Translanguaging

As a critical sociolinguistic theory, translanguaging has had the most application in language education, especially in the education of language‐minoritized students and in bilingual education and increasingly in what are considered foreign language programs. It has been seen to have the capacity and potential to transform the way we see, use, and teach language, literacy, and other subjects. This entry first discusses the meanings of translanguaging theory and its implications for a theory of language. It focuses on how translanguaging transforms our understandings of bilingual/multilingual people as well as the familiar concepts that have been used to study them. The second part then turns to how translanguaging has impacted language education, transforming how we teach students for bilingualism as well as how bilingual students learn. The focus then shifts to how translanguaging informs and can transform language policies in classrooms as well as pedagogies.