Translanguaging, Decoloniality, and the Global South: An Integrative Review Study

Abstract

Studies continue to be conducted on translanguaging as a concept, a phenomenon, a practice, or a strategy at both theoretical and pedagogical levels. However, there is not much research that has studied translanguaging through the dual prism of decoloniality and the Global South. Nor are there integrative review studies that have explored the triple concepts of translanguaging, decoloniality, and the Global South. Against this backdrop, the current article reports on an integrative review study of the intersection of translanguaging, decoloniality, and the Global South in sixteen selected journal articles drawn from peer-reviewed journals. The focus was on journal articles published between 2012 and 2019. Framed within Southern perspectives and thematic and intersectional analysis, the study employed snowball sampling and standard inclusion and exclusion criteria applicable to systematic reviews and meta- analyses. Based on the sixteen reviewed articles, the following were identified: four categories of translanguaging definitions, three categories of translanguaging exemplifications, five categories of translanguaging theories, and seven theoretical frameworks of translanguaging. However, the identified definitional categories lack a manifestly articulated intentionality behind their given translanguaging definitions. Pertaining to a decolonial theorising of translanguaging, one point that has been noted is that it is not evident from the reviewed articles to what extent translanguaging theory is entirely embedded in decoloniality or is wholly framed as post-monolinguistic. Finally, the practice of rejecting and critiquing named languages on the one hand, and of providing the self-same named languages as examples of translanguaging is something that translanguaging scholarship needs to resolve going forward.

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