Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts - Volume 10, Issue 2, 2024

Trust is important in public health communication to culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities during pandemics. This empirical research, using quantitative data from 107 foreign nationals at a university in Shanghai, probes into how trust varied in official translation services (OTS) and non-official translation services (NOTS) during COVID-19. Statistical analysis was carried out by IBM SPSS Statistics 26 and it was found that (1) NOTS which are more frequently used are more trusted compared with OTS; (2) NOTS are uncorrelated with demographics while OTS are correlated with demographics, among which education and trust in OTS suggest a linear positive relationship (Sig. = 0.003, β = 0.467), whereas age and trust in OTS suggest a linear negative relationship (Sig. = 0.027, β = −0.348); (3) there is a positive relationship between the frequency of using services and trust, i.e., higher frequency implies higher trust. The findings of this case study can have implications for policy makers and the representatives of CALD communities.

The theory of translingualism has been well constructed in sociolinguistics, yet it has not been applied fully to the study of literary translation and translator identity. This paper attempts to analyze the English version of Mayra Montero’s Spanish novel In the Palm of Darkness (1997) within the framework of translingualism. Through the analysis of code-meshing and code-switching events, this article focuses on the identity construction of Edith Grossman, the English translator of the novel In the Palm of Darkness. The occurrence of translingualism is attributed to the complex dynamics of ethnic identity. Through co-participating in the construction process of Montero’s identity in different scenarios, namely resistance, transformation, and inclusiveness, translingualism helps to solve problems of translation methods on a micro scale, translator identity on a meso scale, and the approach of native culture ‘going global’ on a macro scale.

This study explores Tatar-Russian bilinguals’ dynamic translanguaging and tranßcripting practices in Tatar, Russian, English, and Arabic. Based on interviews with six Tatar-Russian bilinguals as well as their written social media postings and audio recordings of voice messages over six months, the study illustrates the participants’ linguistic practices and their perceptions of bilingualism and relevant practices. The results demonstrate that the bilinguals engaged in various forms of translanguaging practices and regarded them as their everyday practices, emphasizing their ordinariness for bilingual interaction. The results also show that they expanded and reinvented their translanguaging into creative and playful tranßcripting practices in social media, regardless of their divergent attitudes towards each of the languages. The bilinguals projected their identity as cool multilingual youth through the tranßcripting practices that cross the linguistic boundaries between Russian (dominant state language), Tatar (dominant local), Arabic (religious), and English (peripheral global). By examining complex and dynamic relationships between multiple languages in an underrepresented region, this study highlights how translanguaging and tranßcripting practices reflect multilinguals’ everyday practices and their dynamic identity that go beyond the boundaries of the local languages and cultures.

This is an explanatory case study of how translanguaging offers space for practicing two shared languages: Saudi Pidgin Arabic and English as a lingua franca (ELF). It attends closely to overt types of translanguaging resources practiced by interlocutors. The study utilizes the conversation analysis (CA) approach to analyze conversations totaling 240 minutes, held in a beauty salon, between a Saudi female client and a Filipino beautician who communicated with each other using English and Saudi pidgin. The results show that the speakers’ interaction is mainly in English, but they switch to pidgin Arabic to fix misunderstandings, create humor, and engage in cooperative interaction. The study demonstrates that overt translanguaging resources employed by participants strengthen the multilingual nature of their ELF interactions, during which another contact language–Saudi pidgin in this case–can be practiced as another lingua franca. The study extends the limited literature on the nature of translanguaging in lingua franca social contexts and demonstrates the uniqueness of the translanguaging resources employed by ELF users.

This article examines dialogue interpreting in unscripted role-plays in the community interpreting classroom. In 2019, faculty members from several departments at Viterbo University (La Crosse, Wisconsin) coordinated an interprofessional education collaboration via role-playing in the institution’s Clinical Simulation Learning Center. Nursing, social work and pre-medical students were given the health-professional roles of caring for community members with limited English proficiency (who acted as ‘patients’). Interpreting students, both heritage speakers of Spanish and second language learners (L2) of both English and Spanish, facilitated language access for all parties involved. Recordings of these dialogues were then transcribed, annotated, and analyzed via mixed methods. This study examines overall and comparative findings of how heritage speakers and second language learners interpret dialogue, focusing on the textual aspects of their exchanges. While no language profile seemed to perform particularly better overall, certain indicators were more problematic for L2 Spanish speakers and/or heritage speakers. The presentation of these results and conclusions intend to foster improved teaching interventions for classrooms with students of varying English <> Spanish language backgrounds.

Haitian pupils challenge the homogenous and monolingual imaginary of the Chilean classroom primarily given their limited proficiency in Spanish and their skin colour. One bottom-up strategy implemented by some schools is the recruitment of a Haitian intercultural facilitator, whose aim is to offer linguistic and cultural support primarily through interpretation and translation. The main objective of the present article is to explore how Haitian intercultural facilitators mediate the intersection between language and race in emerging multilingual Chilean classrooms. In order to do so, the article analyses three in-depth interviews with Haitian intercultural facilitators employing the main conceptual tools offered by the model of linguistic production and circulation developed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The main results outline that both Haitian pupils and Haitian intercultural facilitators go through a process of racialisation carried out by the rest of the school community. In turn, this affects how Haitian pupils are perceived and treated, as well as how Haitian facilitators can mediate the tensions emerging at the intersection between language and race. These findings represent novel insights into the complex but little explored multilingual schooling processes in the Global South.

This paper presents an interpretative interview study that explores a song signer’s motivations and language ideologies as they emerge in translanguaging between languages and modalities. In signing songs, the limitations and proficiencies of deaf artists’ and audience members’ particular linguistic and semiotic repertoires come to the fore. The artist mediates between the affordances of the asymmetrically shared visual and auditory channels, as well as across music, song lyrics, and sign language. In so doing, they produce a distinctive text whose appreciation may expose the partial and asymmetric repertoires of audience members, as well as the limitations of the text itself in crossing borders. These limitations and asymmetries render song signing an ethical event because the ethical possibilities of communication emerge in its fallibility.