‘Why is the bank rich?’: Tracing a child’s translanguaging play during and after a Sojourn in Canada

Research on children’s translanguaging play has examined creative meaning-making within particular interactions, yet how playful resources are reused and transformed across sojourn and return remains insufficiently understood. This longitudinal narrative inquiry examines a Chinese child’s translanguaging practices during a sojourn in Canada and after return to China, focusing on changes in resource functions and salience and the child’s agency in translanguaging play. Drawing on artefacts, interviews, observations, and recorded interactions, the analysis combines longitudinal comparison with close analysis of selected episodes. Findings show how resources served different purposes across activities, with linguistic form and playful effect foregrounded in post-return interaction. The child exercised agency by extending adult-supported literacy activities and redirecting shared interactions. After return, adapting a genre encountered during the sojourn positioned the child as a knowledgeable participant who guided adult participation. Playful engagement also developed into metalinguistic inquiry through the child’s questions, comparisons, and explanations and the researcher’s responses. Extending research on translanguaging during residence abroad, the study shows how child agency shapes continuity through the adaptation of earlier resources for new purposes and how translanguaging play supports shared inquiry into language.