Code-switching is metaphor, translanguaging is metonymy: a transdisciplinary view of bilingualism and its role in education

ABSTRACT

How we talk about bilingualism has an effect on how others think about bilingual individuals, and in turn, how active bilingual learners/users of English (ABLE) students are assessed and taught in schools. I use a transdisciplinary approach of bridging social semiotics, applied linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive linguistics to explain how code-switching is metaphor, an external perspective of bilingualism as inter-domain linguistic mapping and translanguaging is metonymy, an internal perspective of intra-domain linguistic mapping. By placing translanguaging/metonymy on the syntagmatic axis and code-switching/metaphor on the paradigmatic axis, I demonstrate through example sentences of monolingual and bilingual speech and figures, how accepting the inaccurate metaphor of bilingualism as just code-switching alone, sets in motion countless dichotomies that act to create the bilingualism-as-problem orientation for ABLE students in U.S. schools; most specifically for those at the intersection of bilingualism and disability. A transdisciplinary view of bilingualism includes both an internal perspective (translanguaging, metonymic combination of parts of the whole linguistic repertoire on the syntagmatic axis), plus an external perspective (code-switching, metaphoric alternation of linguistic features from diverse named languages on the paradigmatic axis). I conclude with implications for a more appropriate description of bilingualism and its role in education.

KEYWORDS:

• Code-switching
• metaphor
• metonymy
• paradigmatic axis
• syntagmatic axis
• translanguaging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Steve Daniel Przymus

Steve Daniel Przymus, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Educational Linguistics and Bilingual Special Education at Texas Christian University (TCU). His training includes a doctorate in Second Language Acquisition & Teaching (University of Arizona, 2016), being a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer (República Dominicana, 2003–2005), a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Grantee (México, 2010), and 26 years of teaching. He researches translanguaging, bilingual special education, sociolinguistics, metonymy in linguistic landscapes, and the education of transnational youth. He has been named the Donovan-Patton National Impact Scholar (2017–2019), the TCU College of Education Piper Professor (2022, 2023), and the Richard Ruiz Distinguished Scholar in Residence (2022, Guanajuato, MX).