This book responds to recent criticisms that the research and theorization of multilingualism on the part of applied linguists are in collusion with neoliberal policies and economic interests. While acknowledging that neoliberal agencies can appropriate diverse languages and language practices, including resources and dispositions theorized by scholars of multilingualism, it argues that a distinction must be made between the different language ideologies informing communicative practices. Those of neoliberal agencies are motivated by distinct ideological orientations that diverge from the theorization of multilingual practices by critical applied linguists. In addressing this issue, the book draws on the author’s empirical research on skilled migration to demonstrate how sub-Saharan African professionals in English-dominant workplaces in the UK, USA, Australia, and South Africa resist the neoliberal communicative expectations and employ alternate practices informed by critical dispositions. These practices have the potential to transform neoliberal orientations on material development. The book labels the latter as informed by a postcolonial language ideology, to distinguish them from those of neoliberalism. While neoliberal agencies approach languages as being instrumental for profit-making purposes, the author’s informants focus on the synergy between languages to generate new meanings and norms, which are strategically negotiated in pursuit of ethical interests, inclusive interactions, and holistic ecological development. As such, the book clearly illustrates that the way critical scholars and multilinguals relate to language diversity is different from the way neoliberal policies and agencies use multilingualism for their own purposes.

Winner of the AAAL Book Award 2015 Winner of the Modern Language Association's Thirty-Third Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize Winner of the BAAL Book Prize 2014 Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations introduces a new way of looking at the use of English within a global context. Challenging traditional approaches in second language acquisition and English language teaching, this book incorporates recent advances in multilingual studies, sociolinguistics, and new literacy studies to articulate a new perspective on this area. Canagarajah argues that multilinguals merge their own languages and values into English, which opens up various negotiation strategies that help them decode other unique varieties of English and construct new norms. Incisive and groundbreaking, this will be essential reading for anyone interested in multilingualism, world Englishes and intercultural communication.

The literacy autobiography is a personal narrative reflecting on how one’s experiences of spoken and written words have contributed to their ongoing relationship with language and literacy. Transnational Literacy Autobiographies as Translingual Writing is a cutting-edge study of this engaging genre of writing in academic and professional contexts. In this state-of-the-art collection, Suresh Canagarajah brings together 11 samples of writing by students that both document their literary journeys and pinpoint the seminal works affecting their development as translingual readers and writers. Integrating the narrative of the author, which is written as his own literacy autobiography, with a close analysis of these texts, this book: presents a case for the literacy autobiography as an archetypal genre that prepares writers for the conventions and processes required in other genres of writing; demonstrates the serious epistemological and rhetorical implications behind the genre of literacy autobiography among migrant scholars and students; effectively translates theoretical publications on language diversity for classroom purposes, providing a transferable teaching approach to translingual writing; analyzes the tropes of transnational writers and their craft in "meshing" translingual resources in their writing; demonstrates how transnationalism and translingualism are interconnected, guiding readers toward an understanding of codemeshing not as a cosmetic addition to texts but motivated toward resolving inescapable personal and social dilemmas. Written and edited by one of the most highly regarded linguists of his generation, this book is key reading for scholars and students of applied linguistics, TESOL, and literacy studies, as well as tutors of writing and composition worldwide.

A groundbreaking history of worldwide English in all its dialects, differences, and linguistic delights: “Informative . . . distinctive . . . a spirited celebration.” —The Guardian In this “well-informed and appealing” work (Publishers Weekly), David Crystal puts aside the usual focus on “standard” English, and instead provides a startlingly original view of where the richness, creativity, and diversity of the language truly lies—in the accents and dialects of nonstandard English users all over the world. Whatever their regional, social, or ethnic background, each group has a story worth telling, whether it is in Scotland or Somerset, South Africa or Singapore. He reminds us that for several hundred wonderful years, there was no such thing as “incorrect” English—and traces the evolution of the language from a few thousand Anglo-Saxons to the 1.5 billion people who speak it today. Moving from Beowulf to Chaucer to Shakespeare to Dickens and the present day, Crystal puts regional speech and writing at center stage, giving a sense of the social realities behind the development of English. This significant shift in perspective enables us to understand for the first time the importance of everyday, previously marginalized, voices in our language—and provides an argument too for the way English should be taught in the future. “A work of impeccable scholarship [that] could easily serve as a standard textbook for students of linguistics, but Mr. Crystal, reaching out to a more general audience, recognizes that even the most avid reader might flinch at the sections on Old Norse grammatical influence. Cleverly, he has sprinkled the book with little digressions, set apart in boxes, that address historical mysteries, strange loanwords, interesting etymologies and the like.” —The New York Times “Learned and often provocative . . . demonstrates repeatedly that common conceptions about language are often historically inaccurate—split infinitives bothered no one until recently (likewise sentence-ending prepositions).” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Simply the best introductory history of the English language family that we have. The plan of the book is ingenious, the writing lively, the exposition clear, and the scholarly standard uncompromisingly high.” —J.M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Decolonizing Foreign Language Education interrogates current foreign language and second language education approaches that prioritize white, western thought. Edited by acclaimed critical theorist and linguist Donaldo Macedo, this volume includes cutting-edge work by a select group of critical language scholars working to rigorously challenge the marginalization of foreign language education and the displacement of indigenous and non-standard language varieties through the reification of colonial languages. Each chapter confronts the hold of colonialism and imperialism that inform and shape the relationship between foreign language education and literary studies by asserting that a critical approach to applied linguistics is just as important a tool for FL/ESL/EFL educators as literature or linguistic theory.

The principles for enabling children to become fully proficient multilinguals through schooling are well known. Even so, most indigenous/tribal, minority and marginalised children are not provided with appropriate mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MLE) that would enable them to succeed in school and society. In this book experts from around the world ask why this is, and show how it can be done. The book discusses general principles and challenges in depth and presents case studies from Canada and the USA, northern Europe, Peru, Africa, India, Nepal and elsewhere in Asia. Analysis by leading scholars in the field shows the importance of building on local experience. Sharing local solutions globally can lead to better theory, and to action for more social justice and equality through education.

Exploring the roles of students’ pluralistic linguistic and transnational identities at the university level, this book offers a novel approach to translanguaging by highlighting students’ perspectives, voices, and agency as integral to the subject. Providing an original reconsideration of the impact of translanguaging, this book examines both transnationality and translinguality as ubiquitous phenomena that affect students’ lives. Demonstrating that students are the experts of their own language practices, experiences, and identities, the authors argue that a proactive translingual pedagogy is more than an openness to students’ spontaneous language variations. Rather, this proactive approach requires students and instructors to think about students’ holistic communicative repertoire, and how it relates to their writing. Robinson, Hall, and Navarro address students’ complex negotiations and performative responses to the linguistic identities imposed upon them because of their skin color, educational background, perceived geographical origin, immigration status, and the many other cues used to "minoritize" them. Drawing on multiple disciplinary discourses of language and identity, and considering the translingual practices and transnational experiences of both U.S. resident and international students, this volume provides a nuanced analysis of students’ own perspectives and self-examinations of their complex identities. By introducing and addressing the voices and self-reflections of undergraduate and graduate students, the authors shine a light on translingual and transnational identities and positionalities in order to promote and implement inclusive and effective pedagogies. This book offers a unique yet essential perspective on translinguality and transnationality, and is relevant to instructors in writing and language classrooms; to administrators of writing programs and international student support programs; and to graduate students and scholars in language education, second language writing, applied linguistics, and literacy studies.