Book Review: Translanguaging and Epistemological Decentering in Higher Education and Research

Melanie van den Hoven, Independent Researcher, Abu Dhabi

Bojsen, H., Daryai-Hansen, P., Holmen, A., & Risager, K. (2023). Translanguaging and Epistemological Decentring in Higher Education and Research. Multilingual Matters.

288 pp., £109.95/$149.95/€134.95 (hardback), £34.95/$49.95/€44.95 (paperback), £25.00/$40.00/€35.00 (ebook), ISBN 9781800410886.

In our joint Intercultural Communication and ESP panel at the 2024 TESOL convention last March in Tampa, Florida, our featured panelists spoke expertly on five diverse English-medium contexts. With a critical eye on what we could do better, our reflections after our performance touched on a blind spot: the audience before us. We were guilty of focusing on “look at what we are doing and what our content means for you” (van den Hoven, 2024, p.1). If we could do one thing better, it would be to involve a discussant to tie the rich content together and comment on practical take-aways for the other English language teachers in our midst. A panel discussion is much like an edited book in this regard. While each contributor disseminates a set of findings, an integration of the common threads is also needed so that claims can be compared and rendered meaningful when applied across contexts. Our panel needed a discussant for synthesis. After all, the overarching goal of sharing our academic contributions is to participate in an ongoing global conversation, which, in our case, was how language professionals can make better use of the multilingual encounters available not only in higher education but also the wider society.

The same critique holds true for the recent publication on two important trends in the field of intercultural communication and education. The edited volume, Translanguaging and Epistemological Decentring in Higher Education and Research, published in 2023 by Multilingual Matters, merits a discussion. There is no conclusion which does that for the reader. This book review then aims to provide a much-needed discussion on some of the key takeaways for language professionals concerned with intercultural learning.

There are three main insights to share. A first takeaway is to highlight that this book is the result of critical conversations in progressive Danish circles. In this Global North context, language policies of ‘more languages for more students’ and ‘parallel language use’ have shaped progressive ways of thinking about languages used in higher education and the intercultural growth afforded when learning among multilingual others. Teachers should then note that many chapters showcase collaborations with the lead author with other scholars within Nordic countries, or across contexts to North America, and further afield in Japan and Morocco.

A second takeaway is that the book moves away from the classic treatment of language and culture as nouns. This is on trend. Unlike earlier treatments in cultural anthropology and intercultural communication, ‘translanguaging’ and ‘epistemological decentering’ are now captured as verbs which refer to practices and strategic actions. In simple terms, translanguaging and epistemological decentering are processes involving more than one language in the learning process in order to stimulate new ways of thinking and claiming knowledge as agents of change. These actions have been adopted by students and teachers, and when engaging critical reflections on the teaching and learning processes in higher education led to changed worldviews. However, the theoretical frames are more complex involving critical analyses of the hierarchy of languages, and not just the language of the nation state and English as a world language, but also instances the use of students’ languages can disrupt ways of thinking about existing social structures.

A third takeaway is that this book puts the spotlight on how translanguaging can be linked to positive experiences of epistemological decentering. However, how this happens is often underground and out of view. Each chapter shows what good looks like when grassroots visions of a socially just world need to come to terms with top-down language policies. This book concludes that we must acknowledge language hierarchies, and then look for growth opportunities for decentering where we can encounter other worldviews. The growth opportunities depend on teachers who know how to design interventions in the classroom.

Each chapter addresses this agenda differently. Two chapters in particular will inspire teachers who innovate course assignments. Chapter 5 shows the good that has come from instruction moving online during the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter shows a treasure hunt approach turned into a linguistic landscape project, where students in Japan were assigned to take pictures of languages displayed in their local neighborhoods, inviting them to see their familiar worlds with fresh eyes. The cumulative effect was a class project documenting patterns of domestic communication within Japan, which in turn, generated new insights about migrant communities within Japan. This assignment also fostered discussion about the linguistic diversity within and across Japanese regions. Foreign language teachers of Chinese, Hebrew, Italian, and Japanese can gain insights from Chapter 6. The chapter reports on the sensitive use of film clips and poetry in language classes to deal with political or taboo topics. In one Italian language class, students were assigned roles as editors, directors, actors and critics and asked to develop competences as writers of stories tackling sensitive social issues, namely the experiences of refugees. This series of lessons is a practical approach for summer courses where several weeks of interactive workshops can be allocated for the development of productive skills where students are not only storywriters, but also storytellers and playwrights.

The book is not a book for language teachers per say. It is an academic book which can inspire teachers to make the most of real-world multilingual interactions. Growing out of critical discussion in Danish universities, as an instance of the Global North, this book offers nine chapters of ‘look at what we are doing’ with two main trends leading the field of Intercultural Communication: translanguaging and epistemological decentering. The book’s main value is as a testimony to effective collaboration where teachers as researchers reflect on practices of deploying a range of languages in and beyond the classroom and go on to examine the theoretical dimensions. Each chapter, in different ways, touches on the inclusion of main and peripheral languages into learning and teaching processes in higher education, and the inclusion of multiple perspectives to bring about awareness of struggles and the dialogic possibility of empathy.

References

van den Hoven, M. (2024). Review - Translanguaging and Epistemological Decentring in Higher Education and Research by H. Bojsen, P. Daryai-Hansen, A. Holmen, and K. Risager, Bristol, Language and Intercultural Communication, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2024.2379156

Melanie van den Hoven, ICIS Member-at-Large, is an independent researcher currently based in France. She has worked previously in industry as cross cultural communications specialist and in teacher training programs in Seoul, Korea and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Melanie holds a Ph.D. in Intercultural Education from Durham University, U.K.. Her research interests concern how people use the languages they know, with whom and under what conditions.