Negotiating Translingual Literacy: An Enactment

TLDR

The orientation treats text as co‑constructed in time and space, giving readers and writers equal power to shape meaning and form, and emphasizes its multimodal, multisensory nature. The article argues that understanding writing as translingual requires shifting from autonomous to negotiated literacy, and demonstrates that both student groups can adopt such practices with appropriate pedagogical affordances. The study identifies four negotiation strategies—envoicing, recontextualization, interaction, and entextualization—used by writers and readers to code‑mesh and interpret texts, each setting conditions, preparing ground, co‑constructing meaning, or revealing temporal and spatial shaping. The analysis shows that a dialogical pedagogy can further develop students’ existing negotiation strategies.

Abstract

This article argues that an understanding of writing as translingual requires a shift to a different orientation to literacy—i.e., from autonomous and situated to negotiated. Such an orientationtreats the text as co-constructed in time and space—with parity for readers and writers in shaping the meaning and form—and thus performed rather than preconstructed, making the multimodal and multisensory dimensions of the text fully functional. Going beyond the native/nonnative and monolingual/multilingual speaker binaries, this study demonstrates that both student groups can orient themselves to such literate practices in the context of suitable pedagogical affordances. Drawing from teacher research informed by an ethnographic perspective, the study identifies four types of negotiation strategies adopted by writers to code-mesh and readers to interpret texts: envoicing, recontextualization, interaction, and entextualization. Envoicing strategies set the conditions for negotiation, as it is a consideration of voice that motivates writers to decide the extent and nature of code-meshing; recontextualization strategies prepare the ground for negotiation; interactional strategies are adopted to co-construct meaning; and entextualization strategies reveal the temporal and spatial shaping of the text to facilitate and respond to these negotiations. The analysis points to the value of a dialogical pedagogy that can further develop the negotiation strategies students already bring to the classroom.