Young children becoming translingual practitioners in their Indo-Fijian community

This article contributes new knowledge about how, prior to formal education, young children can develop ‘translingual practice' – dispositions, assumptions, and strategies for achieving shared understandings despite interlocutors’ linguistic differences. It engages with linguistic perspectives from the Global South to explore translingual practice in ‘Dovubaravi', a small, rural, Indo-Fijian community in Fiji. Eleven young Dovubaravi children, their mothers and extended families participated across two years. Qualitative ethnographic data included semi-structured conversations with mothers about their goals for their children’s language learning, photograph elicitation, audio- and video-recordings of naturalistic interactions, and field notes. The findings indicate the mothers hope their children will become adept translingual practitioners, and that Dovubaravi speakers demonstrate translingual dispositions, assumptions, and strategies in familial interactions with and around young children. The article draws on language socialisation theory to explain how young Dovubaravi children develop their translingual practice by observing and actively participating in routine familial interactions with translingual features.