Wildness, Beauty, and Imagination of Language within Translanguaging

February 18, 2023 by Dawn Wink 4 Comments

(Sound begins at around 21 seconds and Mom joined us!)

There are words, ideas, and phrases that make my heart happy just to hear. Some of of these include the wildness, beauty, and imagination of language, translanguaging, and transdisciplinary. My heart simply sings when I hear or read these words! I loved time shared talking about these ideas with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Association of Language Teachers (KSAALT) TESOL . as part of their keynote speaker series. The above video shares the presentation and our time together. Thank you ever so much to Fayyaz Malik and Fatmah Azam Ali for inviting me to share this time and ideas.

Here are some of the ideas shared. A friend just told me, “You lost me at translanguaging,” to which I replied, “#youhadmeathelloandlostmeattranslanguaging.” I hope the video and the presentation will turn translanguaging, wildness, beauty, and imagination into a “Hello.”

The ideas are fully explored during the presentation in the video.

We used to think that languages were separate within the brain, that they existed as solitudes, side-by-side (Cummins, 2019).

Any bilingual or multilingual person will tell you that languages intertwine together and are not separate at all, much like the roots of the banyan tree. The interwoven and dynamic nature reflects the complexity of bilingualism (Garcia, 2008).

I love how Varela describes “the loopiness of the thing,” and García applies to language as a network that “cannot be separate one part of life from another, one named language from another.”

We explore translanguaging from the perspective of minority language speakers.

What is the difference between interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary? Interdisciplinary is like a braid where distinct fields work together, but remain distinct. Transdisciplinary is like a braid made of sari strips woven together where they weave, fuse, and meld together to create a new whole.

I delve into language and ecolinguistics through the lenses of wildness, beauty, and imagination. These are other ideas and words that simply make my heart sing!

We explored Scholarly Personal Narrative and Lilyology and how all applies to teaching and life.

 

I loved how writer and journalist Michelle Ciani (Letters from Rome) expressed her experience with these ideas:

I’ve been able to put words to a life-long experience as a bilingual/bicultural human, and have to say that my favorite keyword from your presentation today is “wild”. In my current context, both professional and personal, it deeply resonates.

Here’s to wildness, beauty, imagination, and translanguaging in all of our lives!

 

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