Translingual Repertoires of Multilinguals in Academic Writing Practices

Abstract

The research investigates how students from diverse linguistic backgrounds project their multilingual repertories in their academic writing practices. The study has been built on the notion of heteroglossia by Bakthin (1975; 1981). This paper makes the case for translanguaging in the development of the writing skill of the learners for Academic purposes. This study analyzed written texts of 40 undergraduate bilingual learners from University of Sargodha, Lahore Campus who hail from different linguistic backgrounds and are struggling to learn writing in English for academic and professional success. Textual analysis has been used in order to identify the translingual strategies used by the learners in different stages of writings. The paper aims to identify how and why translanguaging is used. This study advocates for the multilingual resources of the students to be considered as a cognitive tool by educators for pedagogical strategies in teaching writing. It has been recommended that even in the development of monolingual voices in academic writing, a translanguaging approach can be considered as having more potential. Moreover, this study calls for attention towards the need of re-contextualization of the language policies in pedagogies that could employ the plurilingual recourses of the learners.