Transgressive translanguaging: theorizing the corriente

ABSTRACT

Translanguaging in classrooms opens spaces for multilingual students to engage in learning across the full range of their linguistic repertoire. We argue that one result of translanguaging pedagogy is that it can transform the talk-for-learning in the classroom and create a corriente or flow of ideas that is more free and less constrained than traditional classroom interactional patterns. However, what has been lacking in the translanguaging literature to date is an examination of if, when, and how teacher-student translanguaging actually does disrupt the traditional interactional structures of classrooms in ways that enhance student meaning-making. This article theorizes the translanguaging corriente at the discourse level using moment analysis to analyze data from two video datasets of elementary-grade lessons with emergent bilingual students in Texas and México with two extended excerpts illustrating the creative and critical potential of the translanguaging corriente. Pedagogical practices facilitating the corriente are also identified.

KEYWORDS:

• Translanguaging
• classroom discourse
• bilingual education

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Notes

¹ We have opted to use a simplified transcription system here for readability, but we encourage the reader to listen to the included audio files to get a sense of how the corriente sounds in the lessons, especially where we indicate overlapping talk or “chorus of voices” as students compete for the floor.