Translanguaging in a multilingual task : university students' strategies and motivations

Abstract

A situated view of communication and the notion of flexible combining of linguistic resources have in recent years become more central to the study of multilingualism. Central to this view is the idea that speakers cooperate to construct meaning using a range of strategies and resources. However, there is only little research on how this new understanding has influenced language instruction and language students in higher education. This study aims to make a contribution to filling that gap, using a compulsory multilingual language course offered by the Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication at the University of Jyväskylä as a setting. The aim of the study is to elucidate what strategies of shared meaning construction university students use in a multilingual oral task and what task motivation they experience. The study draws on multilingualism research, particularly on the concepts of translanguaging and translingual practice, to describe students’ interactional practices. Task motivation is defined following literature from the field of instructional design. Students’ oral group work in a multilingual task developed by the researcher was recorded and it was examined what strategies the students used to construct meaning together. At a second stage, individual interviews were conducted to investigate task motivation. The results show that students were able to draw on a range of strategies for meaning negotiation. However, negotiation of interactional terms was limited. Students also experienced overall high levels of task motivation, though the results also showed the continuing impact of more traditional views of language. It is thus suggested that teachers explain the advantages of multilingual tasks and create heterogeneous student groups.