On the relationality of centers, peripheries and interactional regimes
Translanguaging in a community interpreting event
In this paper we discuss a multilingual interactional event that involves both interpreting and literacy work, part of a large scale study on translanguaging in superdiverse urban settings. In the first part of the interaction, the center/periphery dynamic is played out in what might be called “contested translanguaging” between Standard Czech and a Slovak influenced dialect of Czech, in the second part in contested translanguaging between Standard Czech and English. The center/periphery dynamic, we argue can be understood in terms of attraction/repulsion. The translanguaging involves a struggle over both meaning and form in which some participants lose out. The second part of the interaction is a dramatic reverse in what is treated as central and dominant in the first part, suggesting a hierarchical ordering of interactional regimes. We will argue for the necessity of taking into account these hierarchically ordered interactional regimes and the linguistic ideologies associated with them in the shaping of translanguaging practices.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Center/periphery, periphery/center
- Literacy events/interpreting events: Locally situated and mobile
- Translanguaging as constitutive of the interpreting and advocacy event
- Contextualizing the interactional event
- Interactional regimes in the interpreting event
- Transforming non standard Czech to standard written Czech
- Translanguaging, interactional regimes and language ideologies
- Re-casting the power of attorney letter in English
- Competing interactional regimes: The relationality of center/periphery
- Direction of travel: Mobile subjects/mobile texts
- Conclusion
- Note
-
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Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Santello, Marco
2022.
Questioning translanguaging creativity through Michel de Certeau.
Language and Intercultural Communication 22:6
► pp. 681 ff.

Kafle, Madhav
2020.
“No one would like to take a risk”: Multilingual students’ views on language mixing in academic writing.
System 94
► pp. 102326 ff.

Moore, Emilee & Jessica Bradley
2020.
Resemiotisation from page to stage: translanguaging and the trajectory of a musilingual youth’s poem.
International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 23:1
► pp. 49 ff.

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