Meaning without borders: From translanguaging to transposition in the era of digitally-mediated meaning

“Translanguaging” is a concept that connects with older traditions of analysis in linguistics and practices in language pedagogy, while at the same time making some distinctions that justify the creation of a new word. This chapter begins by tracing roots of the idea of translanguaging in its intellectual predecessors and affiliates: code switching, translation, bilingualism, multilingualism, hybridity, and multiliteracies. In the sections that follow, we set out to extend the terms of this discussion by introducing another concept, “transposition,” designed to cast the net wider than language and capturing the restless fluidity of multiform meaning making between and across text, image, space, object, body, sound and speech. From here, we go on to explore the implications of a transpositional analysis for varieties of pedagogical practice in learning another language. Next, we use this frame of analysis to explore the characteristic features of digital media. These precipitate a renewed urgency to reconsider the terms of our theoretical discussions and pedagogical practices. They also raise challenges, at once deeply concerning and potentially productive, for the job of language teaching and its professional practices. The chapter concludes by addressing pedagogy, and in particular the development of an extended repertoire of practice for another language learning in the era of digitally-mediated meanings. This returns us to theme of the chapter, “meaning without borders,” or the project of supplementing traditional analyses of meaning-through-language with a widened repertoire of pedagogical practice for language teachers.