escrito e organizado. A bibliografia é ampla e concernente com a proposta. Sugiro a publicação do trabalho com alguns ajustes necessários.
Recommendation: Mandatory corrections.
- peer review recommendation: major-revision
Review 2
Review 2
This is a good paper with a lot of potentials. Some suggested recommendations below:
The abstract effectively outlines the scope and structure of the article, but it does not clearly specify the conceptual contribution. While the term “translanguaging pedagogy mestiça” is introduced, the reader is not made aware of how this notion extends, revises, or challenges existing translanguaging frameworks (e.g., García and Li Wei, Pennycook, Makoni). Furthermore, it remains unclear why the concept of mestiça is theoretically necessary rather than merely descriptive or metaphorical, leaving the innovative dimension of the work under-articulated.
In addition, the paper conflates related but analytically distinct concepts: translanguaging and translingual repertoire. This distinction is important for precise theorization in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics. While the two terms are often used interchangeably in practice, they occupy different analytical spaces: translanguaging refers to the actual processes of meaning-making in multilingual interactions, whereas a translingual repertoire denotes the set of linguistic and semiotic resources available to speakers, from which translanguaging draws. Recognizing this distinction enables a more nuanced engagement with multilingual practices and supports clearer theoretical framing. For a thorough discussion of this distinction, see Dovchin (2025) as well as Jerry Lee’s work, which highlight the implications of this differentiation for both classroom-based pedagogy and sociolinguistic analysis.
Dovchin S. Beyond Translingual Playfulness: Translingual Precarity. Language in Society, v. 54, Issue 4, p. 609-636, 2025. DOI: 10.1017/S0047404524000708.
Recommendation: Mandatory corrections.
- peer review recommendation: major-revision
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