Translingual Identities and Transnational Realities in the U.S. College Classroom

Exploring the roles of students' pluralistic linguistic and transnational identities at the university level, this book offers a novel approach to translanguaging by highlighting students' perspectives, voices, and agency as integral to the subject. Providing an original reconsideration of the impact of translanguaging, this book examines both transnationality and translinguality as ubiquitous phenomena that affect students' lives. Demonstrating that students are the experts of their own language practices, experiences, and identities, the authors argue that a proactive translingual pedagogy is more than an openness to students' spontaneous language variations. Rather, this proactive approach requires students and instructors to think about students' holistic communicative repertoire, and how it relates to their writing. Robinson, Hall, and Navarro address students' complex negotiations and performative responses to the linguistic identities imposed upon them because of their skin color, educational background, perceived geographical origin, immigration status, and the many other cues used to "minoritize" them. Drawing on multiple disciplinary discourses of language and identity, and considering the translingual practices and transnational experiences of both U.S. resident and international students, this volume provides a nuanced analysis of students' own perspectives and self-examinations of their complex identities. By introducing and addressing the voices and self-reflections of undergraduate and graduate students, the authors shine a light on translingual and transnational identities and positionalities in order to promote and implement inclusive and effective pedagogies. This book offers a unique yet essential perspective on translinguality and transnationality, and is relevant to instructors in writing and language classrooms; to administrators of writing programs and international student support programs; and to graduate students and scholars in language education, second language writing, applied linguistics, and literacy studies.

Heather Robinson is an associate professor of English at York College, CUNY, USA. Jonathan Hall is a professor of English at York College, CUNY, USA. Nela Navarro is the Director of the Graduate English Language Learners and International Teaching Assistants Program at Rutgers English Language Institute (RELI), and an assistant teaching professor and assistant director of the English Writing Program at Rutgers University, USA.

1. Making Translinguality and Transnationality Visible 2. Everyday Translingualism: We Meet Our Students 3. On Racial Privilege and Accent Hierarchies 4. Transing Language Identity 5. On Becoming and Beyond: My Liminal Identity 6. Language Affiliation and Identity Performance Among Transnational Students 7. Confessions of a (Recovering) Monolingual: Translingual Moments and Excursions in Language Ideology 8. Transing Pedagogy 9. Translanguaging, Performance and the Art of Negotiation 10. Translingual Economies of Literacy 11. Translinguality, Grammatical Literacy, and a Pedagogy of Naming 12. Building Community, Building Confidence: Transnational Translingual Emerging Scholars 13. Cultivating a Culture of Language Rights 14. Conclusion: Negotiated Identities