Cultivating Critical Language Awareness Through Translingualism: A Multimodal Narrative Project for Multilingual Students

Critical language awareness (CLA) draws attention to the intersections of language and power in society. Translingualism is a theory and pedagogy that disrupts the boundaries of named languages and allows communicators to draw upon all resources in their linguistic repertoires. While researchers noted the potential for translingual pedagogy to function as a means to facilitate CLA, little empirical research has been conducted to explore how CLA could be cultivated through translingual writing instruction. To fill this gap, this study draws upon empirical data to explore how CLA was cultivated among multilingual writers through a multimodal translingual narrative project. The findings indicate that multilingual students demonstrated CLA by not only engaging in critical reflections of their identities, but also taking actions to challenge English-only ideologies. Contributing to the scarce yet growing body of research that empirically examines the potential to cultivate CLA through translingual instructions in undergraduate writing classrooms, this study concludes with research and pedagogical implications.